I billed it that way because it was! Held Friday and Saturday, November 3 and 4, at First Baptist-Marrero, across the river from New Orleans, this conference pulled together 30 volunteers from Louisiana and five other states. Leader Hope Ferguson e-mailed us her report on Wednesday. Following are the highlights.

Thirty-two churches from this area participated. Most were Anglo churches, 1 was Haitian, and 3 were Spanish. Twenty-seven of the churches are either starting or restarting their church libraries. Three schools participated.

Ninety-five individuals registered for the classes, including eleven pastors.

Get this: churches and businesses and individuals which contributed money or books or library supplies or some of all came from 17 states.

58 attended the class: Administration for beginning libraries.

21 attended: Classification and Cataloging for beginners.

29 went through the class on processing, circulation, and selection.

12 for Children and the Church Library.

14 Planning Promotion.

17 Reading Club Extravaganza

6 Space and Furnishings for Church Libraries

15 Collecting and promoting church history

5 Preserving Church History

6 Writing Church History

Baskets of blessings (information, gifts, promotional items, library supplies) were given to all 32 churches. Nearly 4,000 books were given to these new church libraries, with an average of 150 given to each one.

During the weekend, a brand new library was established at FBC Marrero and it was dedicated. Mobile shelving units were constructed onside and given to the library.

Conference leaders were Sue Berthelot of Gonzales, Mary Broussard of Denham Springs, and Cathy Smith of Shreveport. Also Sandra Fitts of Corinth, MS, Amy Gamble of Kingston, TN, and Bev League of Nashville.

Aren’t we blessed?

Financial donors included FBC Natchitoches and the Natchitoches Association, Evelyn Pockrass of Indianapolis, and the Elmore Baptist Association in Alabama. Corporate donors included Broadman & Holman, Brodart Books of Pennsylvania, KAPCO of Texas, Lifeway of Nashville, Moody Publishers of Chicago, SURPASS chuch library software of Georgia, and H.W.Wilson of New York. Books and other supplies came from Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Tennessee.

Isn’t Hope Ferguson a wonder!

Wednesday in our weekly pastors meeting, I asked the ministers to report on their participation in the library conference. Tony Bellow said, “I got a gift!” Charlie Dale reported that the ladies from his church returned home very excited about what they had learned. Kemp Johnson and Cipriano Stephens attended the class on ministering to children. “I was never very interested in ministering to children,” admitted this pastor. He is now. He learned how to present the gospel to children at various levels.

We’ll be bringing Hope Ferguson back this way in the future to check the progress of our library rebuilding and to learn what needs to be done next. Many of our churches are still meeting in temporary facilities and their new libraries will be as makeshift as everything else about their buildings.

Thank you, Hope.