Book Samaritan

Today, in our Summer of 7, we focused on books. I have been blessed to have been given a lot of homeschool curriculum both from my sister and from another family who is finishing up their homeschool journey soon. We loved looking through it and choosing the things that would work for our family and I've been hanging on to the rest, waiting for the right people to pass them along to. We also had a lot of books that we have finished up with that we needed to pass on to others, as well as tons of things I found from when I used to teach public school. Yikes. I found several crates of books and school things that I had forgotten about when we cleaned for our garage sale last month.

So, today, my sister and I loaded up the entire back of the minivan and still had one huge box that had to go in the front and headed north to Pawhuska, OK. Why Pawhuska you ask? Let me just tell you. There is an amazing ministry there called The Book Samaritan that I knew would put our books to good use. Per their website, "The Book Samaritan is a non profit organization that supplies homeschool materials to families the are unable to afford them." It is truly amazing the number of families they are able to bless each year. It is expensive to homeschool. No question. Add in lost jobs, illnesses, etc and it is enough to have some people sending their kids to public school out of sheer necessity.  The Book Samaritan receives letters from people that need help and does their best to fill the "orders" with curriculum that will meet their academic needs.

One of our friends, DT, lives in Pawhuska and introduced us to The Book Samaritan and it was an honor to get to help a little today. And I mean a little! The three of us spent two hours filling orders and got maybe 4 or 5 filled. It is HARD and gave me a huge respect and appreciation for all the work they do day in and day out. It was so fun to use some of the books I brought up there and send them right back out to people. As we worked, we prayed for the people we were filling books for and that God would guide us in choosing the right books for their needs. It was a great afternoon.

I told my sister I would "reward" her for working with me today by "letting" her be in my blog. HAHAHA. Quite the honor, right? Y'all give her some props for being a good sport about my whims. It was fun to hang out and get to serve together. I'm looking forward to doing it again soon!

Look at her...she is "as handy as a pocket in a shirt" sitting there organizing those books!