Overwhelmed Understaffed

Diane and I left at 7:30 am for work, after vacationing last week we were pretty sure we would be buried with mail. The roads weren't plowed yet so the drive in to Peoria was slow but we arrived safely. Ellen had not picked up today's mail but felt with what came in since last Tuesday was more than enough to keep us busy.

 Diane got right to work trying to make copies and of course the copier wouldn't work. She gave up and called Wayne Printing to see if we could get a rush job done but it wasn't to be, they were not able to produce the 9000 copies needed by tomorrow morning. Philip came in to see if he could work on our copier and wouldn't you know it started working and kept working until all 9000 copies were finished. Diane's next job was to start opening mail. We got a unique Christmas card in the mail today all hand drawn and colored.

 When it was opened it had a pop up message. Amazing to think the work that went into this card and the time it took to create.

 Our usual workers couldn't make it in, Eva Jean was scheduled to have surgery this morning and Shirley's roads weren't plowed. We were thankful when Kathy and David arrived to start reading letters.

 Rhoda came in and was able to finish boxes and boxes of Bibles, then loaded them all in Diane's van. Lisa donated 3 of her kids today. We put Shelby to work opening mail while the other 2 stamped 1500 envelopes. We were still opening mail at noon so weren't able to leave for lunch until after 1:00 pm.

 After lunch we worked a couple more hours then decided to quit for the day. Tomorrow mom is going to help me get caught up.
We got some very nice letters in today. Instead of taking a picture and trying to get them clear enough to read I'm just going to type what a couple of the prisoners wrote. The first one:
To my brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus
I cannot thank you enough for all your blessings you sent me.   The Bible was a true blessing and the Bible study was great.  I can not wait until you send me another one. I know today I can't live with out God and that I want to serve Him.  Also what child would not want to learn more about his Father?  God is my heavenly Father who sent His son to die for me.  Today I know what love is and who He is and that is God.  I also know that the Father , The Word and the Spirit are one.  But there is so much that I don' t know and now I can only pray you will show me more.   God Bless all of you and thank you for the great gifts that you have gave me.  The word of God is so Awesome
 The second letter was a bit longer and copied as written:
First, thank you for the Bible and Bible study forms.  I am young in my Christianity and appreciate your help.  I am a 31 year old father of four, and now after a decade of drugs and alcohol, the legal system has caught up with me. August 6th, 2014 I was incarcerated at county jail for my 4th DWI and a attempted manufactering of a controlled substance charge. I have to back up to May 24th, 2014 I decided to drive after a long day of drinking in celebration of Memorial Day.  I drove off the highway, ht a guard rail, and rolled my car into a bridge.  I broke my neck in three places, and right foot. Suprizingly I was walking minutes after the wreck. I also survivied luekimia as a boy. My point is, I've finally came to the conclusion, that God is real and has a plan for me.  God has given me chance after chance to life live. The last 10 yrs of my life, have been horriable, Drugs and alcohol, selfishness and really just pure wicked ways.  I've turned my back on my children and everyone who loves me, but since accepting Jesus as  my Savior, God has given me his Grace.  I am getting all my loved one's back in my life.  I couldn't ever imagianing people loving me agian, after what I did to them. Thank you Lord Jesus, and Tank you for helping me grow in my relationship with God. I go home April 1st, 2015, Thank you Lord Jesus, I forgot to mention, I beat the maufactering charge and had the DWI charge lowered to my 3rd instead of 4th offence.  I am now locked up serving a 120 day treatment. I was looking at 21 yrs in prison and the Lord and the State of Missouri is letting me off the hook with roughly a total of 81/2 months being incarcerated. He truely has blessed me. Once again  Thank You Lord and Thank you for your time.