July 2012 Newsletter

Welcome to the July 2012 newsletter from

Dernier Publishing!

They're not leeks . . . are they triffids? :-)

Remember this photo from last month (left)? I thought it was leeks that had been planted in the field opposite our house . . . haha, well I was quite wrong, it is in fact maize and boy have the plants shot up - my dog is only small but you get an idea of the scale (below)

 . . . which makes my recent musings on children growing up so quickly seem even more relevant! ( If you missed the musings – scroll down to entry 12^th June 2012.)

 

Anyone else read 'The Day of the Triffids' by John Wyndham? The maize plants look a lot like I imagine triffids to be, and when there's a bit of a breeze they 'rattle' like triffids too, although they don't get up and walk! It's surprising how much comes back to you from books you have read - let's make sure the kids we love have exciting, inspiring Christian books to read so that in the future they will have lots of good things to remember :-)

Church School Awards

The annual Church School Awards took place in London last month – it was a privilege to be there and to present three of the awards. I met television presenter Kirsten O'Brien and some amazing pupils and teachers from church schools all over the country, who do the most amazing job. I also met some great people who work in education and have been put in touch with the National Children's Adviser for all the Church of England schools in the UK, with a view to her recommending our books toschools. She now has a copy of all our books - please pray!

 

Encouraging news!

If you follow us on facebook you will know that all our books are for sale at the Keswick Bible Convention, in the bookshop! Author Mary Weeks Millard (right) returned home from the first week having had an excellent time. She writes, “I did have a great encouragement. We went to church in Ambleside and met a young family. Books came up in the conversation and the mum told me that her six-year-old daughter had just had a birthday and was given this wonderful book called The Birthday Shoes! When she found out that I had written it she began to cry, and told me the book had really touched her when she read it to her daughter, and she was just amazed to have met me 'by coincidence!'” Isn't that so encouraging! Please do keep praying for all the children and their families who receive our books as gifts. And if you have birthdays coming up, why not buy a book or two? Who knows what seeds you may be sowing? Visit your local bookshop, or buy p+p free from www.dernierpublishing.com/youthf.php

 

More great news!

Author Eleanor Watkins (right) has also been out and about! She writes, “We visited the Lighthouse bookshop and coffee shop in Cupar, Fife for lunch today and were pleased to see Dernier books on the shelves. The lady in charge met Janet at CRT [Christian Resources Together] this year and says the Beech Bank Girls books are selling really well.” The Lord is at work! But don't stop praying because . . .

There's still so much more to do

Ayeisha George, who stocks some of our books in her bookshop in The Gambia, was also away recently. She writes, “We have had a very restful time in Senegal and are back in The Gambia now since last Tuesday. Just before leaving, I was able to visit a couple of villages under the sponsorship project of Inter Senegal Mission. In one of the villages I saw several children crowding over one children's story book. Its a pity that Mary's books are not yet translated into French or am I wrong? It will be nice to get some copies for distribution or sale in Senegal. Do let me know about this possibility. I have visited one of the Christian bookshops in Dakar (Bibliotheque Dieu a Parlé) and that would be a good outlet.”
My initial reaction was hopelessness in the face of such enormous need – we are so small - what can we do? We just about have enough money coming in for day to day needs, but nothing extra. There are so many more children we could reach with the “message in a story” if we could translate into other languages. It would take a miracle though! As I sighed and prayed over this dilemma, I remembered the Lord is able to do miracles. As we sung in church on Sunday, Our God is a great big God! If I think of how far we have already come, we have already witnessed a miracle, with books for sale not only all over the UK but in a few shops abroad too. A few years ago, that seemed like an impossible dream!

It still feels like a big gulp, but please keep praying with me that one day we will be able to reach children from many more peoples and nations - every child deserves to be able to read good Christian books in a language they can at least understand.

 

Prayer – just do it! booklets

Don't forget our 'Prayer – just do it!' booklets, if your prayer life needs a bit of a boost: www.dernierpublishing.com/prayer.php

And I've run out of room! Still, August's not far off, so not long until I can regale you with the next installment in our exciting adventure – please do stick with us! :-)

 

With love to you all,

Janet

P.S. The photo is of me in the triffid field :-)

P.P.S. Where have you seen our books? Free book for the best photo!

Trials

Life is a battle. Nothing new there, we all know that to be true – some people seem to be more cushioned than others, but nobody is exempt from trials and difficulties.

Since the fall of Adam and Eve, every one of us has been battling against the elements and against the temptations of our own evil desires, which the enemy at times seems to willfully and skillfully put in our path. It's not hard to trip us up, is it? Someone knows all our weak points - better than we do, possibly. And then there are the terrible events and day to day problems that happen to us over the course of our lives over which we have no control. Bereavement, rejection, abuse, natural disasters of many sorts (I'm talking globally here) and of course the final enemy, death, which not one of us can cheat. How many of us have not known the crushing ache of the soul because someone we love has died, rejected us, or left us for someone else? How many of us have not been in a dark tunnel of some sort, desperately seeking light at the other end, holding on to nothing but the hope that we need to keep living?

 

If it was not for the incredible love of God, none of us would, or could, survive. If He decided to withhold the rain or the sun from us, or send a plague, or stopped lifting us up when we fall, we would have no hope. If our Father in heaven had not sent his only Son, Jesus, to take on himself our sins and take the punishment that should have been ours, we would be dead even though we are alive. There would be no hope for us.

But because of God's love and his justice, demonstrated at the cross, and because of his power shown at the resurrection, and because light shines in the darkness and the darkness can never put it out, we can now live in peace – not just peace with God, but we can know the peace of God. We even have His Spirit in our lives as a guarantee of our inheritance! Death to life. Despair to hope. We can now receive comfort, guidance, joy and forgiveness, and start to understand the true meaning of love. But even then, there is still a battle to be faced, daily.

 

So what does all this have to do with Dernier Publishing, you might be asking yourself? :-) Fair question! Well, it was a daily kind of trial that made me think of writing this blog – concerning the simple (hehe) task of sending some boxes of books to IVP, who are running the Keswick Bible Convention bookshop. Peanuts really, in the whole scheme of things, but nonetheless a trial. I have previously used Royal Mail to send boxes of books, but with the recent increase in cost, I looked into alternatives. To cut a long story short, we now have an account with City Link, but too late to send the books for Keswick. So I drove the books to Nottingham myself, which meant a long drive there and back, battling sudden downpours of rain, spray and poor visibility, an 'incident' on the A52 going into Nottingham (standstill), a confusing google map, the slip road to the M1 being closed coming home, a flooded road in Derby (diversion) and one exhausted me by the time I got back to Kent.

Compared to having your house flooded, seeing your family hacked to pieces by Boko Haram extremists, facing famine and losing your children one after another to preventable diseases, this doesn't reach high up the scale. But it's nonetheless a battle. Another headache we have been facing is our new PO Box – don't let me start on that one! (Apologies to anyone who has sent us mail recently.)

So to cut to the chase, we have to keep looking up daily, keep praying, keep on keeping on, because if we did stop, it really would be a disaster . . because we have a job to do; we need to get our books out to the children who might not otherwise know that they can look up. May the Lord be gracious to us and keep fighting our battles with us and for us. As King Asa prayed when faced with an army way too big for him to deal with, 'There is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty.' Amen to that.