A hook and a prayer
By Kirsten Ballard
Published in News on January 11, 2015 1:50 AM
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Amy Croom crochets a prayer shawl as part of First Baptist Church's ministry that donates the shawls and blankets to patients at Southeastern Medical Oncology.
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News-Argus/MELISSA KEY
Prayer shawl ministry member Nancy Satterfield asks for an opinion on one of her creations.
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News-Argus/MELISSA KEY
Margaret Caviness laughs as she models her practice shawl, on which she tries out different stitches around the edges.
Bags overflow with blankets and shawls and laughter echoes down the halls of First Baptist Church.
It is more like a sleepover than a crochet group.
Five women meet every Monday at 9 a.m. to talk, to craft and to pray.
Pastor Glenn Phillips describes this prayer shawl ministry as one of his greatest blessings.
It all started a year and a half ago. Nancy Satterfield knew she wanted to make a difference.
"I'm not a knitter or crocheter or a sew-er," she said.
Her friend Margaret Caviness was teaching her how to crochet. Nancy was working on a shawl during Southeastern Medical Oncology's Cure for the Colors event.
Seeing the chemotherapy room, Nancy felt something.
"I felt the need to do something," she said. But with the sheer number of shawls that would be required, she would need help.
"Nancy came to me," Phillips said. "She asked 'Why do we make prayer shawls for just our members?' And I said that was just the way it was done, it's not a good thing or a bad thing."
They decided to change the way things were done.
They would need to make 30 prayer shawls per month, an exponential increase from the previous number of shawls being made.
"If we can't make them all, we'll make as many as possible," Phillips said.
Nancy and Margaret got to work.
They developed a method of crocheting the edges of fleece blankets. Nancy's husband, Benton Satterfield, hand cut all the fleece. They packaged fleece and the yarn into kits for church members to help with.
Nancy says Margaret would sit up all night to finish shawls so nobody would go without one.
The project grew.
Other churches joined the effort and church members joined the group and worked at home on the shawls.
Pam Stackhouse, Gloria Flowers and Amy Croom joined the Monday morning group. The women are very close. They text about fabric and yarn sales and joke as they work on the shawls.
Gloria joined the group after she retired in June.
"I was so excited to get started in this group," she said. The group is open to anyone interested in helping the mission.
When Gloria went through her own cancer treatment, she said she wished she had a shawl.
"It would have meant so much to me," she said.
Now, she's giving the gift to others.
Nancy says the mission of their group is to make sure every new patient beginning chemotherapy has a prayer shawl. The chemotherapy room is colder, so the shawls and blankets bring warmth as well as warm wishes.
In a year and a half, 5,000 shawls have been donated to the clinics in Goldsboro, Jacksonville, Wilson and Clinton.
"It's absolutely amazing," Nancy said. "It is such a blessing and such fun. I knew I wanted to do something but I didn't know what. This has evolved into more than I could dream."