Report on the Good and Evil Book Distribution Project

Report on the Good and Evil Book Distribution Project

(From the November-December 2010 Issue of NGJ Magazine)

No Greater Joy magazine had an article in the May-June 2010 issue titled “Sorry,” offering to send out the Good and Evil book for prison distribution at their cost. They indicated that the demand was high and they could not keep up with all the requests.

Our local church community has a 501(c)(3) nonprofit ministry called Lamb Services, Inc. LAMB stands for Love And Mercy Brethren. When this opportunity was presented to the Lamb board, it was agreed upon to send out a flyer informing our local church community of this opportunity. This informational notice was received with enthusiasm, and donations started to come in. Soon we had enough money to order approximately 500 books. As of this date, the Lord has provided funds to order approximately 2,000 Good and Evil books for prisoners.

The NGJ ministry has sent us about 180 names of prisoners in California who had requested a book, along with the names of a couple chaplains. We talked to these chaplains and learned that we could use an ink stamp on the inside cover informing them that these books were provided by Lamb Services, but not a sticky label. (Labels can be peeled off and rolled into a hard ball usable as a weapon.) We have enclosed a sample of a loose inserted page along with the ink stamp we use inside the book.

When our first order came in, several of our Lamb group met and put the address labels on Priority Mail envelopes, of which the postage cost us $4.90 each. Now we are sending them through the post office with a Media Mail envelope that costs $1.00, and the postage is $2.77. This saves us $1.13 per book, which in turn will allow us to purchase more books for distribution. When we met to prepare the books, we prayed that the Lord would prepare the hearts of the prisoners that would be receiving a book shortly. We also prayed for those who were not saved, that they would come to believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior; and for those who were believers but had backslidden, that they would see their error and walk in the light of the truth of God’s Word.

Some of us wanted to be able to directly hand the Good and Evil books to the prisoners, but we found that it is more efficient for chaplains to distribute them. We have been able to meet with several chaplains and hand-deliver the cases of books, saving on shipping costs and time. Some of them have in turn referred us to other chaplains.

We have also received many letters directly from prisoners, thank you letters and requests from prisoners who had seen another prisoner’s copy and wanted one for themselves. As we send out more books, the direct requests keep increasing. In the last couple of months we have been getting five letters a day from prisoners requesting a Good and Evil book, so we directly mail a book to them.

We are excited to see how the Lord continues to open doors to work with the chaplains as well as the direct prisoner requests. We feel that his book is a great way to get prisoners excited to read, study and apply God’s Word who otherwise would struggle to open a Bible and read it. This makes the Bible come alive with the visual aids. We are thankful to the Lord for all the donors who have supplied funds and time for this project. We are thankful that Michael Pearl and the entire No Greater Joy ministry has allowed us to help with some of the needs of those who are incarcerated in California. Most of all, we are thankful for our Savior Jesus Christ and His redeeming Blood!

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3).