Very first good story I've read from this newspaper.

This is from Nebraska's JournalStar Newspaper. I've been reading their news articles now for over four years. I have emailed them a few times to remark on how badly these people treat people concerning the way they publish stories. I'm not going to get into that right now because tonight they posted a fantastic story and I am happy myself to share it with you.

Story follows, original link to the story is [here]. I hope to see more like this in the future coming from them.

Jewelry lifts family from poverty
By COLLEEN KENNEY / Lincoln Journal Star
Friday, Mar 27, 2009 - 11:12:13 pm CDT

The girl was 15 then. She spoke little English. The woman spoke little Spanish.

They met one day in the Mexican village of Ensenada after the woman, a stay-at-home mom from Milford, had finished helping some village women with a craft project.

The craft project had followed Bible study.

The woman from Milford had gone to the village on a mission trip. Outdoor toilets. Tents. Talking to people on the streets about God.

The girl, shy and pretty, walked up and stood beside the woman. The girl took a discarded piece of wire from the craft project and started manipulating it with her hands and teeth. The woman watched. What is she doing?

Then the Mexican girl pulled something from her mouth. A flower.

She’d turned the wire into a beautiful, intricate flower.

This is not normal, the woman told herself. She motioned to the girl to stay put and ran to find a translator, hoping the girl wouldn’t walk away.

Because the woman knew in that moment that God was planting a seed.

Nine years later

“The thing I want people to see is that when God opens a door, you’ve got to listen because you could be missing a huge opportunity otherwise. You just never know.

“But be ready.”

The Milford woman, Nancy Velder, wants to share this story. But please don’t make it about her, she says.

It’s about the girl, Ana Patricia Vallejo — “Patti” — who blossomed into a 23-year-old woman, a college graduate who’s bilingual and the boss of her own jewelry business, one that has pulled her family out of poverty.

It’s about the jewelry business, which they grew together from that little wire flower.

Nancy in Milford. Patti in Mexico.

“It’s a God thing. Seriously. There is no way you could dream this up.”

After that first meeting, Nancy returned to Milford and started sending Patti wire and supplies. She sent her tools, so she didn’t have to use her teeth.

Patti, an innate artist, practiced. Soon, she was sending Nancy a garden of flower earrings.

Nancy showed them to people she knew. They loved them, $8 a pair.

The business spread by word of mouth.

“You know what? Eight dollar is nothing to us. But it’s food for a day for them.”

At least twice a year, Nancy goes to Ensenada, which is in the Baja Peninsula. Over the years, she’s seen amazing changes in Patti and her family.

The girl’s dad got off drugs. He began to work for the business. Her brother and his girlfriend got off drugs, too, and got married.

Patti gives them a quota of jewelry to make each week.

Now they make it out of sterling silver, too. And turquoise and other stones. They make purses.

The money has repaired and expanded their once shabby home. It’s built a balcony, a good toilet. It’s done this for aunts and uncles and grandmas, too.

The money paid for Patti’s degree in industrial engineering. It bought her a guitar, something she’d always wanted.

Nancy pulls out a photo of Patti’s graduation. It shows a beautiful young woman in a blue dress standing at a microphone, holding a guitar, singing.

Patti is no longer shy, Nancy says. Far from it.

The money bought her a car, which she drives around the village like a taxi for her neighbors, taking old people to doctor appointments.

The money bought her a computer. And now the family, which had little hope of a worldly horizon, even has the Internet. Patti and Nancy talk via e-mail most every day.

Nancy says she takes no money herself from the business, even though it’s a full-time commitment. All proceeds go to Patti’s family and mission projects.

Why does she do it?

She quotes the Bible, Matthew: “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine, even the least of them, you did it unto me.”

The cell phone rings

Nancy’s face breaks into a smile. It’s Patti!

“I’m doing an interview for the newspaper. Will you talk to her?”

Patti’s English is good. The jewelry business changed her family “completely,” she says. Her dad. Her brother. Her life.

She says Nancy is like another mother now, and she’s blessed they met that day.

“I just was playing with the wire. I didn’t have the idea what I was doing. It just happened.”

Nancy takes the phone back. She presses the speaker button.

“I want you to belt out a song, OK?”

“Sing?”

“Yep.”

(“She’s so good,” Nancy whispers.)

“Now?”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

Then the Mexican woman pulls something from her mouth.

A hymn, sung with a Spanish twang.

“Amazing Grace.”

Reach Colleen Kenney at 473-2655 or ckenney@journalstar.com.