Kingdom Threads, a nonprofit organization created by an Azusa Pacific University student, aims to bridge the gap for college students wanting to get involved in missionary work.
Kingdom Threads Company manufactures Christian apparel in order to support missionaries and local groups. Sammy Santillano Courtesy
“In July of 2013, God had put it on my heart to start a business or way of generating revenue that I could then redistribute into ministry and the mission field,” said Sammy Santillano, founder and senior business administration major.
“A week later my uncle had a dream about me where I was hanging up T-shirts in a coffee shop. At the same time, I saw my friend who got saved through my church leave her job and family here in LA to live and volunteer full-time at an orphanage in Mexico. I knew that I couldn’t just move to another country because I was still attending APU, but I could help sponsor her and help the orphanage with donations,” Santillano said.
Sammy Santillano Courtesy.
The Kingdom Threads brand seeks to inspire others to actively live out their faith through encouraging and uplifting messages and images.
“We see demonic, perverted, anti-religious clothing all over our malls, so I decided to make a brand that would set us apart and encourage people to live in the Kingdom, rather than the culture,” Santillano said.
Kingdom Threads takes no profit, using only what is needed to make the clothing, and donates the rest to supporting missionary Daisy Treminio and the orphanage she volunteers at in Mexico, as well as a local ministry to the homeless in LA.
“We both wanted to have a way to either support missionaries or support other ministries out there doing Kingdom work,” said Raul Perez, co-founder of Kingdom Threads. “Within the past year, we’ve been able to fund a missionary and have seen a huge growth of support from many believers across the U.S.”
The word of Kingdom Threads has spread throughout the country within the Christian community. Several Christian bands, including Sleeping Giant, Nothing Til Blood and For Today, have participated in promoting the clothing by wearing and selling it at shows.
“Personally, for me, I grew up in the hardcore punk music scene,” Perez said. “And this scene has a minimal tolerance for Christians. Over the past five years or so, that’s changed, and we wanted to be a part of that change. It’s a pretty amazing feeling to see people wearing something you created at shows.”
With the continuing success and increasing awareness of Kingdom Threads in the U.S., those who are in a sense bound to stay at home are able to reach out and contribute to being the hands and feet of the Kingdom abroad.
“Kingdom Threads affected not only my life but others while I was in Mexico,” said Treminio. “Because of Kingdom Threads’ financial support, I was able to reach out and be God’s hand out there in the missions field. God used us to show people that had nothing that he loved them and was their ultimate provider.”
For more information on the ministry, you can follow Kingdom Threads on Facebook, and purchase attire at kingdomthreads.storenvy.com