Greetings in the Precious Name of Jesus!
Just a note to let you know the blessings we are basking in here at Christian Concourse:
1) We are now shipping our large print hymn booklet, “Hymns of Our Redeemer,” that are being printed and bound by a printing company in Indiana. Having already gone through the first order of 500, we are working on the second shipment of 500 now.
2) The first shipment of our large print hymn booklet, “Favorite Hymns of Grace,” is on the way from the same company in Indiana. Both of these products are being professionally bound with glue, rather than the staples that other companies offered. Our concern is that the staples used commercially pose a slight risk of pricking them if someone runs their finger down the middle to help the booklet stay open. Obviously, glue poses no such danger. The ends of the staples we use here at Christian Concourse curl back into the paper negating the chance of snagging a finger on them.
3) Since the bulk of requests that we receive are for the two hymn booklets, we’ll let the printers do them and we will continue to produce the two scripture booklets, “Psalms of Comfort” and “The Love of God,” and our “Christian Christmas Carols“ booklets in our own small print shop.
NOTE: These nursing home ministry resources are going to volunteers and staff members of long-term care facilities throughout the United States. We get orders via email, U. S. mail and over the phone (we prefer phone calls). In case you do not already know, we mail these materials out at no charge because they are prepared especially for the residents of nursing homes, assisted living facilities, retirement homes, adult day care centers and for elderly and infirm who are shut-in at home. We would not ask them to pay for them. The volunteers and staff are a vital part of our supply chain. There is no way in our life-time that we would ever get to all the facilities that we mail resources to. Plus, if someone goes to all the trouble to find us and then communicate with us, we are reasonably assured that they really want and will use these nursing home ministry tools to share with the residents they serve.
4) We have a CD and DVD duplicator that burns five discs at a time. Both hymn booklets and the carol booklet have an instrumental CD and a vocal CD and a set of DVDs to go along with them. Altogether, that’s 13 discs to burn, label, and package to go out with the booklets as needed. Just as a side note, we produced all of the music and video material ourselves. There is no way we could have afforded a choir and musicians and recording studio and professional photographer and video editor to do it for us! As far as we are concerned, God showed us one step at a time how to produce the music and record the vocal tracks and shoot the footage for the nature scenes and edit the videos. It makes our heads swim to think about it all!
5) We are working toward starting our fifth video devotional, “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder.” This is the type of project that requires hours at a time of prayer and study and focus…often hard to come by.
6) A few years ago we published the first edition of a book called, “The Practice of Divine Light.” A second edition is needed. This is another task that requires hours at a time of prayer and study and focus.
Well, that’s the high spots, not to mention all the paperwork for the ministry, answering the phone, replying to emails, taking orders, filling and boxing up orders for materials, going to the post office, and working on our care package program to local facilities. Please know we certainly appreciate and welcome your prayers!
Love in Christ Jesus,
Jerry and Dar Johnson