Wood Manger
Availability: In stock
Item #: 107660
In the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season, it’s easy to forget ONE thing: It’s NOT our birthday! Christmas is about one baby – the Christ Child! When you watch your kids greedily rip open gifts one after the other, it can make you rethink gift-giving at Christmas. WAR, Int'l founder and president, Becky McDonald shares: Early in parenting, we decided to begin a family tradition by collecting money in an empty "manger" during the month of December. We'd pay the kids a little "too much" for extra chores they did around the house, and they would contribute to the growing manger fund. All December, our little manger gathered coins and dollar bills—hard-earned "gifts" for the Baby Jesus. On Christmas Eve, the treasure magically grew, "added to" by mom and dad! After all the gifts were opened on Christmas morning, we'd count the money in the manger, and a family vote determined who would receive Jesus' gift. One year it was an elderly widow who needed medicine; another year, a single mom whose car had died! As busy moms and dads, and especially as kids, we need a visual reminder of the real reason for the season! Challenge yourself and your kids to place a dollar, a dime, or any amount, in the manger every time you buy yourself a Starbucks or some other “treat.” Somehow, the visual reminder of the manger—empty and waiting—keeps your focus on whose birthday it really is!
**SET FREE SPECIAL ONLY VALID 11/18-24/21**
Where this product came from
Uganda Women's Enterprises
The HIV epidemic has taken its toll on Uganda, causing tens of thousands of AIDS-related deaths each year. Those left behind often struggle to survive: widows suffering from HIV, newly single mothers with no job skills or education, and orphaned teens trying to provide for their siblings. Longing to bring healing and wholeness to their community, two entrepreneurial women created a business to employ their fellow widows. Within a few years, nearly eighty women were gathering daily to study, enjoy fellowship, and craft jewelry from beads made out of recycled magazine pages. With a new sense of emotional and financial empowerment, these widows soon began caring for orphans in their own neighborhoods, expanding their circles of protection to the “least of these” in their community.
As the program grew to serve more families, its founders sought ways to create more jobs. Discovering a rising market for jewelry and buttons made from cow horns, they conceived of a co-op that would employ not just widows but their family members and older orphans as well. With assistance from WAR, Int’l, the new workshop became a reality. Together, the magazine bead and cow horn enterprises continue to provide stability and sustainability for this now-thriving community.
