Riverside, Calif., Aug 30, 2001-- As they look for opportunities to serve the Lord, La Sierra University students are finding audiences in several markets: Los Angeles television stations, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, and pediatric AIDS wards.

La Sierra students and faculty traveled to South Africa from September 2 - 18, visiting places of religious and historical interest, and most importantly, meeting with Nobel Prize laureate Tutu. Not only did the troupe take their own luggage, but they took approximately 25 extra suitcases, from modern soft-sided bags, to the old ones with leather straps and brass latches.

Those suitcases were filled with hundreds of crib-sized, hand-pieced quilts, part of the cache of 17,000 quilts the Stahl Center for World Service has distributed over the last several years. Charles Teel, professor of religion and society at La Sierra, and director of the Stahl Center, appealed for 1,000 baby quilts in 1996, and was overwhelmed with seventeen times that.

"Quilters from around the world responded with fully 17,000 quilts, and counting," observed Stahl Center director Charles Teel, professor of religion and society at the University, who heads the project. "It seemed an effective way to invite individuals to face up to the reality of AIDS as a global phenomenon, and to offer a response which is at once simple, personal, and practical."

On August 29, La Sierra volunteers packed suitcases with tightly-rolled quilts, and were filmed by Los Angeles stations KABC7, KNBC4, and KCAL9, as well as photographed for the Riverside Press-Enterprise newspaper. News packages about the quilt project aired at least nine times that evening and the next morning.

On September 2, the Stahl Center's South African study tour group flew to Cape Town and met with Tutu, who had agreed to receive La Sierra University students and friends because of an inquiry by University President Lawrence T. Geraty. Tutu prayed for the ministry and for children afflicted by HIV and AIDS.

The quilts were displayed in the Cape Town Gardens before being distributed to Seventh-day Adventist, Coptic, and Episcopalian organizations.

The Stahl Center for World Service has distributed more than 12,000 quilts to date, says Teel, in such venues as Thailand prison obstetrics wards, Armenian orphanages, Catholic pediatric AIDS projects on the banks of the Amazon River, and hospitals effectively turned into AIDS hospices in several African countries. Teel notes that quilts touch the skin, and that the homey designs, colorful animals and cartoon characters, contribute to the feeling of being wanted and surrounded by love.

Information on what the press has dubbed "Global Piecemaking" or future tours offered by the Stahl Center may be obtained by e-mailing stahl@lasierra.edu or phoning (909) 785-2041.

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by Christy K. Robinson

Contact: Christy K. Robinson, w: (909) 785-2001, Cell: (909) 334-7175