[Faith-talk] This is sad indeed

[debby phillips]

This is very sad to me.    Blessings,    Debby

 ---- Original Message ------
From: "Raymond Bishop" <rtbishop at sbcglobal.NET
Subject: [christianblindinstitute] Braille Center Closes in 
Arkansas
Date sent: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 21:09:02 -0600

A new mission Lutheran Braille Workers closes center in Bella 
Vista church
By Christie Storm In 28 years, volunteers at the Lutheran Braille 
Workers
center in Northwest Arkansas printed more than 51,000 books of 
the Bible for
the blind and visually impaired.  This month, the group is no 
more.  Advances
in technology for the blind have led to a decline in demand for 
Braille
Bibles and the ministry headquartered in Yucaipa, Calif., has 
been forced to
close several volunteer work centers around the country.  Four of 
six centers
in Arkansas were on the closure list, including the one operating 
out of
Bella Vista Lutheran Church.
For coordinator Marie Herr, it was a hard loss.  She started the 
only center
in Northwest Arkansas at Faith Lutheran Church in Bentonville 
almost three
decades ago.  The center moved to Bella Vista in 2007 and was 
abuzz with
activity each Tuesday from morning to night year-round.  
One-seventh of my
life has been spent in Braille, said the 87-year-old Herr, 
referring to the
one out of seven days she spends working on the Braille Bibles 
each week.
She discovered the Braille ministry while living in Texas and 
would carpool
with a group of women from her church to a work center once a 
month.  When
she moved to Bentonville, the women's group at her new church was 
looking
for a ministry to support and Herr suggested Lutheran Braille 
Workers.  The
volunteers began working in 1985.  The Rev.  Phillip M.  Pledger, 
president of
Lutheran Braille Workers, said closing the volunteer centers 
wasn't easy.
It's been very hard on everybody, he said.  It's not a pleasant 
or a welcome
change.  But it was inevitable with advances in technology, he 
said.  Our
Braille orders have plummeted over the last few years andI had a 
feeling it
was going to, but I never would have thought it would happen so 
quickly,
Pledger said.  Blind and visually impaired readers are 
increasingly turning
to electronic books, audio books and other media, which has 
forced the
organization to adapt, Pledger said.  The ministry is considering 
books of
the Bible via cartridges that fit into USB ports on computers and 
other
devices, he said, adding that they will also continue to supply 
the Braille
Bibles as long as there is a need.  Lutheran Braille Workers got 
its start in
1943.  Fred Graepp was a seminary student in the 1930s and was 
blinded in an
industrial accident.  Pledger said Graepp went back home to San 
Jose, Calif.,
and got involved with ministries for the blind.  During World War 
II, he
heard about the Nazis destroying Braille Bibles and wanted to 
send new ones
to German pastors.  Fred took it upon himself to transcribe the 
Bible back
into German Braille, Pledger said.  He put out an ad in one of 
our
denomination's magazines asking for volunteers who would learn 
German and
Braille to transcribe Bibles.  One of the volunteers was Helene 
Loeber.  She
was a remarkable person, Pledger said.  She got things done.  
Loeber recruited
women from her church and with the help of her brother, Norman, 
who
constructed a Braille press from the rollers from the family's 
ringer
washer, began to streamline the process.  Today, the organization 
has about
5,000 volunteers in centers across the United States.  They send 
books of the
Bible in 30 languages, free of charge, to the blind and visually 
impaired in
120 countries.  The text is embossed on zinc plates, which are 
fed through a
press to imprint the Braille onto both sides of a piece of paper.  
The
pagesare then collated and fixed in spiral binders.  A complete 
Bible
includes 37 volumes that take up 5 feet of shelf space.  A 
complete set costs
about $185 to produce - costs that are met by donations and money 
raised by
participating churches.  Each center is responsible for printing 
specific
books of the Bible.  The Bella Vista center produced Matthew in 
Spanish and
Estonian, Acts in English and French and a two-volume set of 
Jeremiah and
Lamentations in English.  Herr said volunteers learned to 
sight-read Braille
to ensure the pages were inserted correctly into the binders.
Over the years, about 60 volunteers printed more copies of Acts 
than any
other - 27,785.  Herr shared the statistics at an appreciation 
banquet held
for the volunteers in late October.  We've had some wonderful 
people with us
for many, many years, she said.  It's been very rewarding.  Even 
with the
center's closure, the volunteers weren't ready to give up their 
ministry.
Herr and others now volunteer at Trinity Lutheran Church in 
Freistatt, Mo.,
about 60 miles away.  Our whole objective is to bring Christ to 
those in
darkness, she said.
Work centers in Mountain Home, Searcy and Waldenburg, near 
Jonesboro, were
also on the closure list.  Two sites, First Lutheran Church in 
Hot Springs
and Christ Lutheran Church in Hot Springs Village, remain open.  
Pledger said
the two centers are very active and able to financially support 
the work.
Howard Graff has been volunteering at First Lutheran Church's 
center for
several years.  He said the church's center has about 52 
volunteers.  They
work Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout the year.  The center 
prints I Samuel,
I and II Kings, Luther's Small Catechism and John in Burmese and 
devotional
booklets.
We usually do about 300 a month, he said, adding thatthe center 
has three
Braille presses.  For Pledger, the changes in the organization 
have been
difficult, especially because he knows the volunteers are so 
committed.  Part
of our reluctance to believe this is happening is that there's a 
big
movement of people who love doing this, he said.  A lot of 
people, once they
get started they don't want to stop.  Pledger said he thinks 
there will be a
long-term demand for paper Braille books but perhaps not as much 
as in the
past.  He said one bright spot has been the increased demand for 
large-print
items, including copies of the Lutheran hymnal.  Electronic books 
may one day
take over, but he's not ready to give in.  I think eventually 
they'll be so
ubiquitous, people won't think of using a paper book but we're 
not there
just yet, he said.







Raymond Bishop, NV9B
Philippians 4:6-7


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