Two New Volunteers

We had a larger amount of mail than we have been getting today and I thought we were going to be short handed but instead we were pleasantly surprised to find 2 new volunteers today. Karl and Benj arrived. They both work at Caterpillar and Caterpillar gives their employees a morning off to do charity work. Karl was put right to work opening the mail. Notice he is moving 3 of the piles over to Shirley. He wasn't giving Shirley more work he was just making room to open the pile he had.

 This is actually Benj's second time here so today we had him read letters. 

 Chuck and Marvin were put to work at the back table applying labels to envelopes while mom, Shirley, Karl, Joyce, Vonnie and Glenna opened the studies. 

 As soon as all the studies were opened the group went into the other room where Vonnie lined everyone out stuffing the next study into an envelope. 

 Mom and Shirley were left in the computer room as they were processing the  intermediate studies and we don't allow those to leave the room. We don't want them mixed up with the basic studies. Shirley knows how to process them correctly and mom was helping her. 

 The next job was to wrap Bibles and today we had 60 Bible requests. 

One funny request happened. On a lot of the request letters the hand writing is hard to read. I was struggling with one of them trying to figure out the last name. The first name was obviously John but it looked like John's last name was Jones but I just wasn't sure. I opened the letter and saw John May. He had no number and I gave that one to Marvin telling him. I can't send this man a Bible, his last name doesn't match what is on the envelope.  Marvin looked at the letter and started laughing. The May was him asking if he may have a Bible. We were done by noon and enjoyed lunch while visiting with each other. We kept Karl and Benj so busy they both agreed to come back at least 1 more time this year. 

Two Tuesdays

I never got the blog posted from last Tuesday and that must be included here as we had a special treat. Kathy and Dave provided the lunch. Kathy made all kinds of goodies to go with the fresh baked hot pizza.  Everyone that stayed for lunch raved over her peach blueberry dessert.

 We had a decent mail day and ended up sending out quite a few Bibles. Below Kathy, Dave and Marvin are working on the request letters. 

Below Chuck is working on labeling the Bibles going out while Shirley (behind Chuck is working on stuffing the intermediate studies and Vonnie and Glenna are stuffing and sealing the basic studies. 

 Robin kept everyone busy. 

  The next few pictures were taken today Nov 13th. We had a small mail day as yesterday the post office was closed for the Veterans Day holiday. We only had 31 Bible requests. Marvin and Chuck are labeling the Bibles going out today while Glenna, Vonnie and Shirley work on stuffing and sealing studies. 

 Kathy finished her work in the other room writing letters,  and came in to help with the Bibles. 

We were done well before noon today and had plenty of time to visit with each other while eating lunch. This work is well worth doing and actually doesn't seem like work at all when it can be done with so many willing wonderful volunteers.

New Copy Machine

Bill Schick got the new (to us) copy machine to the Berean office and got it up and running.  He actually FIXED it himself and it RUNS. The other part of this story is that first he called a 'real' repair man and that man told him it couldn't be repaired. Well Bill is from Mexico where of course things can be repaired. He found the problem and fixed it.

Robin kept that machine running all morning trying to catch up from the last 2 weeks. We had another light mail day but that gave us time to get other important things done this week. Below the mail is getting opened.

 We were missing some of our usual readers so Joyce and Jan were asked to fill in that spot. Below Shirley and Mom are explaining to Joyce that this job not that hard and she will be fine. 

 Jan is reading a letter to Kathy. 

Bill arrived with some supplies. We found out we were completely out of sleeves, the sleeves that we put the Bibles in.  Diane was called and more are now ordered. 

 Below are the 4 readers of the day. Leila, Joyce, Jan and Kathy.

 Below the ladies are stamping envelopes. There always seems to be plenty to keep everyone busy at this office and we are thrilled with how many volunteers show up to help.

Lots to be thankful for today but the BIG thing to be thankful for was a working copier. 

Light Mail

We had a light mail day today. Believe it or not it is because of Columbus Day holiday. When we have a holiday that falls on a Monday, it doesn't hit 6 days later, it hits the next week.  Even though it was a light day we had plenty to do.

 We ran out of Bibles but Bill told us where to find them, Chuck drove to Hoerr's met Johnny Hoerr, got Bibles and brought them back to the Berean office for wrapping.

By the time everything was done it was almost noon. We enjoyed a nice meal and plenty of fellowship together.  Bill was heading down to Springfield, IL with a group of Romanians who were here to learn about the prison ministry.  He called to report that he was able to get a copy machine donated  to Berean. It wasn't working but he was able to get it up and working. It is a big heavy machine and he still needs to get transport for it but hopefully it will be here next Tuesday. That is another answered prayer.

Prayer Requests

A few weeks ago at this office we were struggling with the postage machine and Robin asked if I would tell the Roanoke church that we needed stamps. My response was, "no we should just pray for stamps." This morning on the walk Ruth came with a bag full of stamps, over 3000 of them.  When I walked in the Berean office Robin was already hard at work. When I showed her the stamps she could hardly believe her eyes.

What a blessing, not just for the stamps but such a dramatic answer to prayer.  A BIG BIG thank you to who ever donated stamps for this program. We hate to make a prisoner wait for his study or graders wait to grade because of not having the postage. We also ran out of Bibles well last week Bill walked in with the report the Bibles we use went on sale AGAIN and he ordered 5000 of them at $5.00 each. Another answer to prayer. It is hard not to smile when working here. We have another prayer request, our copier, the one that shoots out 130 copies a minute, the one that works like a mimeograph machine has officially died.  It has served us well for many many years and spit out millions (literately) of copies.  This is a very needed piece of equipment. It has been the cheapest way to make copies but also by far the fastest way. We must have something fast because of the thousands of copies that need to be made each week. We ask for prayers that the right machine could be found and that we can afford it. We had a good group of volunteers today helping. Everyone willingly went right to work at what ever needed doing.

I'm always amazed at how much work gets done at this office and gets done joyfully. 

Another Fun Filled Work Day

We had a really good day at the Berean office. We were so glad to welcome back David from his long hospital stay.

Vonnie brought a guest today. Her grand daughter came in to say hello to all of us old folks. Bill brought the mail today. He stayed to work on the copy machine which is not working. 

We had a lot of mail but also a lot of visiting to do while the mail was opened. 

 It was such a joy to be working with these amazing volunteers. 

 Below Robin had everyone busy stuffing envelopes. 

 It was a lot of work but many hands made it seem light and the time just flew by. 

 The Bible requests were entered and we were able to get them all out today. Mark brought in a laptop so he and Marvin worked on getting that to work with our other two. Sure am thankful for these to men who keep the computers running properly. 

Please pray that we can either get our copy machine fixed or replaced. We will run out of studies soon. That machine puts out over 100 copies a minute and we go through hundreds of copies each day. Today we mailed out over 400 envelopes stuffed with 4 studies and a postage paid envelope. That was over 1600 sheets of paper and each and every piece of paper had a study printed on BOTH sides. We will be taking OVER 400 studies to church for grading tomorrow evening so if anyone WANTS to grade there is now an abundance needing to be graded.