“Home Is Where The Heart Is”
Seeing images of desperate refugees on our TV screens reminds us that we should all have a home. Our hearts especially go out to the children, fleeing with nothing, frightened and exhausted.
“Home is where the heart is” goes the famous saying. Home should be a place where we are safe, living with people we care for and who care for us, where we can rest. This holds true whether we live in an urban flat, a country castle, or something in between.
Whatever our situation is on earth, as Christians we have the assurance of a heavenly home where we are with the Lord forever – at rest, safe and loved. Thrilling! We need to share this good news now, while we can, because one day it will be too late. We can’t take our collections, our photos or our family heirlooms with us, but we can build up treasures for ourselves in heaven while we wait for Jesus to come or call us . . . let’s make sure our heart is where our home is!
Print on Demand in Kenya
I have been exploring the possibility of printing ‘I Want to Be an Airline Pilot’ (for 8-11s) and ‘The City Kid’ (for young adults) in Kenya. As we have found out, shipping books to Africa is fraught with difficulties and expense. Printing locally might solve the problem and make the whole process more economical. In turn this would mean we would be able to get our books to many more children in places where reading material (and especially Christian books) is highly valued. I’m waiting for a quote with a Christian organisation in Kenya. Please pray with us for this potentially exciting new development. We already have a donation for this project, and an NGO in Nairobi desperate for books! It looks like the Lord is already making a way, which is simply fabulous news, but I’d very much value your prayers because this is totally new territory for me.
Eleven Scary Statistics
Ali Campbell from “The Resource”, who give support and advice to children’s and youth workers, recently checked out some statistics. Anyone who cares about young people should read them. Here’s one: 72% of Christians in the UK came to faith before they were 20 years old. Here’s another: only half of children brought up by Christian parents keep following for themselves. You can read all the details here: Statistics on Children in the Church Suffice it to say, we need to do everything we can to reach the children on our hearts NOW, while they are young. We can’t sit back and do nothing. 
Most schools will still accept Christian books for their libraries, but many don’t have any. Few churches give Christian books to the children who go to their Sunday School, clubs and camps. Could you think of a way to get Christian books for children into your local library, school or church? We do a church/charity discount. Please let me know if I can help.
Thank you
On a much lighter note, thank you to all who responded so positively to last month’s Five Reasons to Visit Christian Bookshops. To respond to a common query, yes, by the time we’ve taken into account the cost of production and distribution, we do only make a small percentage of each sale through bookshops, and our direct sales keep us going . . . but the bookshops help us in our aim to reach as many children as possible, they do a fab, and we’re delighted to support their ministry. Let us know what you value about yours!
We Sold Out!
More fantastic news – back in July the Keswick Convention bookshop ordered a few of our books . . . 3 of the titles completely sold out! Thank you so much to all who prayed for good sales! Now we need to keep praying for the children who have read or will be reading our books. What an awesome privilege we have, to pray to our Father in heaven, who hears us and delights to answer! 🙂
The new Write for a Reason course starts on 21st September
I run this course is for unpublished writers who write Christian novels for 8-14s -ish – more details here: Read the Course Details Here You can also read testimonials from previous students who have completed the course on the Write for a Reason website. Please pass on to anyone you know who might be interested!
Phew – there’s always so much to share! Thank you for reading this far – I hope I haven’t bored you! With grateful thanks for you support, as always,
Janet
P.S. If you enjoyed this newsletter, would you be kind enough to forward it to one or two people who might be interested? I will also put it on facebook, so if you come over to the Dernier facebook page you can share it with your friends!