Harder and Harder

 The mail for Berean had 10 returned Bibles so when Marvin arrived at the Berean office he went to work to find out why they were returned.  One had on a sticker no books, periodicals, magazines allowed. Another had a note no leather, vinyl, or hard back books allowed. A few came back with the note this person already has a Bible. Some came back with the note full name and number required (we had their first and last name and the correct number but not a middle initial.)  Another came back with housing required and on our label the housing number was blacked out.  It is getting harder and harder to get Bibles to prisoners.  What a crazy world we live in. Thankfully the Peoria County Jail is letting Berean workers in. Rhonda called from the jail, they needed Bibles. In the video below we were discussing how to get them there. At the end of the video Beth was telling us about some guests she had for dinner and how one of those guests became a Christian.

Our air conditioner at the office wasn't cooling and it was really heating up in there with everyone hard at work.  Meister Heating and Air was called and in 20 minutes Philip showed up to check it out.

He had to change the compressor but got it working.

We were really thankful for that air as we had 2 skids of Bibles to bring in and stack today. There was plenty of work to be done today and plenty of volunteers to help get that work done.

Below is our assembly line for stuffing and wrapping Bibles.

When we finished we enjoyed raspberry flips Beth brought in as a special treat.

We would really appreciate prayers that God would provide a way for us to get Bibles to those asking for one. Covid shut down many of the prisons and jails we had been able to hold services, studies, and counseling and most of these facilities no longer allow Berean volunteers in to provide any of these services.  Now we are having trouble even getting a Bible to hurting inmates. 

Productive Hours

 We didn't have a lot of mail but that was a good thing today. There was no water at the Berean office. The Unsickers had a water leak and had to turn it off until they could get a plumber there. We were able to finish everything by 10:30 am, had some home grown melon, coffee and brownies then left for home. Beth came today to help. We were all thrilled to have her. She gave us some updates and stories of different prisons and had everyone laughing. 

The only volunteer here not pictured was Bill. He was busy with the postage machine getting that to work so we could mail out the Bibles.  It was only 3 hours of work but thankfully they were all very productive hours.

86 Today

 We didn't have a lot of mail today as far as studies but ended up mailing out 86 Bibles. Not bad for a morning's work. Vonnie had us wrapping Bibles and folding enough 1-4's with the cover letters to stuff with the Bibles and with all of us working we were done in record time. Below Bill is working on the computer.

At 9:30 am we stopped for prayer then Skip read a letter.

Below Vonnie is getting the studies all organized for stuffing.

Below she is counting Bibles to make sure we have enough.

We really do enjoy working together even if there is not as much work as usual. Praying next Tuesday we will be swamped.