Just a Typical Day

Today was a typical day for us Berean Prison Ministry workers. Diane drove her van in and collected the mail. At least there was only 1 tub full today.

 The first thing we do is pile it up on the tables separating the returning studies from the letters.

 Lisa Waibel brings down a couple of her kids each Tuesday and Thursday to help with the Bibles.

 We are so grateful for the help, young muscles are much needed around here. The boxes of Bibles weigh 32 pounds each.

 Below are the workers that showed up today. These are all volunteers that graciously come on Tuesdays to help Diane and I out. Eva Jean, the lady in the red is one of our regulars working down here with us for years. She takes all of the envelopes to be stuffed home to her house and stuffs them with the prisoners next set of lessons then mails them out. Each envelope holds 4 studies and a postage paid return envelope that the prisoner can use to return his study for grading.

 Stuffing is one of the huge jobs that may need to be done here soon. Eva Jean has been diagnosed with carpal tunnel and is having surgery in January. Below is Tim from Goodfield. He organizes the Goodfield and Roanoke young groups to wrap the Bibles that are sent out. Each of the Bibles is stuffed with the first 4 lessons of the basic Bible study and again a postage paid envelope is included. Today Tim brought us 1000 Bibles all ready to be mailed out. We were really glad for Lisa's boys!

 Our lunch break is a fun time to catch up on any news and a good way to talk about solutions to any problems we have had during the week.

 The lesson below was kind of entertaining. To read it just click on the picture.

  Hundreds of letters come in each week and someone has to read them. We have some regular volunteers that are more than happy to help with this. Dave and Kathy are getting to be pros at this job. Although Kathy got back a letter today that had us all flabbergasted! I did not post that letter, Kathy took that one home to respond in more depth. Basically the letter writer was admonishing her for refusing to send a large print Bible to some inmates. Now before any reader gets upset because of her refusal there was a good reason. We have a rule that an inmate must request their own Bible. We have had Bibles come back marked refused and then we must pay the $3.65 postage both ways. Just because you think they need a Bible doesn't mean they want a Bible! Kathy wrote to say is just give them a paper asking for a Bible and all they have to do is sign with their signature.
Below are a few of the letters.

On Thursday we will enter the letters that came in today and mail out the Bibles.  We work 2 days a week at the Meister Companies on Kickapoo Creek Road and can always use more help. The fields truly are ripe for harvest, we just need the harvesters.