The Seeds of a Tour of Roses
It started, as simple acts of love often do, with a single rose. Sally handed her rose to a man who lived near one of the death camps in Poland. Standing in the driveway of his home he was amazed that this Jewish woman would, for no apparent reason, choose to hand him a rose.
No one had ever done anything like this before. In the forty years he had watched Jews from all over the world walk by his window to Auschwitz-Birkenau not one had ever stopped to say hello.
A Tour of Roses began in 2009 as a gift of love to the people in the villages, towns, and cities throughout Europe where the Holocaust left scars. The intent was to express the unconditional mercy and kindness of the Creator for all who have been fractured—in small or large ways—by our own sin and the sin of others.
In the forty years he had watched Jews from all over the world walk by his window to Auschwitz-Birkenau not one had ever stopped to say hello.
Sally and her team gave out roses to people on the streets of Dachau, Oswiecim, Bergen, Berlin, Warsaw, Budapest, Mauthausen, Brussels—and many others—as a tangible display of the extravagant love of God. And then through song and story, worship and prayer, Sally and her team offered themselves as vessels of healing and reconciliation for all those who struggle with the legacy of the Holocaust.
Since then the Lord has led A Tour of Roses to minister in many other locations: Belfast, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Jericho, the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, and San Bernardino—to mention a few. It is our belief that God wants to heal the wounds of the past. Not that we should ever forget but, perhaps, as we remember together we can learn how to love—ourselves and each other—as God loves us.
