Our LAST Work Day for 2018

With Christmas and Jan 1 both landing on a Tuesday today was our last day of work at the Berean office until 2019.  We had a busy day for our last day of work filling around 83 Bible requests and processing almost 200 studies. We had a good group come for our last work day of the year.  Below are the volunteers who labored together today.

We enjoyed a leisurely lunch before closing up the office. We are very thankful for everyone that volunteers with this program. There are so many that labor without any of us knowing how much they do from the graders to the ones that visit the jails and prisons, each volunteer is needed and so appreciated! THANK YOU and MERRY CHRISTMAS from all of us working at this office to all of you who volunteer in other areas of this ministry!

Problem Copier

Our Tuesday mornings are usually pretty much the same, the same work and a lot of the same volunteers and what is amazing is that there is enough work to keep everyone busy.  We had almost 170 studies come in today and 62 Bible requests. What was unusual today was where those requests came from. We had a request from a few different prisons and jails we have never sent Bibles to before and request for a Bible from a prisoner in a jail in Alaska. For some reason one doesn't think there is much crime in Alaska.  We were pretty thrilled today that Ray came back this week. He went right to work this week knowing exactly what to do.

 Bruce and Chuck also got right to work opening the studies. 

 Leila and Kathy were readers today. 

Dave was also a reader but when Lance showed up to work on the copy machine, he and Bill went out to talk to Lance. 

We got some bad news on the copy machine that was donated from an Alzheimer unit.  Dave was telling us that was why the machine forgot how to run.  Lance told Bill and Dave it is completely worn out and not worth spending the money to fix it. That puts us right back where we were a month or so ago really needing a working copy machine. We are not inclined to take in any more donated machines. This one weighs over 400 pounds and was really hard for Bill to get it here. His son even smashed one of his fingers while trying to help move it.  Lance is recommending we switch to a laser printer. He feels they are fast and cheap. The only problem with that is the cost of the ink. We always say, "This is God's ministry, if He wants it to continue we will find a way."

If we were to vote on which volunteer is the must enthusiastic, pretty much everyone would vote for Jeanette. She is always thrilled to be helping. 

 Robin keeps everything organized in the other room. 

 Below she has everyone stuffing studies of the next set of 4 for each prisoner that returned a study. 

 Once the stuffing was done the group below is stamping envelopes while waiting for me to finish printing out the Bible request for the week. 

 Once the requests are all filled and the studies all stuffed complete with the next 4 lessons, Bill loads everything in his car to take down to the post office. At that point we can clean off the table and serve lunch. We had a special lunch today. Robin brought in all kinds of Christmas goodies which we put on the table to pass around after eating but Dave took one look at all those delicious looking desserts and exclaimed, "what a good lunch!" We all had to laugh.

Another Productive Day

We had such a good crew come in today at the Berean office. We had a brand new volunteer come. Shirley brought her new husband Ray.

 He was put right to work opening the studies with Shirley showing him the ropes. 

Jan and Joyce also came in today but they were working when I was working so no pictures of them.  Benj and Karl were also back for their volunteer day and we were thrilled to have them. Marvin put Benj to work on the computer to see if we could get that working any faster. 

 As soon as the studies were done we went to work wrapping Bibles in both rooms. The program is growing again with more Bible requests coming in each week. 

 We were glad for our lunch break today. Bill's wife Joan made her special potato soup and everyone enjoyed that treat. 

When I left Marvin and Benj had gone back to work on the computers. I'm not sure how long they worked but it is wonderful having them take care of the little problems that show up each week. Today was a very productive day and a special thank you to all who came to help and a special thank you to Joan for lunch.