Image Gallery: Global warming

November 24, 2008 [Episcopal News Service] Image gallery available here.

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Gathering in groups or working at home, young or old, female or male, thousands of Episcopalians regularly wield needles as instruments of prayer as they knit prayer shawls, crochet afghans and embroider blankets to provide comfort and warmth for those in need. Among the many programs across the church, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, a child parishioner at Church of the Redeemer whose cousin was battling cancer founded a group to knit caps for chemotherapy patients to wear while receiving treatment. Trinity Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Bethlehem provided wool afghans for children in the war-town Middle East, while students, families, faculty and staff of TMI -- the Episcopal School of Texas knit scarves for veterans' centers nationwide.

In Houston, St. Dunstan's parishioners knit blankets for children in crisis, while St. John the Divine knitters participate in a prayer shawl ministry begun for end-of-life patients and their families by St. Luke's Palliative Care Services and the St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital Auxiliary. At St. Alban's in Washington, D.C., one of the mainstays of the Phoebe's Circle knitting group is Maria Shuskevich, who has been knitting since a neighbor in the Ukraine taught her the skill when she was 8. In Minnesota, at Trinity Episcopal Church, Hermantown, member Georgianna Henry has designed and crocheted more than 100 afghans, most recently donating them to St. Enmegaboh's Church, a parallel Native American ministry in Duluth, Minnesota. Perhaps best known is the New York-based Seamen's Church Institute's Christmas at Sea program, in which more than 4,000 volunteers knit or crochet scarves, caps and other items as gifts for deep-sea and river mariners.

Image gallery available here.

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