Another good day.

 Mom and I were stuck in a construction zone again. We had a long wait as it was a 3 way. It WAS a typical government crew. They had 3 people holding the stop signs, 7 people standing watching the hold get dug and 1 person using the excavator.  No wonder our taxes in Illinois are so high.

By the time we arrived the other volunteers had all the mail opened and were already moving to the other room.  Mom was working on stamping the reply address on each envelop while Sharon worked on the labels.

Shirley was using the postage machine, Vonnie and Shirley were refilling studies and folding more then started on Bibles.

Skip finished the studies, finished the Bible requests then went out to help with the Bibles.

Leila was here and  reading letters but had to leave before we arrived. Kathy was busy answering letters.  

It was a good morning even though we had some problems with the Texas studies and Bible requests.

Aunt Jinnie called just as we were finishing up and visited a little bit. We were all glad to hear from her.  Joan came in to get some studies to grade just as Kathy was asking if I knew where this pamphlet came from.  It came from Joan so in the video below she and Joan are discussing the pamphlet. 

Today was another good day at the Berean office.

Just Really Thankful

 We were very busy at the Berean office this morning. There was a lot of studies that needed to be processed along with the letters. One of the letters that came in today was 5 pages long with small hand writing.  Mom and I arrived a few minutes late and everyone was already hard at work.

Skip was hard at work entering the studies and printing labels.

Kathy and Leila were the readers. Marvin was looking up addresses for us along with answering letters. Shirley ran the postage machine after the studies were opened. Chuck was busy applying the labels on the envelopes.

Mom was stamping the return address on each envelope in the picture below while Skip is getting the Bibles ready to mail out. Vonnie and Sharon are folding studies for the boxes.

Shirley is separating the studies then stuffing the next four lessons in the second envelop.

Below is just a short video of some of our morning.

Joan arrived and had a gift for me. A highchair for the new barn.

When we were getting ready to leave we had to admire the flowers and pumpkins Lukie arranged.

We were really thankful for everything that got done today.

 

We Could Use Prayers

 We had some very nice letters come today at the Berean office. Sharon read one to us and Leila the second. 

That was a bright spot on a hard morning. The state of Texas is going to a new mailing system, all Bibles and studies have to be sent to a 3rd party where they put it on a tablet then give the tablet to the prisoner. Well this just won't work for our program as the studies need to be filled out and mailed back to us for grading. Marvin called the Texas prison system to ask how to handle the studies and after a lot of discussion they told us to send the studies out marked media mail. We did that and those studies were returned. The mail rooms of the prisons are not allowing them to go through. We took all the studies that came back, gave them each the new address we were given. Marvin made 2 sets of labels to go on each envelope. One for the grader since the address on the study will not match the address on the envelope then another for the prison mail rooms explaining per their order we are sending them and they cannot be downloaded onto a tablet. I don't remember the exact wording but hopefully this will work. Below Marvin is working on writing the labels while Leila reads the letters.

Things were a little chaotic for a bit but we got it all done.

We are praying these studies AND the Bibles mailed out today will reach the prisoner.  The prisoners themselves do not realize that we now have to send the study and the requested Bible to a 3rd party and hopefully the 3rd party based in Dallas, Texas will not hold for weeks or months before passing them along.  These studies and Bibles are going to many different jails and prisons in Texas at many different cities. We sure could use prayers for this program.

Answered Prayers

 We had a real mystery this morning. Skip went to the post office to pick up our mail and 77 pieces of mail were from our office, stamped and mailed out empty with no address label on them.  Of course they all came back as address incomplete (there WAS no address at all). How and why this happened was the question on all of our minds.  There just doesn't seem to be an answer to that.  Kathy had 3 requests last week for the Life Recovery Bible. She prayed about this then truly felt like the Lord led her to the answer. She explained how to our group after the prayer.

The video below starts with Kathy explaining how to get a Life Recovery Bible for a prisoner.

We are thankful for answered prayers.