ENCODING BOOKS

Over the years, 4WRD donated more than 60,000 books to WAAST Library and its many extension schools. Glenna, I, and Ruthie Oberg spent 2 weeks encoding nearly 3,000 records into the database. I also demonstrated books repair to one of the library staff repairing around 200 books. Leaving enough glue to repair another thousand or so. What I most remember about the visit is the closeness our sleeping quarters were to the karaoke bar with the very loud music that went on and on and on. We left at least 3,000 more books needing to be encoded.

Setting up the library at Al-Masih Training Center

What a great time working with missionaries Scott and LaVonna Ennis. The kind of missionaries that preach, teach, start a Bible school, have medical outreaches, mentor pastors, oversee visiting teams, etc., etc. We helped them catalog, encode, process, arrange, and shelve at least 1,800 items. It almost matched the efficiency of an assembly line. With the exception of losing electricity from time to time and struggling with the ink disappearing from the labels. Heat or the adhesive from tape? Not sure we solved that before leaving.

4WRD helped conduct a seminar for 26 librarians from a wide range of theological Bible schools. Gary wore himself out doing morning and afternoon sessions and answering questions. What a joy to have attendees participating and interacting and helping each other. Many comments on the session “The Theology of Librarianship”. This also opened an opportunity for a shared container of 30,000 books to be divided among the schools about 18 months later.

Theological Library Seminar and workshop on database creation

Glenna and I celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary with 16 librarians from 11 schools. The students provided the cake! The missionary the flowers! Hundreds of books were encoded and processed into the database. The session on book repair showed great craftmanship and patience. A few personal Bibles got repaired and dozens of library books. Stable electricity and intermittent internet slowed down the results. Shopping for labels is a frustrating task when needing 3 or 4,000 identical labels. Evangel Bible College is blessed with a great history, a very good library, and a future in God’s hands.

Making contact and a quick tour

With the help of Al Pulis, Glenna and I made a whirlwind tour of a number of Bible schools that we shipped books to and were planning to help. We also met with several personnel associated with Assemblies of God education in Tanzania. This provided direction for future shipments. 4WRD’s total number of books shipped to the Tanzanian Assemblies of God is over 130,000 books for the 60+ church planting schools, the 4 years schools, the MA schools, and the doctoral school. This is a church that plants more churches each year than the number of pastors being trained.

Presentation on Role of Libraries in Theological Education

4WRD provided 2 books to every attendee at the Africa Pentecostal Theological Education Association meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. At the same meeting, Gary gave a presentation on the role of the library in theological education. The basic response from attendees was, “Help us get more books”.

Troubleshooting the library database system

Glenna and I spent 3 weeks in Pago Pago, American Samoa at the Samoa Leadership Bible College. Talk about hospitality, food, scenery, and opportunities. Many thanks to Megan Fiti, President Della Fuimaono, Linda, Tino, Olloz and so many others. What a place. While Glenna figured out the system they used and got the computers set up to network, I touched all the books and weeded out those that were unnecessary to the curriculum, worn out copies, and duplicates. This reduced the library by about 2,000 copies. I also repaired hundreds of books. Talked theology and life experience with Tino while eating snack upon snack. I think the final tally came to 2,200 books processed with about 4,000 to go. Tino and Olloz came up with authors and titles for 4WRD to locate and ship later. 4WRD has 2 pallets of books waiting to ship as we are still finding more and working on some needed periodicals. This will more than make up for the 2,000 books weeded.

2025 Addis Bible College

One of the top ten A/G libraries visited and a top tier librarian to boot! Discussed the integration of the library into the classroom with teachers. Gave some research models for the graduate students. Mostly, I enjoyed exploring the library and talking with Firaol the librarian. Very hard to ship into landlocked Ethiopia.

Mwanza Christian College

Still hard to imagine a city of over a million people and an airport with a waiting room that might seat 70. Harder to imagine? Me on the shores of Lake Victoria. God certainly surprised me with all the places we visited. Glenna and I came to provide an assessment of the library. We accomplished that end. But we also helped the librarian put the entire library back into Dewey Decimal order. For some reason when they moved the library into the new space, they did it when the librarian was on vacation! But handling almost every book gave me an opportunity to (with Glenna acting as a stenographer), list titles they needed, or items replaced that were worn out. I forgot the book repair glue on this trip! Counted 17 eagles in one tree, 4 mongoose in the yard, sun birds, owls, and large insects! Tanzania has more than twice the number of bird species as the Ozarks. Glad for the ceiling fan at night. About 2,500 books are on their way to this school in Tanzania.

One of the weak links in theological education in Africa is getting French written resources into the Bible school libraries. After visiting WAAST (West Africa Advanced School of Theology) in Togo last year, I am burdened to help get some of the latest and best French books in to these strategically located schools that reach a population of over 290 million Africans. You will hear more of this as the year goes on.

Our ongoing service of providing books for missionaries, national pastors, and Bible schools means that we are constantly shipping a few books here and a few more books there. You can find where we are working and shipping in our archived newsletters.