Spreading More Seeds
Friday and Saturday the biblical outreach printers “Bearing Precious Seed” from Milford Ohio visited Mt. Zion Community Church. We volunteered to assist in the assembly of printed Gospel booklets of John and Romans. Their church ministry is to print Bibles and Gospel booklets in many different languages when missionaries express a need. In past times our church has assisted in folding the covers, then stuffing the printed text inside the covers, and stapling them together before trimming and boxing the final product. In the past we have assembled the Scripture texts French, Portuguese, Korean, and Spanish as just a few examples. This time we were assembling two texts, but actually in three languages. The single language we assembled was in Spanish. It was the books of John and Romans. It is destined for South America.
The other language of John and Romans was assembled. Its destination is for the country of Malawi. Each booklet contained a dual side-by-side English translation and the language of Chichewa. Chichewa and English are the languages that are spoken in Malawi.
Our church was blessed to finish the rush orders for both languages. We finished the booklets needed to complete both orders for shipping. We assembled over 5,000 booklets of Scripture in Chichewa and over 7,000 Gospel texts in Spanish. The task was completed in record time. Often it is necessary to take a lunch break and finish the project after, but we were done by 1130 am, then went to lunch.
The difference was having extra hands. Our assistant Pastor had a boy’s teen group event Friday evening and breakfast for them Saturday morning after a sleepover. The extra hands were a real blessing. Most if not all of the young men were cheerful even after going to bed at 2:30 Saturday morning. Their youthful vigor and strength were greatly appreciated.
With the teen group there were about 40 people who made the task easier. The old adage “Many hands make light work” was certainly true. As we sat around the tables, we were able to chat with others of the congregation. I think it draws the people closer together.
I was surprised at the variety of food brought in for our pot luck lunch-break meal. I even baked some chocolate chip cookies for the affair. There was a fair amount of leftover baked goods saved to serve Sunday morning between our church service and Sunday school.