Behind the Scenes

We hope that you enjoy receiving your supply of 30 FREE Gospel tracts each month. We pray that each and every tract we send is handed out, read and used by God to plant a seed of faith into the person who received it.

I thought you might be interested to know what goes into producing a mailing of the tract

Table 1

Packing the tracts!

club. Due to the use of bulk mail it takes one to three weeks for the tracts to reach places around the country once we put them in the mail. Our goal is to have them arrive by the first of each month. We general packaged the tract club envelopes on the first Monday of each month and then mail them during the next week. In order to package the envelopes, we first write and proof a letter. Normally this is done about two weeks in advance of the mailing. The letter is printed online to a FedEx Kinkos in the Dallas metroplex where Roy picks up the letters and then folds them for us.

Table 2

Having fun packing tracts!

The letter provides information about each tract that is included in the mailing. The tracts are mostly designed by Bezeugen Ministries, however, we also use tracts from those made by One Million Tracts. Typically we put three different tracts in each envelope. Sometimes there might be four tracts. With three tracts then each envelope would have ten of each of the three. With four tracts, then there would be two that have five each.

We have a team of people including Steve, Nita, Jackeye, Ellen, and Mande who count the tracts into stacks of ten. Steve has designed a box to hold the counted tracts and then transport them to my house on the night of the packaging. Until more of these boxes are done, we are also able to pre-count tracts back into the boxes that they are shipped to us in. Generally we are ordered tracts at least a month before the First Monday that they would be packaged to give time to pack them.

The envelopes have historically been printed by my wife. That is a tireless job of feeding stacks of 15-20 envelopes into the printer. Even with a new printer that has already been replaced once this year under warranty, it frequently jams causing delays and frustration. Our plan is to start ordering the envelopes already printed!

Finally the first Monday rolls around. We get together at 6:30 PM for food and fellowship. At 7PM we clear the tables and get to work. Depending how many people we have, we set up assembly lines. The first person takes a letter, and puts a stack of tracts on it. The next person puts two more stacks of the counted tracts on it. The next person folds over the letter and puts it in the envelope. The next person seals the envelope. And finally a label is placed on the envelope. The steps of the assembly line are adjusted based on the speed of each person and to keep things flowing smoothly. In addition to those who help count the tracts and fold the letters we also have regular help stuffing envelopes from Deb, Ellen, Ramona, Brendan, and others!

On January 3rd, we had 13 helpers (including first time helpers: Bill, Bobby, Amy and Ann)! With this we had four assembly lines going simultaneously. I worked in the background restocking the letters, envelopes and stacks of tracts to keep the others moving.

After the tracts are in envelopes they are put into bulk mailing trays with about 100 envelopes per tray. These are taken to the post office in Denton, Texas for mailing.

About 10 percent of our members are in Canada. Without the help of Ruth and Eldon we would not be able to support this. If we mail the envelope from the US, the postage is high and we have to fill out a customs form for each one. To solve this problem, we send a box of tracts to Ruth and Eldon. They assemble envelopes in a similar way and then mail them within the country.

One final note. A big thanks to Tom and Michele who also help with the tract club. When a new member enrolls on the web site, their address is sent to Tom and Michele. They send out a welcome pack which includes a letter about the club and 15 tracts to get the person started. Since this letter goes out first class, we expect a new member would hear from us within a week of enrolling online.

Many thanks to all those that help with these mailings.

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