2016 Starts with HUGE Mail Day

I was a little bit shocked at the mail this morning. Knowing that the group worked on Thursday I thought we would have a normal mail day but check out what Lila helped bring in.

 Lila and Bruce separated the studies from the letters placing all the letters on the other table. When each person arrived they would look at the tables and exclaim, "No!" Below Eva Jean walked in and was saying over and over, "No, No, we are not going to get done before midnight."

She was actually right, we did not get done today. Check out that pile of mail to be opened in the picture below. Thankfully we had a lot of good working volunteers, they sat down and started slitting each envelope open with those handy dandy openers Cheryl donated from Akron Services.

 Marvin arrived with a few questions but by the time he left we had a few more questions. Marvin is one of the readers and he also grades all of the 49 and 50s that come in each week. One of the prisoners he writes to sent in $3.00 today. Marvin wrote to him last month and told him of all the thousands of envelopes that come in each week he had opened his and saw the check. The prisoner explained he works in the prison receiving $30.00 a month and the $3.00 check was his tithe money.

 Jeanette came in a bit later and her reaction was about the same as the rest of us. "Oh MY!"

 Below they are making some headway on the piles of mail. We are really wondering exactly how long we will be able to keep this up. This program is exploding!

 In the picture below are the 4 readers of the day, Lila, Marvin, David and Kathy. Marie was assigned the computer and busy entering the studies.

We decided there was just too much to do and started cleaning up the room by 2:45 pm. Marie was gathering up the huge amounts of garbage from the envelopes. 

 Chuck was in the other room with Timothy and Justin trying to get the studies ready for stuffing when Marvin L came in to help. This was late afternoon and we were all pretty tired.

When we told Marvin and Chuck we were quitting for the day the smiles came out big time. 

 The piles were left neatly on the table. Thankfully some of this crew plus a couple extra are coming in tomorrow to help finish what we couldn't finish today. If anyone has a couple free hours tomorrow morning and would like to come help us stuff envelopes we could sure use the help. Many hands really do make light work. We will be at the Berean office at 9:00 am and hope to be out of there before noon.