The group Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) started the campaign after hearing about hundreds of families being forced to live in one-room quarters without electricity because their businesses had all but dried up given the renewed conflict in the Holy Land.
Now, with orders for thousands of rosaries coming in, there is enough work to provide for up to 50 families.
Program organizer Victor Tabash said: «What has been happening now is almost unbelievable. The orders coming from ACN are giving us much more work than we have had recently.»
In just seven months, ACN has sold 4,500 olive-wood rosaries in Britain. Now the charity’s Canadian office has placed an order for 2,000, and interest in the products has come from Australia, Portugal and Brazil, which is keen to retail Holy Land cribs.
The Bethlehem olive-wood workers scored a coup when ACN bought 30,000 rosaries for people attending World Youth Day in Germany.
