ELAINE BUSCHMAN / ebuschman@marion.gannett.com JUST BROWSING -- Sandy Park and Becky Bearns, both of Marion, browse the prayer bracelets handmade by Julie Halverson, which each contain a prayer for a specific event or person.   CREATOR -- Julie Halverson, owner of Julie's Prayers & Squares, talks about her mission trips to Honduras, which inspired her to start creating the prayer jewelry. On the net: For more information about Julie's Prayers & Squares, log onto http://www.juliesprayersandsquares.com/ In this town, there are many who need someone to pray for them. Marion resident Julie Halverson is doing her part by making prayer bracelets in her spare time.

Behind the purchase of every prayer box bracelet is a story. Julie Halverson has heard dozens -- many of them tragic -- since she started making the beaded jewelry at home a year and a half ago, tucking a short prayer into the tiny sterling silver box that adorns each item.

She heard the story of Bernice Stephens, whose son was killed in an industrial accident Dec. 10, 2003.

Stephens, Marion, received a "loss of loved one" prayer bracelet from two friends. Her son, 26-year-old Justin Stephens, was working at Performix Technologies, Kingsford Heights, when his pant leg got stuck in a machine.

"It crushed him," said Stephens, who wears her bracelet of black, gray and crystal beads every day. She wrote her own message on the back of the stock prayer, prepared by Halverson and folded up inside the ornamental box.

"Justin, you are my baby," Stephens read, her voice breaking with emotion. "I will miss you and your funny wit. And I will miss you forever and ever and love you forever and ever."

Halverson gets emotional when she recounts the stories she's heard since starting Julie's Prayers & Squares in her Marion home.

A day care operator by day, she spends her evenings and weekends making jewelry and traveling to craft fairs and jewelry parties to sell her work. She considers it a mission, spreading comfort and hope to people through prayer.

"There was a lady at an art fair last summer," said Halverson, a 30-year Marion resident who has done custom framing and other art projects for 25 years.

"She had big tears in her eyes. She said she had to have a bracelet. She said the prayer would have to be the 'difficult times' prayer. She went on to tell me she'd had all these things go wrong in her life. She'd been through a difficult divorce. She needed her knee replaced. The last thing, her father was murdered. I just stood there. It just blew me away."

Halverson's own story is moving, as well. She shares it at every jewelry party and includes a brief version of it in every bracelet box. She tells how mission trips to Honduras over the last several years have turned her life in a new direction. She's saving profits from jewelry sales to bring 19-year-old Wilson Velasquez, Honduras, to Marion for six weeks.

"It's just such a neat way to connect with people," Halverson said of making and selling prayer box jewelry. At her first Marion jewelry party last week, she sold more than a dozen bracelets, many of them Mother's Day gifts.

Lori Standfest bought two, one for her mother, one for her mother-in-law. The prayer inside reads: Heavenly Father, bless my mother who wears this bracelet. Thank you for her love and devotion to our family. Keep her spirit in your tender care, reminding her often of your presence in her life.

"I really like her prayers," said Standfest, Marion, who is considering having a jewelry party in the future. "It's real inspiring."

Although Halverson will invite people to her home to shop for jewelry and visits church groups, craft fairs or clubs, she doesn't want to sell the jewelry in stores. Prayer box jewelry has become popular over the last several years and is available at a variety of locations.

"If I do that, I don't hear the stories that move them to buy a difficult times prayer," she said, adding that the personal contact is part of the healing process. "I have found it brings strength and joy to people who are suffering."

Halverson remembers Stephanie Gillespie's story. A Marion mother of five, her husband was deployed to Iraq in January 2003.

Gillespie's mother, Linda Morrison, commissioned Halverson to create a bracelet made of red, white and blue beads.

"It was an emotional time for her," Morrison, Fairmount, said of her daughter. "She was just at a time in her life where she needed a pick-me-up. (The bracelet) just gives a glimmer of hope."

Although Halverson has written more than 20 stock prayers for customers to choose from, Gillespie wrote her own.

"I just got on my computer and did real small font," said Gillespie, Upland, who lost her job at Thomson and now works at Carey Services. "I think the prayer was 'Give me strength to get through this and bring my husband home safely.' Something like that."

Gillespie's husband, Keith Gillespie, returned home in October after serving 10 months in Iraq and Kuwait with the Army National Guard Reserves. Gillespie still wears the bracelet every day.

"I don't leave home without it," she said. "It's just sentimental. It's pretty."