The girl with a suitcase full of blue jeans

Tomorrow morning I leave for my first international mission trip.  Before the sun rises I’ll be headed to the airport.

God has shown me over the years that ministry looks like cancer clinics, hospital rooms,  downtown housing projects, homeless shelters, and quite often, my own backyard.

Tomorrow ministry looks like Haiti.  Beautiful and complex.  Close but very, very, far away.

When I started working for Vi Bella Jewelry a few months ago,  one of the things that I fell in love with was the creative entrepreneurial spirit of Julie Hulstein, Vi Bella’s founder and CEO.   I loved that Julie had seen something in Haiti that changed her heart forever.  But she didn’t just see and experience extreme poverty.  She came home and remembered the friends she had met, the mothers who, like her, wanted only the best for their children.  She started to find a way to make lives better for those she had met.  Not with a handout.  With an opportunity to be creative and use gifts God had given them.

When Julie and I and designers began talking about new products for Vi Bella, providing work to artisans in Haiti and Mexico,  I thought it might be neat to do a line of jewelry that was created out of recycled denim.   I pinned items on Pinterest and met with the founder of The Denim Project, an organization that is doing great work in Haiti.  Julie and I and the staff prayed that God could weave something new through Vi Bella and through our partnership.

I wanted you to be among the very first to have a sneak peek:  There will be a Beloved collection of recycled denim jewelry and accessories in the next Vi Bella catalog!

My suitcases will be loaded onto the plane in the morning, packed with denim and seams from jeans, and tutorials.  Interpreters will help us communicate, but my smile will be wide and knowing.

He really does redeem.  Across oceans, even.

I would appreciate prayer as I meet two of my beautiful coworkers and spend a week in Haiti.  We look forward to sharing pictures, stories and insights with you along the way.

Here’s how you can follow along:  Like and Follow Vi Bella Jewelry on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

I’ll be blogging on their site here: SharingViBella

We hope you will fall in love with the Vi Bella story and families like we have.

Vi Bella means “Beautiful Life” and to us that looks like work that

Lifts the burden of poverty.

Prevents children from becoming orphans

and Redeems landscapes and lives.

(There’s a video over here that will explain a bit about what we plan to do this week):