Dear Friends of Christian Concourse:
The year 2021 was a year of “digging in” as we sharpened our focus in continuing to supply materials, resources and tools for use by volunteers and staff to encourage the faith of their Christian residents and to present an invitation to non-Christian residents to consider putting their hopes in the work and person of Jesus Christ. As most of you know, all of our services and resources, access to our website, and delivery of all of our materials is provided, by God’s grace, free of charge, postage paid. Of course, the continuing threat posed by the flu and COVID-19 to our own health and the health of nursing home residents has significantly complicated this process, but Dar and I persist joyfully and energetically in our mission:
1) We are thankful for over 9000 unique visitors to our website last year. Most of our visitors are from the USA, but last year there were some that were mostly from Great Britain, Canada, Netherlands, Russia, Germany and Indonesia. We do not put any “hooks” in our site that might complicate their accessing and downloading the scores of free materials for long-term care ministry that are available there. The maintenance of our website is a primary activity in our ministry for the Lord.
2) In a small building in our backyard (which Jerry calls his “prayer room”) we run the two Risograph printers, collate, staple, fold and cut all the printed materials we produce and distribute for the ministry. Our means of distribution is two-fold: a) direct delivery to the front doors of local facilities; and b) delivery via U. S. Postal service for use by long-term care residents all over the USA.
3) This past year we have continued to step up our “Care Package Program” for individuals in long-term care. A significant portion of our available funds for nursing home ministry has gone to purchasing items like giant-print and large-print whole Bibles and New Testaments and Gospels of John, dolls, lap robes, greeting cards, socks, CD players, DVD players with attached screens, colored pencils, and giant print Christian word search books. This activity has taken a significant amount of time and effort to order and distribute these items to several facilities in our area.
4) In 2021 we completed the second DVD in the three DVD series we call, “Praise to Our Redeemer.” These DVDs use the vocal and instrumental music we have produced for the hymns in our hymnbook, “Hymns of Our Redeemer.” The visuals of these DVDs are of God’s natural creation which we videographed and photographed. We also began production and editing of the third (and last) DVD in this series. The visual theme for this last DVD is the seashore. These videos are a great Christian devotional tool prepared expressly for the elderly and infirm.
Though we are not the best record keepers in the world (having the time and energy is a big problem) we do feel you, our supporters, deserve to have an understanding of exactly what you support. You have been so kind to us and to the dear ones we minister too! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!
Grace and Peace and Love in Christ,
P.S. We should mention, you may find it interesting if you browsed some of the testimonials we have received from volunteers and care facility staff who are using our materials: click here.