Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Light Mail Day

We had a light group today as today was TAG at the Peoria church which took all the women volunteers away except for Shirley and Robin. Thankfully it was a small mail day and we still finished by noon with everything except the entering of the Bible requests.
 Above is Chuck working on labels and below are Shirley, Robin and Ron opening the mail. 

 Above Bill is separating the request letters from the studies and below Bill and Mark are entering studies on the computers while Dave reads letters
 Bill arrived with a couple of his sons to help load as we were finishing up. 
Thankful everything went well today. Very thankful we have volunteers willing and able to come and help.

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Preparing For a Leave of Absence

Today the Berean office ran without me. Everything is now in place for my coming leave of absence that will start a week from Thursday. Guess what, I'm not indispensable as that was shown very clearly today. I'm not even sure who took the pictures but whoever did a big thankyou! From the pictures below it looks like they had a great group of volunteers and for sure got the job done.
Above Bill is using the computer to print out study labels and below Marvin and Chuck are busy either opening the mail or applying labels. 

 Sure looks like Vonnie, Jan, Ron and Joyce are working hard opening the mail above and below Mark and David are discussing a letter. 

 Jeanette is always put to work applying labels to envelopes and envelopes to studies. 
 Kathy is busy answering or writing letters for prisoners with different requests above while below Ron is sealing envelopes and Robin is keeping everyone busy, making sure the correct study is placed in the correct envelope. 

 Above Jeanette and Joyce came in to help stuff envelopes and below Kathy is hard at work on the Bible requests. 
 Lunch break is pictured below. 
 How absolutely WONDERFUL to know this office can run smoothly and efficiently with so many volunteers willing to give hours of labor for this program. A special thanks to all who showed up today!

Thursday, September 14, 2017

Berean Prison Ministry Video

A special thanks to Tim Martin for making this video for our Berean banquet. WELL DONE TIM!  This video shows just a tiny part of what happens with Berean Prison Ministry. There is NO PAID staff, all of this is done by volunteers, hundreds of volunteers. So very thankful for each person that helps. http://bereanprisonministries.org/

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Back To Work

We had another good group show up for Tuesday and all of us were thankful for each volunteer that came. There was plenty of mail and plenty of work to do. We had a lot of problem letters, much more than usual. Below Vonnie is discussing one of them with Bill, trying to figure out how to solve the problem.
 Glenna and Eva Jean were hard at work opening the studies. 
 Jan was put to work applying postage to the envelopes needed today while Chuck was given the labels that were printed and the studies they were to go on. 
 Below Jeanette is discussing another of the problem letters with Chuck. We are thankful there are many minds here to bounce problems off of and usually the solution is found. 
 Glenna, Vonnie, Eva Jean and Jan hard at work opening the studies while behind them Bill is hard at work on the computer entering and printing labels. 
 The readers today were Mark, mom and Marvin. 
 Below mom is pouring the water for lunch, while behind her Vonnie is stuffing the intermediate studies. 
 Below we are getting ready to serve lunch while Mark and Vonnie finish counting the studies going out today. 
 Robin kept everything running smoothly in this room including the copy machine. Below Jeanette is asking her about making copies. 
 Chuck was glad to be done with labels. 
 Wayne came in to explain we would have to call of Thursday's work here in this office. They are getting new water lines put in for this office Then. 
 Marie (not pictured) dropped off lots of vegetables from her garden. Below Jeanette is taking home one of the squash. There were tomatoes, peppers, squash and much more but by the end of the day there was NONE left. A big big thankful to Marie for sharing her bounty out of her bountiful garden. We city people really appreciate those home grown delicious  vegetables. 

Saturday, September 9, 2017

The Berean Banquet.

This annual event is the main fund raiser for Berean Prison Ministry and was well attended.






Below was the Glory Land Band. They entertained us as we were visiting and dining. What was very interesting was the story behind the band. The leader of the band stood up and told us his story, He had been in the Peoria county jail and told us that Paul Meister Sr. had given him his first Bible. He had to go to prison but has been out for 14 years and is now a chaplain and helps out at different jails and prisons. All of that PLUS he had a beautiful voice and the music was toe tapping great. 














 Tim Martin played the video he made of the different jails, the Berean office and Romania. I really hope this video will be posted on the Berean Website, it was very interesting, informative and also touching. 


 Below Ken Helmuth is introducing Fedi. Fedi was the interpreter for the speaker for the banquet, Leventa. 
Below Leventa is giving his talk about the impact Berean has on the many jails and prisons in Romania. So many touching stories. 





We left the banquet enthused about the ministry, almost everyone that attended help out in one way or other. Berean Prison Ministry is run completely by volunteers. There is NO paid staff, every penny sent in goes to help people out in many different ways. We left there humbled. 
On the way home mom mentioned wouldn't dad have been amazed at how big this ministry has grown.