“The RoseBouquet”

My business life is more of the same these days, so I have to look for the unusual experiences to have something interesting to share with you. For two Monday afternoons now, I have done something unusual.

As part of my work for Western Tract Mission, I have built, and maintain the website; http://WesternTractMission.org. (Just now I’m training Anna when she comes in, normally on Friday afternoons, and we have begun to re-vamp and update the whole site. Soon I should be able to leave whole sections of that work to her).

One part that has been coming along in fits and spurts when other work is caught up, is to set up a shopping cart on the site, so that visitors can order and pay for tracts right online, and the order can in most cases be filled the same or next day. I’m to the place where it is nearly ready, but I needed a rough count of how many of each tract we have in our warehouse basement. Since no one else can be spared for this work, I have taken it upon myself. Not wanting to walk the city streets at night, I decided to switch my Monday afternoon and evening agendas. So the last two Monday afternoons, as I said, I’ve been going down to the basement and counting tracts in the bins.

For some, there are literally, only a handful or two left. Those are considered to be out of print, but the text is still available on the website. For some of the older style tracts, I found, easily, thousands of them. Usually they are bundled by hundreds, so it was a matter of counting how many in a stack, and then multiplying by the number of stacks. That’s after I took time to level the stacks. (I’ve done 38 bins and have 14 left to go).

The director would like to phase out some of the older tracts that don’t seem to connect with readers any more, but there are a number that have some value, they just need a new, more modern look. So another assignment he has given me is to create fresh re-designs and updates on those tracts. I try to give one hour an afternoon to that.

It did occur to me yesterday though, that I ought to do something creative in the shopping cart and have a section for Special Bulk Deals, and try to move out large quantities of the out-dated tracts. They are free, except for postage. I know there are some countries in Africa where the people can read English, and they probably wouldn’t see the tracts as old-fashioned, but our mission doesn’t have the funds to pay for the expensive overseas shipping.

This morning I got to daydreaming about making some tract wallets, and then to encourage Christians to carry a small assortment in their purse or pocket to pass on to individuals as they meet them throughout their daily travels.

I’ll present these ideas at the staff prayer meeting tomorrow morning, but I would be curious to know what you folks think of these ideas. Are they too far-fetched? Have you seen them work somewhere? Would you want to help?