In August a long-time friend from Los Angeles emailed, “Do you know where my friend Sandra can get Bibles in Croatian and Slovakian? Even Gospel tracts might work as well. Sandra wants to take them with her on a trip next month.”
Although we have nothing to offer in Slovakian, Betty and I still have an under-the-bed storage container at our house filled with small quantities of bilingual “Four Spiritual Laws” tracts in 32 languages,* including Croatian. These are “leftovers” from when our Cru Resources office downsized a couple of years ago. Our office no longer has the equipment or the personnel to produce these foreign languages tracts. The booklets are not regular inventory items, and we do not charge any fee for these leftovers. But we are happy to make them available for simply the cost of mailing them to those who inquire.
Betty contacted Sandra and agreed to mail her twenty of the bilingual Croatian/English gospel booklets. After a few days delay in getting them out the door, Betty emailed this update to Sandra.
Sandra, I was not able to work my schedule to get to the post office here in GA as I had planned. So, I took the booklets with me on my drive up to TN to see my mother (four hours away). When I arrived in my little hometown, before heading out to my mother’s house, I parked at the town square and stepped into the post office to mail the booklets. As I filled out the address label, I wondered if the postal clerk might be suspicious about the fact that my return address was listed as GA rather than TN. So, I explained to the clerk that while I live in Georgia, I was visiting my mother who lives in McMinnville. And I identified the contents of the little box.
The lady took a closer look at the label. “Hmm?? Larry and Betty Barr. I’ve heard that name before.” After a couple of seconds, she added, “I attend a church just a couple of blocks up on Main Street.”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “My husband and I are staff members with Campus Crusade for Christ, now known as Cru. Lila Rose Denton’s Sunday School class from your church supported us in ministry for many years before her death.”
The postal clerk’s face lit up, and she reached over the counter and held out her hand to shake mine. “That’s my Sunday School class now!” she smiled. She was thrilled to have a small part in helping to get those tracts to you. Now, several other people will be praying for you as you carefully distribute the booklets.
After hearing this “rest of the story” footnote, Sandra responded. “Thank you so much for sending me the packet to be taken overseas. They arrived today and I am so pleased with them. My sister and I will pray over them . . . for them to be given to the hands that will receive them and be transformed by the renewing of His Spirit. – – – God and His miraculous ways! One can only marvel at His wondrous handiwork and how He interweaves our lives together. Thank you and the postal clerk for your prayers. We leave Monday (September 9th) on God’s mission.”
Please join us in praying that God will bless Sandra’s efforts to reach others for Christ. And if you would be interested in acquiring some bilingual Four Spiritual Laws in any of the languages listed below, please feel free to email us: [email protected] or [email protected].
* Available languages: Armenian, Burmese, Cambodian, Cebuano, Chinese Simplified, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, French, French (special edition), Hebrew, Hmong Blue, Hungarian, Indonesian, Karen, Laotian, Lahu, Latvian, Lugandan, Nepali, Oromo, Romanian, Serbian, Swedish, Thai, Tamil, Tongan, Tswana, Turkish, Vietnamese
