Mission Quilts and Kits for Lutheran World Relief

         Every year Lutherans across the U.S. sew quilts and assemble kits of supplies that LWR sends to partners around the world that request them to meet the needs of people affected by poverty and disaster.

       Mission Quilts were one of the earliest forms of aid that Lutherans sent through LWR to reach out to people in other parts of the world. In 2016, LWR sent $14 million worth of quilts and kits to more than 576,000 people in 21 different countries.

• Get instructions for the making of quilts for Lutheran World Relief

      There are five kinds of LWR Kits:

1. LWR Personal Care Kits contain items like toothbrushes, wash cloths, and soap, intended to help a person or family maintain hygiene practices. 
2. LWR School Kits contain notebooks, pencils, erasers, a backpack, and other items to use for students to attend school. 
3. LWR Baby Care Kits contain T-shirts, cloth diapers, and other items to care for a baby. 
4. LWR Fabric Kits contain fabric, thread, and needles so that people can learn to sew, potentially to earn an income.
5. Covid 19 Defense Kits contain items like face masks, essential hygiene items and self care supplies.

       In 2013, LWR joined the United Nations Humanitarian Resource Depot, which allowed it to pre-position quilts and kits in depots across the world for rapid deployment after an emergency.

The Buds Opening in Heaven

Child with flower.

       Heaven is greatly made up of little children, sweet buds that have never blown, or which death has plucked from a mother's bosom to lay on his own cold breast, just when they were expanding, flower-like, from the sheath, and opening their engaging beauties in the budding time and spring of life. 'Of such is the kingdom of heaven.' How sweet these words by the cradle of a dying infant! They fall like balm drops on our bleeding heart, when we watch the ebbing of that young life, as wave after wave breaks feebler, and the sinking breath gets lower and lower, till with a gentle sigh, and a passing quiver of the lip, our child now leaves its body, lying like an angel asleep, and ascends to the beatitudes of heaven and the bosom of God. Indeed it may be, that God does with his heavenly garden, as we do with our gardens. He may chiefly stock it from nurseries, and select for transplanting what is yet in its young and tender age--flowers before they have bloomed, and trees ere they begin to bear. Rev Dr. Guthrie

"'Tis sweet to die! The flowers of earthly love,

(Fair, frail spring blossoms) early droop and die;

Upon our spirits evermore to lie

Fanny Forrester.

Sabbath Morn by Nicolai Grundtvig

Waiting at the empty tomb...

 FROM THE DANISH OF NICOLAI GRUNDTVIG

From death, Christ on the Sabbath morn,
A conqueror arose;
And when each Sabbath dawn is born
For death a healing grows.
This day proclaims an ended strife,
And Christ's benign and holy life.

By countless lips the wondrous tale
Is told throughout the earth;
Ye that have ears to hear, oh, hail
That tale with sacred mirth!
Awake, my soul, rise from the dead,
See life's grand light around thee shed.

Death trembles each sweet Sabbath hour,
Death's brother. Darkness, quakes;
Christ's word speaks with divinest power,
Christ's truth its silence breaks;
They vanquish with their valiant breath
The reign of darkness and of death.

"The Rejected Christ" by Goetze

For further inquiries about the original work, go to the Stranraer Museum.

At the exhibition of the Royal Academy, in London, the great canvas by Sigismund Goetze, entitled “Despised and Rejected of Men,” (right) has created an artistic sensation. It is declared to be a “powerful and terribly realistic presentment of Christ.” in a modern setting, and is described by a writer in The Christian Commonwealth (London), as follows: 

In the center of the canvas is the Christ, standing on a pedestal, bound with ropes, while on either side passes the heedless crowd. A prominent figure is a richly vested priest, proudly conscious of the perfection of the ritual with which he is starving his higher life. Over the shoulder of the priest looks a stern-faced divine of a very different type. Bible in hand, he turns to look at the gospel has missed its spirit,and is as far astray as the priest whose ceremonial is to him anathema. The startled look on the face of the hospital nurse in the foreground is very realistic; so is the absorption of the man of science, so intent on the contents of his test-tube that he had not a glance for the Christ at his side. One of the most striking figures is that of the thoughtless beauty hurring from one scene of pleasure to another; and spurning the sweet-faced little ragged child who is offering a bunch of violets. In rejecting the plea of the child who knows that the proud woman is rejecting the Christ who has identified himself forever with the least of these little ones. The only person in the whole picture who has found time to pause is the mother seated on the steps of the pedestal with her baby in her arms, and we can not but feel that when she has ministered to the wants of her child she will spare a moment for the lover of little children who is so close to her. In the background stands an angel with bowed head, holding the cup which the world He loved to the death is still compelling the Christ to drink, while a cloud of angel faces look down upon the scene with wonder. As the visitor turns away he is haunted with the music of Stainer’s “Crucifixion,” “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?”

Related Content:

• The Passing Over of Sin IN Christ
• Christ the Redeemer!

"The Realities of Two Worlds"

Here is an interpretation of the meaning of Easter for average men and women
 by Paul Jenkins: Has this ancient festival ever had any real spiritual significance for you?

TEXT--Jesus saith unto them, come and break your fast. And none of the disciples durst inquire of him, who art thou? knowing that it was the Lord.--John 21:12.

      Unless you remember the circumstances involved in the situation described in the text, its words will seem to you unimportant and meaningless, perhaps utterly absurd as the text of an Easter sermon. But if you remember the circumstances involved, those simple words will describe to you a situation that which you can find none more significant, more startling, more dramatic, more thrilling, more glorious, between the first chapter of Matthew and the last chapter of Revelation. 

      To bring the true situation before you, let me describe a picture of the scene, from the marvelous brush of the French master painter of the Christ so much of whose lifetime has been given to the production of those wonderful paintings of the life of Christ that have been the marvel of the artistic and the delight of the Christian world for more than a decade, And of all the hundreds of canvases the J. James Tissot has delighted to fill with charming, passionate, dramatic and spiritual depictions of movements in the earthly life of the Savior, that which shows the moment described in our text is one of his masterpieces indeed.

      The picture makes the hour of the scene to be, as we know that it was, the most charming hour of the loveliest season of the year, just as sunrise of a cloudless day in spring. Beneath the azure sky and clear in the sunrise glow of that hour, the lake of Galilee shines translucent from turquoise to pearl.

      Resting at the water's edge are the two boats, the large and the small, of which we read, simple and clumsy specimens of the boat builder's craft of that day. Oars, poles, and nets in them tell their use. Upon the pebbles lies a hastily discarded net, still damp and dark from the water, and close by lies the heap of splendid fish, fresh, wet, gleaming and silvery in the sun. The coals of fire glow ruddy in a little heap, and a tiny thread of opal smoke rises straight in the air of the windless dawn. On an outer garment, placed blanket-wise for him, perhaps by the tenderness of a disciple, sits the Lord. In even so simple a pose the noble and commanding presence of his personality is yet unmistakable. At his right hand lie heaped up a dozen flat cakes of the newly baked bread whose luscious brown almost suggests their fragrant aroma. On a simple split stick a fish is spitted, and the Lord holds it in one hand above the coals to brown, with the other hand moving in simple gesture and with uplifted face, as he speaks naturally, familiarly, and with most evident fascination to the spellbound men that squat in oriental fashion facing him across the fire. "Spellbound," did we say? You should see the picture to know with what divine power they are held. Motionless as statues, the most of them yet lean eagerly, amazedly, passionately forward, their eyes centered on his face as if no looking would ever satisfy the hearts that feed on the joy of seeing him, hearing him, participating in the heavenly marvel of the hour.

 

"J. James Tissot has delighted to fill with charming, passionate, dramatic and spiritual
 depictions of movements in the earthly life of the Savior."

 

      Such is the scene. I cannot know just what it means to you. But may I not tell you what it means to me?

      It has been my privilege, now and again, to sit as friend or guest at the tables of the rich, where snowy damask gave joy alike to the appreciative eye and the touching hand, where countless silver gleamed, where glass sparkled like the diamonds that is approached in value, and where the daintiest china of France supported fish, flesh and fowl of two continents and two seas. It has been my honor, and now and again, to sit at the tables of the great, where men of intellect and fame and women of intellect and charm have made an hour unforgetable and have taught one more than a whole university of mere classrooms could do. It has been my profit to sit at banquets where hundreds sat about the tables and listened to the worlds of heroes, heroes of war and heroes of peace, captains of soldiery and captains of industry, and felt the while they listened, that they were in touch with the men and the forces that move the world. It has been my benefit to sit at meat in the homes of the humble, in log cabins and huts, dining off metal plates and plain fare, and there to learn that not circumstances, but characters make men and women. It has been my delight to sit about the table of the grass, in forests and wildernesses, the campfire at hand and the viands won from stream or forest only by gun or rod. But when I contemplate the circumstances of that morning meal beside the lake of Galilee and realize the realities that were there present--things, emotions, sights, that surpass words to describe-- I know that I had rather have been one of those men that ate the bread that Lord baked, the fish his hands caught and cooked for them, that saw what they saw and heard what they heard, than to have attended any other banquet that wealth ever bought or meal that the friends of one's bosom prepared for friendship's tribute!

      "Why so? Tell me, who were there. Tell me whom that group consisted of!" "Oh, a group of coarse fishermen, fagged out by a night's work, listening to a chance rabbi who is getting breakfast for them while he talks." Yes; you can make that answer if you have succeeded in wiping Easter day out of your calendar.

      Who were there? "Oh, let's see, wasn't that the time when Jesus met his disciples and the miracle of the great draft of fishes occurred.?"

      It was one of many occasions of which Jesus shared fish with his disciples, I answer, and this is about the way the average churchgoer (shall I have to say the average Christian?) would answer.

      Who was there? Listen! Men were there that had seen the man in their midst die in pain on the horrid cross of a Roman criminal execution, had witnessed his writhings of agony had seen the sweat of blood, had heard from those lips at which their eyes now gazed as if enchanted the last scream as the body sank lifeless in the nail-suspended collapse of death. Men sat there who had taken that body down in tears and dismay and in the shock of disillusioned hopes had buried it and gone away feeling as if their universe had tumbled in wreck about their heads, murmuring to one another as they went: "And this is the end of him whom we hoped that it had been he that should have redeemed Israel!" And that man sat there before them alive! Alive? He had caught fish and made a fire and baked bread and helped them to make one of the great hauls of their fishermen's experience, and now while they at stunned, amazed, astounded, incapable almost of realizing what had occurred-incapable, as they afterward wrote, of speaking a syllable of inquiry--he calmly served and fed them while he talked to their white faces!

      "Oh, impossible, incredible! false, never to be believed! a myth, a lie, a dream, a delusion, a frenzy or fantasy of disappointed, overwrought and fanatical brains." Yes, and if you can think of any other terms of denial to write against it, set it down! And when you have said and done it all, the plain statement of these men who sat there will challenge you to your face to hear them tell you that it happened, that he whom they had laid in that sealed-up grave sat in their midst in the same body that they had known, and cooked for them and ate and served them as he catted the while! God be praised for heaven's sweet simplicity, that it was not in some awful, supernal shape, "trailing clouds of glory," that he came back to them, but that if was in the shape of the man whom they had known, had lived with, walked with, talked, slept and eaten with--and lo! before their eyes he moved and breathed and walked and ate and talked, the unmistakable and now incredible, but still actual being that he was before! Oh, if you will let these things, these truths, even this simple scene, get into your head and your heart--what an amazing Easter this day would be to you! "Why?" Because, I care not who and what you have been before, if you have never realized that mighty meaning of this simple scene, you may have known a dead Jesus, but you have never known the risen Savior!

      We have asked who were there? Let us take a final moment to ask what else was there? There, in that hour, all the mighty realities of the two worlds were gathered; this world of which they were catching faint but dazzling, astounding glimpses as they gazed on him; the world that he had been born in, lived in, worked in, died in--and the world that he was living in at the time that he ate and talked before their eyes!

      The realities of this world were there. Labor was there--they of the toil-worn hands, calloused by the wet net cords, they of the many a night of fruitless toil, they know what the weariness and uncertainty of labor is as few others know. Hunger was there, the meal that his love prepared to meet their famished bodies, doubly worn with abstinence and disappointment. Death was there, the end fo all earth--or why the meal to keep the body going, the labor for one's loved ones, and why the amazement at seeing one over whom the omnipotence of death had no power?

      And the realities of the world beyond were there. Life was there--such life as never a soul had dreamed of since Adam cowered beneath his sentence of mortality. The body was there; and now we know why it is called the "Apostle's Creed," that says: "I believe in the resurrection of the body!" What other faith, what other verdict, what other creed could they have that saw the nail marks in the hands that served him, who, though already in the life beyond so loved them that he could reward their work-a-day toil and could prepare for them the food that was affection's tribute itself. And the Christ was there!

      Language fails. Words can say no more. But this--all this--is the true Gospel of Easter day. Mount Vernon Signal.

 

LIFE’S DISCIPLINE A TRAINING FOR HEAVEN.
SIR HUMPHRY DAVY

All speaks of change: the renovated forms
Of long-forgotten things arise again.
The light of suns, the breath of angry storms,
The everlasting motions of the main,—
These are but engines of the Eternal will,
The One Intelligence, whose potent sway
Has ever acted, and is acting still,
Whilst stars, and worlds, and systems all obey;
Without Whose power, the whole of mortal things
Were dull, inert, an unharmonious band,
Silent as are the harp’s untuned strings
Without the touches of the poet’s hand.
A sacred spark, created by His breath,
The immortal mind of man His image bears;
A spirit living ’midst the forms of death,
Oppressed, but not subdued, by mortal cares;
A germ, preparing in the winter’s frost
To rise, and bud, and blossom in the spring;
An unfledged eagle by the tempest tossed,
Unconscious of his future strength of wing;
The child of trial, to mortality
And all its changeful influences given.
On the green earth decreed to move and die,
And yet, by such a fate,  repaired for heaven! 

"The Little Lamb" tract

      The Religious Tract Society, founded 1799, 56 Paternoster Row and 65 St. Paul's Chuchyard, was the original name of a major British publisher of Christian literature intended initially for evangelism, and including literature aimed at children, women, and the poor.

      The RTS is also notable for being the publisher of the Boys' Own Paper and Girl's Own Paper.

      The founders were of the same type of evangelicals who founded the London Missionary Society and the British and Foreign Bible Society, for example David Bogue.

      The society started by publishing tracts, but rapidly expanded their work into the production of books and periodicals. Their books were mostly small but did include larger works such as the multi-volume Devotional Commentary and the massive Analytical Concordance to the Bible of Robert Young.

      From the 1860s, the Society began publishing novels aimed at women and children, providing a platform for a new generation of women writers, including Rosa Nouchette Carey. 

      In 1935 the RTS merged with the Christian Literature Society for India and Africa to form the United Society for Christian Literature (USCL). In 1931, there was a change of imprint to Lutterworth Press for all RTS publications intended for the home market.

Cover of the tract.

 The Little Lamb

Showing how it wandered, how it suffered, and how it was saved by the Good Shepherd.

London: The Religious Tract Society

The Little Lamb.

* * * *

      A friend of children, who loves them very much, one day went to see a school of infant orphans. He had been to visit them before, and had talked with them, and they knew him again. When he came into the schoolroom, their eyes looked bright, and they were very glad that he was come once more. Then they marched in a row, and went into another room, where there was a gallery, on which they were soon seated.

      Their friend talked to them kindly. He asked them about many things. He spoke to them about the Bible, and the good and true things in it. He gave them some short rhymes and verses, of which they were very fond, and they said them after him. He then told them some little stories about children, and about good men and women, and about many things which God had made and given to us. There was one story that pleased them very much, and as other children may like it too it is put in print that they also may know what he said about it.

A young shepherd by plays of flute while watching a flock of sheep.

 

 The Little Lamb

Showing how it wandered, how it suffered, and how it was saved by the Good Shepherd.

   
      There was a Little Lamb that lived in a very beautiful green field, 

Where flowers blow, and streams flow. 

      He was under the care of a very kind Shepherd, and was kept quiet safe. The little lamb ran about among the grass and played there, glad and happy. There were many other lambs, and they were never angry, they never hurt each other; but they all lived in peace and love.

      One day the little lamb of which we speak ran away from the rest, and went to the end of the field. All round it there was a bank and a hedge, to keep the flock from going astray. The little lamb went up to the top of the bank, and looked through the hedge. Everything seemed very pretty on the other side; there were many fine plants and the  

The little lamb leaves his flock.

birds were singing in the trees, and there was a large broad path that seemed to lead to some green fields beyond.

      For many days the little lamb went to the bank, and looked through the hedge. Then he did not seem so pleased as before with his own field, 

Where flowers grow, and streams flow;

but he wanted to go on the other side, and to run in the broad path.

      After some time, he looked about along the hedge to try and find a hole through which he might creep, and then go just a little way on the other side, and soon run back again. After looking a long time he found a hole in the hedge. He put in his nose, and then his neck, and then part of his body, when a sharp thorn give him a prick on the breast that covered it with blood. He pushed it aside, and went further in, when many thorns pricked his face, and his back, and his feet, and made his eyes almost blind. He ought to have gone back, but he saw a place where the hedge seemed thinner, and he pushed towards it. It was hard work; the wool on his back was torn, and he was hurt all over; but at last he got through the hedge to the other side. He now seemed glad, and rested on the grass, and heard the birds sing, and looked 

The lamb sees a storm brewing.

round and saw what a wide country there was all around, where he could rove about from place to place.

      The little lamb then rose, and went into the broad way: he found that it led into many other paths, and he ran on into one and another, and into a great many more paths. He seemed glad for a time, but as the sun was setting he wanted to get back again to the field,

Where flowers blow, and streams flow.

So he tried to find his way back again, but the more he went from one path to another he seemed to get further and further away. He was quite lost, lost. He then lay down under a tree, for he was very tired, and oh! how he wished that he had never gone astray! Then it began to get dark. The clouds were very heavy, and the rain fell fast, and a great storm came on. The lightening began to flash, and the thunder to roar, and the limbs of the little lamb shook with fear. The tree under which he lay was struck by the lightning: 

he was only just able to run away before it came down upon the place where he had rested. Some of the branches fell on his back as he was going away, and gave him great pain.

     The little lamb now ran into a thick wood, and tried to find shelter there. The night soon came on; not a star was to be seen; all was dark, dark. The lamb was cold and wet, hungry and weak. He knew not where to go or what to do.

      In the dark night the little lamb heard the cries of wild beasts. Then a great lion roared aloud, and came nearer and nearer. He saw the little lamb and soon came near to him. Oh! how did he shake with fear! He rose and tried to run away, the lion was about to spring on him, when, lo! the little lamb fell down into a deep and narrow pit. The lion stood over the pit and roared and lashed his tail. The lamb fell to the bottom of the pit, among thorns, and mud, and creeping things. Oh! how did he suffer! His wool was torn and dirty, his body was full of pain, and the lion was

near him. There the lamb lay, and his cries became more and more faint, and he seemed ready to die.

      While the lamb was going astray, the kind Shepherd, on walking round the field, missed him. He saw the foot-marks, and found the hole in the hedge, and some of the wool left there, and knew the sad state of his little lamb. He then took his crook in one hand, and a lamp in the other, and went after the lost one. When he came into the dark wood he stopped, for he heard the faint cries of the little lamb. He then ran to the pit. The lion saw him and his lamp, and turned round an ran  away, for he was afraid of the Shepherd. The cries of the little lamb had almost died away when the Shepherd came near. By the light of his lamp he saw the lamb, and spoke kindly to him. Then with his rod and with his crook he drew the little lamb out of the dirty pit.

      The kind Shepherd then took the little lamb, and washed him quite clean, and put oil on his wounds, and bound them up, and took him up in his arms and carried him in his bosom. Oh! how happy was the little lamb now! When he heard the lion and the wild beasts roar, he clung

the closer and closer to the arm and the heart of the kind Shepherd, who bore him back to the field,

Where flowers blow, and streams flow.

      Now the little lamb no more wished to go astray. He loved to keep near the Good Shepherd, and was safe and happy in his fold.

* * * *

      When the kind friend who had thus spoke to the children had done, he and they had a great deal to say to each other. He first of all asked them "Who is like the little lamb?" Several said, "We are sir." He stopped as if he wanted some other answer, when at last a little girl added, "I am sir." He then said, "That is right, every one should feel that he or she has gone astray like the little lamb." Then he taught them, a line at a time, to say this text after him:

"All we like sheep have gone astray;

We have turned every one to his own way;

And the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all."

      "Yes," said he, "Jesus Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that is, the cross. Oh! how we ought to love Him who saw us going astray, and came to seek and to save the lost."

      Then they talked about the naughty ways of the little lamb. How he wanted to get out of the field. How he would not go back when the thorns pricked him; like children, who know what is right and do what is wrong. And of the lion, and the text which says, that Satan, "as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." And of the cries of the little lamb, and how the kind Shepherd was so quick to hear him, and how the true Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, is always ready to hear all who pray to Him.

Satan, "as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour."

      Then their friend asked who was like the kind Shepherd, when many little tongues said, "Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd." "Yes," he said "you are quite right; and now say these words again after me.

"He shall feed his flock like a shepherd;

He shall gather the lambs with his arm,

And carry them in his bosom." --Isaiah 40:11

      The little orphans said these words over and over again. Then their kind friend said, "Yes, my dear children, Jesus is the Good Shepherd; and you all know how he took little children in His arms, and put His hands on them, and blessed them. And He is now ready to bless you, my dears. He is as kind now, He is in heaven as when on earth. And let us never forget that Jesus Christ said, "I am the Good Shepherd: the Good Shepherd giveth His life

The Good Shepherd carries his lost little lamb.

for the sheep," John 10: 11. And He did give up His life on the cross to save us. We must believe on Him, love Him, and obey Him.

      "Now let me add, that Christ, after He had died for us and rose again, and before He went back to heaven, said unto Peter, "Feed my lambs." Oh! how kind He was! Oh! how kind He is! How we should love Him!

      "Now, my dear children. I have been trying to feed you little lambs before me, and to lead you into green pastures and beside the still waters, so I hope you will all try to think of what I have said and taught you from the Bible."

      It was past school-time, and play-time was come, but the dear little children wanted their friend to stay longer: he did so; and they had much to say to one another. As he left the room, the eyes and faces of the little ones seemed to say, "We hope, sir, you will come to see us again.   

Jesus welcomes the little children.

The 

Green Pastures.

"The Lord is my Shepherd;

I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;

He leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul;

He leadeth me in the paths of righteouness for

His name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the

shadow of death.

I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me;

Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me."     

The Little Lamb.

O Lord, our Shepherd, deign to keep

Thy little lambs, Thy feeble sheep,

And when our feet would go astry,

Uphold the guide us in Thy way.

Our Shepherd Jesus, kindly gave

His precious life, the flock to save:

Oh may we hear and know His voice,

Ans in His love alone rejoice.

When faint and trembling with alarms,

Oh gather us within thine arms:

Kind Shepherd, on They gracious breast

The weakest lamb may safely rest.

Lead us to pastures rich and green.

Where Thy free bounties most are seen;   

There may Thy gentle waters roll,

To cheer and save the fainting soul.

Thus blest, though we should walk the vale

Where death's deep shadows will prevail,

We shall our heavenly Shepherd see,

His rod and staff our comfort be.

Surely Thy goodness and our praise

Shall fill up all our fading days;

Then dying, gather us above

              To Thy own fold, the heaven of love.