Children

Children's Outreach

In the fall of 1998 we had come to Sacred Heart Church in New Brunswick to celebrate a mass and healing service. Following the service we were approached by dear friends asking if we would please go to St. Peter’s Hospital to pray for their brand new grandchild who was born prematurely. Her Mom was in an automobile accident and was severely injured and her newborn had arrived three months before the due date. We immediately went to the hospital. We were allowed to go into the infant intensive care unit and we were amazed to see many, many babies there. Aside from our dear little Lili, there were numerous other infants hooked up to equipment and struggling for life. I asked at the desk if we were in the trauma ward for the area and they said “No, that is at Robert Wood Johnson.” We were stunned. So many newborns struggling for life and for each one a mother and father filled with fear and desperation. How could we reach them, how could we let them know that we truly cared and that God loved them and was there with them. This presented a challenge. It is difficult for anyone to understand God’s hand in a situation like this but somehow we knew there had to be a way of helping them in this crisis.

Mary’s Mother was living with her at the time and we remembered her knitting hats for infants. We thought, if we could gather people to pray and knit we could send the hats to the infants saying that this hat was made with prayers for your baby. One thing led to another. The ministry grew to touch children of all ages. We purchased teddy bears and began to make clothes for the teddies and pray while we made them. We began sending them to the children and then they would write back and send us pictures...thus came the album...We put the pictures in the album and continued to pray for our little ones. We now take the pictures and prayer requests on the pilgrimages and we place them on the altar when mass is celebrated. The ministry keeps on growing. We now have groups of people knitting and crocheting all kinds of things. We are reaching out to Senior Centers with the directions and asking them to help us. There are now so many people praying for these children that God is blessing us over and over!