GUEYDAN – The warmth that emanates from Susan Owen doesn’t originate in the quilts she’s continually making. It starts with the relationship with God that led her to start Lagniappe Prayers and Squares Ministry earlier this year.
GUEYDAN – The warmth that emanates from Susan Owen doesn’t originate in
the quilts she’s continually making. It starts with the relationship
with God that led her to start Lagniappe Prayers and Squares Ministry
earlier this year.
Already she and her ministry team have prayed over the 11 body-sized
quilts that now warm the lives and hearts of their recipients.
“God laid it on my heart that this would be an awesome way to reach out
to others in the community, along with the help of fellow members here
in this church,” Owen said, referring to First Baptist of Gueydan,
where her husband Jesse has been pastor for six years.
At the minister’s wives’ conference last year, she participated in a
prayer quilt for a seminary professor’s wife. Owen checked out the
website – www.prayerquilt.org – and saw the potential for a ministry
that fit her crafty nature.
“What separates a prayer quilt from other quilts is that from beginning
to end it is made with prayer, intention and purpose,” Owen said,
quoting from the book The Prayer Quilt Ministry by Kimberly Winston.
“The person who chooses the fabric prays; the person who cuts the
fabric prays; the person who ties the quilt prays. Even the person who
irons the quilt pieces prays.”
The quilts are much more than blankets, Owen said.
“They are visible, tangible, physical evidence of faith in God, faith
in love and faith in prayer, but even more so, they are symbols of our
faith in one another,” Owen said, again quoting Winston. “They are
touchable emblems of human kindness and a link to the source of that
kindness – God.”
Prayers and Squares Ministry has three ‘commandments,’ Owen said.
1. The ministry is about praying, not about quilting.
“Without prayers, this ministry is little more than a free outlet for
pretty blankets,” Winston wrote. “With the prayers, the quilt becomes
the physical representation of God’s love.”
2. The recipient must agree to accept the gift of prayer in the form of a quilt.
3. No payment may be accepted for the quilt.
Lagniappe Prayers and Squares meets Thursday mornings at the pastor’s
home, which overflows with stacks of 3-inch squares and material.
Nine pieces in two coordinating/contrasting fabric that somehow relates
to the recipient – red crawfish and gray/green ricegrass for a Cajun
man, for example – are sown into squares. Seven squares make a
length-wise row; three squares make a width-wide row; a 3-inch strip of
white separates the rows. The reverse side of the quilt uses large
squares of one color, and white squares that make a quilt-size cross.
The first quilt was for Janet Hebert, who shivered during worship
services. After a dedication prayer, people in the congregation came to
the front and prayed as they tied a knot in the quilt.
For more information or to donate materials/items, email pwoofgueydan@bellsouth.net or call 337-536-9560.