Hand-Knitted Baby Cardigan Tells a Story of Survival and Healing From the Middle East

December 01, 2016

Lori Hanes

Writer

In the Middle East, both mental illness and rape carry an inescapable stigma. So when Mercury One, with the help of generous donations from supporters, rescued a mother and two of her three daughters from a life of sex slavery with ISIS, caregivers on the ground came up with an ingenious way to offer counseling and recovery care.

"We're working through this other organization . . . these women take off their doctor's clothes, and they just go in regular clothes with yarn and knitting needles. They've got a little van, you know, Knitting Is Us or something, and they go to these houses and say to all the neighbors and everybody, Oh, we're teaching her how to knit.

While the women knit, they also receive counseling on how to deal with the loss of their children, the rapes they endured and anything else needed.

The sweater Glenn held on air Thursday was made during counseling by the mother rescued from ISIS.

"I want you to know how grateful we are, and more importantly, how grateful they are to you, for saving their life and the lives of their children," Glenn said.

To date, donations made to Mercury One's Nazarene Fund have helped save and relocate nearly 4,000 Christians and Yazidis. Visit Mercury One online to learn more about these rescue efforts or to make a donation to The Nazarene Fund.

Enjoy this complimentary clip from The Glenn Beck Program:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:

GLENN: Hello, and welcome to the program. I -- I want to share a story. And especially if you're watching us on TheBlaze TV or on the podcast at GlennBeck.com or however you're watching us, if you happen to be viewing us, I'll describe it here in a second. But this is so much more than a sweater.

I think -- is this not one of the most beautiful children's sweaters you've ever seen?

JEFFY: Yes. And --

STU: It's great.

JEFFY: And the other items in the story that surround this was fascinating.

GLENN: Fascinating.

So this is something Tania and I bought for my grandson. He's never going to get it. This is one of the most beautiful sweaters I've ever seen. In fact, I was talking to my son-in-law about it. He just brought it in. He said, "Where did you get this?"

And I said, "I'll tell you later. Why?" And he said, "This is some of the most beautiful work I've seen." He said, "This would cost 500 bucks."

PAT: Oh, and he knows fashion.

GLENN: He knows fashion. He's like, "This is a 500-dollar sweater easy." And you can tell it's all handmade. And it's just beautiful.

PAT: Was it Bergdorf Goodman he worked at for a long time?

GLENN: Yeah, which is like the Neiman Marcus times ten in New York.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: And so it's a beautiful handmade sweater for a little child. The story behind this sweater is so -- I just don't ever want my grandson to ever wear it. I just want to keep it, you know.

This sweater was made by a woman that Mercury One, through you and the Nazarene Fund, saved.

She was kidnapped, along with her three daughters, by ISIS. And sold into sex slavery. I think she was able to -- wasn't she able to keep two of the children with her. Is that right, Jeffy?

JEFFY: The original story was that she had two of the three with her now. I don't know how they got those two.

GLENN: So part of the thing that the Nazarene Fund is doing, is we're going in and we're trying to find these women and these children that have been captured and been used as sex slaves and bring them out.

But there's a problem in the Middle East with -- mental health problems are looked at in the Middle East kind of like they were looked at maybe in the 1930s. They're shameful. And nobody wants to know about sex slaves. Nobody wants to know about mental health problems.

And so there's -- there's nothing you can do to help rehabilitate these people, if you expect them to come to a hospital and get counseling. It's just not going to happen.

So we found this -- we found all these women. We rescued all these women. We rescued this woman and I believe two of her children. And her 13 is still missing. And we're still looking for the third. And we've moved them way up north into a safe area. And because it's just in this normal community, she can't go to get mental help. Now, imagine being raped six times a day and then standing there while some guy is raping your daughter. Imagine what your life is like.

Well, you can't get anybody to go to a doctor, and you certainly can't -- you can't get them to go to a foreigner. So -- and a man.

So what we have done is we're working through this other organization that has dressed these -- these trucks up as -- you know, these women take off their doctor's clothes, and they just go in regular clothes with yarn and knitting needles. And they've got a little van. You know, Knitting-is-Us or something.

And they go to these houses, and they say to all the neighbors and everybody. "Oh, we're teaching her how to knit."

And so while they knit, so no one knows what they're doing, they're giving her counseling on how to deal with the loss of her children and the rapes that she endured and everything else.

So this was made by a survivor of the ISIS sex slave while she was getting counseling. And we just had a big fundraiser for Mercury One. And a bunch of this stuff was sold.

JEFFY: Yeah. They were -- while that sweater is beautiful. There were other items there that were unbelievable.

GLENN: Unbelievable.

JEFFY: Mittens and socks and -- because we originally walked up, and we were talking about how our grandmothers used to give us these knitted hats and mittens for Christmas when we were little kids.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

JEFFY: And then we found out how these were made, and it was like, "Well, these are a lot better."

GLENN: Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. It's just -- it was just heart-wrenching and beautiful. And I just wanted to show you today -- I wanted to bring this in and show you the beauty of what you have done.

Out of the horror, the beauty that you have done. Please, don't dismiss what you have been a part of, if you helped free some of these people in Iraq, these Christians and the Yazidi women. Don't dismiss that.

I want you to know how grateful we are, and more importantly, how grateful they are to you, for saving their life and the lives of their children.

Featured Image: Baby sweater hand-knitted by an ISIS sex slave survivor, as featured on The Glenn Beck Program.

Leaked contemporaneous notes reveal Anita Dunn's 6-month crafting of ultra-MAGA 'slam' on Trump

Gage Skidmore/Flickr

Anyone paying attention can see that President Biden is in dire straights come 2024, regardless of who his opponent may be. His administration has been workshopping several ideas to try and craft just the right message. One that will cut through all the noise (failures) and put him on a more solid footing should he go head-to-head in a rematch with the former President.

Biden called in the big guns and he wasn't afraid to call in a few favors either. He drew on his stint as VP and called Anita Dunn out of the bullpen and tapped the Center for American Progress Action Fund to try and help pull this one out. After an exhaustive six-month-long study into how President Trump was able to summon the magic of MAGA — they finally feel they have the winning message.

Dunn has gotten sloppy, however, since her days in the Obama administration. We obtained her contemporaneous notes and emails showing how they coined the term "ultra-MAGA," trying to get a little "extra pop" to his rhetoric. The leaked emails also show the evolution of the messaging over that same six-month period.

[The preceding Memo was a parody written by MRA writers Josh Jennings and Jon Boldt – not the Biden administration.]

Biden crime family: Why Hunter’s secrets are REALLY about Joe

Almost every week, new incriminating evidence is mined from Hunter’s wild laptop. And the proof is mounting that President Joe Biden is lying about his knowledge of his family’s crooked deal-making. Everyone knows Hunter Biden is a seriously degenerate guy. Anyone who has handled his infamous laptop needs a tetanus shot.

The salacious stuff on the laptop is sad and pathetic for sure, but that stuff is NOT what is most relevant to the United States. Glenn Beck exposes how the laptop is REALLY about Joe Biden, his abuse of power as vice president, and his ongoing denials now as president.

Now that the 2020 election has passed and their man is in office, the mainstream media have suddenly decided to admit Hunter’s laptop is not Russian disinformation after all. No one has done more research into the Biden family corruption than journalist and best-selling author Peter Schweizer. He has researched the depths of Hunter’s laptop and found more than racy photos. “These aren’t HUNTER’S business deals,” Peter says, “they benefit the WHOLE family.” And he has the emails to prove it.

But the mainstream media still insist President Biden is as pure as his thinning white hair in all of this. As Glenn reveals tonight, he is not. But will anyone in the Biden family see jail time? Americans are fed up with two sets of rules – one for regular citizens and one for the ruling elites.

Watch the full episode of "Glenn TV" below:

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Top 5 times corporate WOKENESS crossed the line

Intelligent people know that wokerness plagues society and must be ridiculed and eradicated from conversations. But what happens when people lose their jobs for calling out the absurdity of woke ideology? What happens when corporations and media sources weaponize wokeness?

Here are five videos that will help us better understand a few of the many issues that wokeness inflicts on society and how we can stand against it.

Bye bye, Target. You crossed the line!

In this clip, BlazeTV host Allie Stuckey of "Relatable" explains how Target recently announced the sale of chest binders and "packing underwear" for women. She expresses how children can be negatively impacted by the sale of confusing clothing items for people suffering from gender dysphoria and the importance of loving the body God gave us.

Today, Allie notices that Target's stock experienced a 35-year record drop. Apparel was named as one of the two underperforming departments. Was pushback from critics of gender-affirming apparel the cause? It is hard to tell, but Allie encourages her audience to continue speaking out when corporations cross the line by making harmful products available for sale to the public.

Listen to the podcast here.

Want more from Allie Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture and politics from a Christian millennial perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Wokeness can get you fired

In this clip, Stu Burguiere covers a story about a man who challenged Black Lives Matter using nothing but data and was fired.

Here's the story: "I had been at Thomson Reuters for over six years—most recently, leading a team of data scientists applying new machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms to our legal, tax and news data. We advised any number of divisions inside the company, including Westlaw, an online legal research service used by most every law firm in the country, and the newsroom, which reaches an audience of one billion every day around the globe. I briefed the Chief Technology Officer regularly. My total annual compensation package exceeded $350,000." Read more

"We live in the era of woke religion," says Stu.

Listen to the podcast here.

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Coca-Cola circumvents Constitution with TERRIFYING mandates on diversity

Glenn Beck loves Coca-Cola. So much so, in fact, that he refuses to drink Pepsi if Coke isn't available. But ... he says the time has come for him to give up his favorite soda. Why? Because Coca-Cola just announced some terrifying new company policies on diversity and equity. It sent out notices to all partnered law firms, demanding a required percentage of diverse attorneys on any legal team working for the corporation. The notice says all legal teams also must report these numbers quarterly and they will lose Coca-Cola's business if they do not comply.

"Equity is not the same thing as equality," Glenn said, adding that equality means we all have an equal chance, while equality means we all have the same outcome.

Glenn explains how mandates like this could affect everybody — even the guy working on the factory line or the truck driver delivering the drinks. Glenn also explains how Coke's new move is nothing less than a circumvention of the Constitution, and he predicts more companies (especially those in support of the Great Reset) will follow with similar policies, too.

Listen to the podcast here.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Coca-Cola takes a 'pause' on woke initiatives after after pressure from the Right

Glenn followed up on a story about Coca-Cola becoming the poster child for how a corporation could shove leftist ideologies onto its consumers. The company suspended advertising on Facebook in a push to censor former President Donald Trump, published a manifesto about racial equity, and demanded all legal teams working for Coke meet certain diversity quotas.

But, after Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and many other conservative voices called for a boycott of the company's products, Coca-Cola appeared to shift directions.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

Calvin Klein's gender blender ruins sex and Mothers' Day

Chad Prather reflected back to the Great Depression era of enticing photographic entertainment, otherwise known as the callow and deprived years of his youth, when a Calvin Klein pictorial of old would have represented something exciting, something to, say, think about at the end of the day. Had he run across this present weird concept at that age, he would have either been disgusted on sight … or possibly really disgusted when his dumb a** put two and two together the next day. Anyway, his point is: Has the whole world gone crazy? Do we really need this? At this inclusive embracing point in our recent history, what in the world makes Calvin Klein feel the need to be the standard-bearer for a lifestyle screamed largely into existence by a very vocal minority?

Listen to the podcast here.

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Former Disney artist SPEAKS OUT: ‘It’s time to do something’

A former Disney artist, who wishes to remain anonymous, joins Glenn to describe WHY he recently took action against his former employer: ‘I'm tired of watching my country go down the drain. And it's time to do something.’ Today’s woke Disney is not what Walt once imagined, he says, and his recent video release — "It’s A Woke World After All" — exposes Disney’s large stray from its roots ...

Listen to the podcast here.

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DEBUNKED: The Buffalo killer is NOT a 'mainstream Republican'

Rolling Stone magazine on Sunday published an article that argued in no uncertain terms that the suspect who grotesquely took the lives of ten people in Buffalo, New York, last weekend was a "mainstream Republican."

Like so many in the corporate media, the article's author Talia Lavin — who in 2018 resigned from the New Yorker after falsely accusing a combat-wounded veteran and ICE agent of having a Nazi tattoo — has painted the Buffalo killer as a right-wing, white supremacist, Tucker Carlson-worshipping conservative who is "gripped by a racist delusion."

On the radio program Tuesday, Glenn Beck revealed what the killer actually wrote in his alleged "manifesto," which proves he was far from a freedom-loving constitutionalist, and explained why blatantly ignoring his words will only make the problem worse.

"The corporate media has, from the very get-go, tried to associate [the killer] with the Republicans, to say that he's a conservative, to say that he got all of his training from Tucker Carlson," Glenn began. "But you know it's weird, in the 180-page document authored by the shooter, he doesn't mention Tucker Carlson — not even once. Not at all. There is one mention of Fox News, and it's an infographic showing the top Fox News host, such as Maria Bartiromo and Greg Gutfeld, as being Jewish. He also says Rupert Murdoch is a Christian Zionist who may have Jewish ancestry though it's never been publicly admitted," he continued.

"Oh, another thing. Ben Shapiro is mentioned multiple times, including as an example as the 'rat of the Jewish people.' So gosh, that doesn't sound conservative to me, doesn't sound Republican, doesn't sound like he's learned anything from anybody that is on the right. Moreover, he has described himself as an ethno-nationalist and eco-fascist national socialist. He loathes libertarianism and conservatism in particular."

Watch the video clip below to hear more of the criminal's own words, which prove he was no right-winger and certainly NOT a "mainstream Republican."

Can't watch? Download the podcast here or listen to the episode highlights below: