Easy Day

Yesterday Dave, Mary and Carol came to help at the Berean office. Dave entered the Bible requests, Mary placed labels on Bibles and Carol folded studies. We finished before noon.

 Today we planned on wrapping and mailing out the Bibles for the week. We had 260 requests to fill. Karen came to help with all the heavy lifting of loading the Bibles into the car but when we arrived ALL the Bibles, stamps, labels, sleeves for wrapping and studies for stuffing were gone. Princeville is holding a Harvest Call work day and they are going to get all of this done for us. Instead Karen was put to work making copies. Marie had Anna, Roma and Edie folding.

 Sometimes we have an easy day and today was one of those days. Totally unexpected but totally great to be able to finish early! Thankful for Princeville to take all that work we would have had to do.

Round and Round

I arrived at the Berean office early this morning but wasn't the first one here. Marie already had the copy machine running and Skip was here to pick up answer keys. Marie still needed to get them put together and we had a lot of mail so Skip was put to work opening envelopes.

 Shirley, Chuck and Vonnie soon arrived to help with that big pile of mail. Shirley (not pictured) was put to work reading letters at that table. 

 We were thrilled when Joyce and Jan walked in the office. They were each given piles and openers. 

 Jeanette was given labels to apply while Marvin and Kathy were reading letters. 

 Bill and I worked like a greased wheel spitting out labels faster than the letter openers could keep up. We were able to get almost all the mail entered by noon. Below Kathy and Marvin are working on a problem. Kathy's phone was put to use a lot today. We have no internet at the office so if we have a question Kathy looks up addresses on her smart phone.

 We had a man stop in to pick up Bible studies for his church to grade. The studies were not processed so he was put to work on that while he was waiting. BEWARE if you show up when we are swamped you WILL be put to work. Almost all of the stuffing was done before lunch. After lunch Marie wanted to finish putting together the new revised 2017 answer keys. This is a big job, she made 100 copies. Each sheet is put on the table and we go round and round pulling one sheet off each pile to get a complete set of the answers for all 50 lessons.

That is 100 times around for 100 sets, Marie has no problem getting her steps in for the day. We are working at the Berean office tomorrow. Bibles need to be stuffed and wrapped and the requests entered.

Happy Helpers

We walked in a few minutes late to find the Berean office full of happy helpers. Such a wonderful sight and even better, everyone was hard at work opening the mail, working on the computers, reading letters and applying labels.

 Above Leila, Marvin and David are reading the letters that came in this week while Bill and Marie enter the studies on the computer. Below Bruce, Marvin and Chuck are working on one table while Shirley, Eva Jean and Vonnie work on the second table. 

 Above Bill is busy entering while Marvin reads letters. 

 See that yellow thing in front of Marvin? That is one of our handy dandy letter openers. We actually wear these things out with the amount of mail that comes each week. Below Rhoda is just getting ready to sit at the second table to read letters. 

 Above David is giving advice on how to handle a difficult letter to Shirley, pictured below.

Eva Jean opened an envelope that contained 2 million dollars. 

 We are not sure how a prisoner got $2,000,000.00 when locked up in jail but it was sure nice that they donated it to us. We have never seen a million dollar bill but it must be almost legal tender as it came from a Federal penitentiary. It must be one where they make money. We will just hang on to these bills and hang them up on the wall. 

 Kathy came in just a little late this morning but there were still plenty of letters still to be read.

 With so many great helpers we had time to enjoy sitting down for lunch today. After lunch Bill, Marvin and I entered the Bible requests the others went to work in the other room stuffing the next set of lessons for each prisoner. Marie kept everyone busy with the correct study while Eva Jean, Rhoda, Jeanette, Bruce, Marvin, Vonnie and Chuck stuffed envelopes. 

 Once the stuffing is done the likkers come out. We are thankful to have a way to seal envelopes. 

The last job of the afternoon was to make a back up and close down the computer program. Marvin was teaching Bill how to do this as the other person that should be doing this is an old dog that can't seem to learn new tricks (me). In my defense that was something I never had to do at our old office. The internet backed it up automatically. Here we do not have internet and we are usually so busy I forget that last step of the day. 

 This truly is a happy office and a wonderful place to spend the day. Some of the letters today were so touching. One person wrote that when she went to jail she lost all she had then became involved with our Bible study and gained EVERYTHING.
NOTICE: There will be no work on THURSDAY March 2nd at the Berean office. 

Good Attitudes

The group that comes in to volunteer on Thursdays were very thankful when a couple of the Tuesday volunteers came in to help. We had a lot of mail PLUS 165 Bibles to mail out. Below Bill is working on entering the studies. With his help we were easily able to keep up with the volunteers opening the mail.

 Joyce, Edie, Anna and Roma opened mail while Chuck applied labels. 

 After the last envelop was opened those 4 ladies below went right to work applying labels and stamps.

As soon as the studies were finished, we all moved into the other room to start labeling Bibles. We were pushed to finish by noon and didn't quite make it but everyone was more than willing to stay to finish. So very thankful for the attitude of willingness that comes from the amazing Berean volunteers.

Priceless

As President's day was yesterday and the post office was closed, I wasn't sure how today would go at the Berean office with not having any mail today. But everyone that came kept busy with lots of other jobs. A pallet load of Bibles was delivered at 9:00 am. Thankfully David and Marie were there to help unload them off the truck. The first job of the day was to start wrapping those Bibles for the requests that came in last week.

As more workers arrived more Bibles got wrapped.

 We had 165 requests come in last week which was more than double from the week before. Bill and I entered the names and addresses on the computer then printed out the Bible labels.

Once the Bibles were finished these helpful volunteers went right to work folding studies and filling boxes.

We finished up around 11:00 am enjoyed a leisurely lunch then cleaned up the office and left for the day. Ellen will be picking up the mail on Thursday morning and there is going to be a lot of mail. We will be working at this office Thursday starting at 9:00 am if anyone would like to join us. The work is fun, the fellowship is uplifting and the satisfaction of a job well done is priceless.

From Start to Finish

We had a really good day at the Berean office from the start at 9:00 am to the finish just before lunch.

Bill has been given the job of entering and is determined to learn this computer program. Below Joyce is reading a long letter while Jan is opening mail so fast her hand is a blur. 

Marvin, David and Kathy read letters. Some were so touching they read them out loud to us other workers. The heart of this part of the ministry is reading the request letters that come. Some of these are heart breaking, some are touching, some are funny and some are simple requests. 

Below Shirley is opening a request letter and behind Shirley hard at work applying labels is Jeanette. 

Below is Brad. I met him today for the first time. He came to the office to pick up studies for grading for his church. His church people got involved in grading and love doing it. Aunt Bernie use to take them to TEMCO for him to pick up but she is in the hospital so he drove out to us to get them directly. 

Our next job was to bring all the studies into this room for separating and stuffing envelopes. Each person grabs a pile and goes right to work. Have I ever mentioned how blessed we are with amazing volunteers? They truly ARE amazing. 

One of the not so fun jobs is sealing envelopes. Below Kathy is holding one of the 'likkers'. We all like our likker in this office as each week we seal hundreds of envelopes. 

Marie and her family are in Mexico this week so Bill grabbed the broom swept the office and collected all the garbage, all the things Marie does. A big thank you to both Marie and Bill. Some of us don't even see the mess (me) but evidently it bothers some people. Marvin was checking something on the computer. 

Just as we were leaving Evie and Randy stopped in to check out the Berean office and pick up studies. I was showing them around and found a box of 49 & 50s that hadn't been processed yet. They were going over to Marvin's house next so I sent that box with them to give to Marvin. He will want them processed and will make each one a completion certificate to send with the lessons for the inmate. We really did have a wonderful day from the start to the finish.

Thursday's 2 Workers

Roma and Edie were the volunteers today at the Berean office. Chuck would have come but we called to cancel him when we knew we were going to be finished by 10:15 am. The Bibles were labeled and loaded first.

 Then the few studies that came in today's mail was processed. Below Edie is turning down the thermostat. We do that before leaving the office to save on propane.

We had a good week, were able to process quite a few studies and over a hundred Bibles. Thankful for all the volunteers that came in this week Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.