A Letter From Burning Bush Mennonite Church

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About a year ago, our congregation first learned of the ministry of Lighthouse Publishing, and Loaves & Fishes magazine. Through a series of events, we were asked whether we would consider Lighthouse Publishing becoming a part of our church.

We learned to know Darold and Lavern Gingerich, and visited the Lighthouse facility in Pikeville, Tennessee. After discussion and prayer, we agreed to accept Lighthouse as a ministry of Burning Bush Mennonite Church. Today, Lighthouse Publishing is operating in a rented facility in our community in Bedford, Pennsylvania, and Lavern and his family have settled in here as well.

This has been a new and unique experience for our church, and we are still in the process of learning about the ministry. We are looking forward to the printing and mailing of the upcoming issue of Loaves & Fishes as an opportunity for our church family to get hands-on experience with the work of the ministry. We are aware that years of hard work, prayer, and cooperation have been invested in Lighthouse Publishing. Our hope is that, as we begin to participate, the vision of reaching prison inmates through literature will become our own. We also hope to involve other local churches in the packing and mailing process.

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After the Move

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New address: Lighthouse Publishing • PO Box 332 • Bedford, PA 15522

I am glad to say we made it through our move and are starting to get our heads above water again. The “endless” list of small things that go with settling into a new community can be overwhelming, but we’re really enjoying life here.

We have rented a building here in Bedford. The mail is being forwarded from our old address in TN to a PO Box. Seth Stoltzfus (treasurer) does most of the bookkeeping at his work office, but donations and deposits are processed here at the office. My dad and Rosanne (my sister) are now in Iowa and will continue to help process prisoner mail.

We have three offices here, including a nice big office for incoming mail and database management. My office is also very comfortable with enough room for two desks. (I am operating my own business out of the same office, and it’s working well.) The third office is a spare workstation and a handy place for storage.

The packing room is to the right (above) with two garage doors. It’s a great place for packing orders. There is also a small warehouse area to the far left where we can store inventory and the forklift. The large Loaves & Fishes mailings will be an adventure because of how small the packing room is. We’ll let you know how that goes when the time comes.

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Inspiring Talks With Chaplains…

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The time is nearing for us to say goodbye to all that is familiar and called home. Since the sale of the property it has been a scramble of packing, cleaning out corners, and trying to keep the office work current.

I have been calling our larger Loaves & Fishes distributors and getting some feedback, as well as setting some guidelines for the single subscriptions in the prisons. It is hard to keep up with the large amount of prisoners that are on the move, so we are making some changes which will curb the amount of new single subscriptions where there is a chaplain that is able to supply the books to the prisoners.

We really covet your prayers as we try to work through all of this. In spite of the challenges, it has been an exciting journey to call many chaplains and to hear their testimonies. They all seem to be genuinely grateful for Loaves & Fishes. Most of them ask if we could please send them more than what they’ve been getting.

Yesterday I talked with a volunteer prison chaplain who works in the Chicago area. He told me there are more than 10,000 people behind bars in that area, and the doors are open for more people to get involved in prison ministry. He is a big help in getting Loaves & Fishes into prison with a subscription of 2,700 copies.

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Issue 24 in Review

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Greetings from TN! This will probably be the last time I write a newsletter from my beloved state of Tennessee.

Everything is working out for our move to PA the end of this month. We’ve sold our building here and rented office and warehouse space in Bedford. We’ll tell you more about it next month.

The main thing I wanted to talk about is the next issue of Loaves & Fishes magazine. We have issue 24 in review, so it’s almost ready to print. The message of this issue is very dear to my heart and I am really excited about getting this issue into the prisons.

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