Progress in Luther's Sermons - And African Mission News

Janie Sullivan now has Volume V, the last of the Gospel sermons, and is getting it ready for Amazon print books and Kindle e-books.

Virginia Roberts has already prepared edits for Volume VI, so I am getting that done during Christmas lay-offs. As I told the English class, "They call it vacation, but there is no pay, so I call it being laid off." I enjoy the break, once grading is done.

In fact, Virginia has already started Volume VII edits. The last three volumes are the Epistle sermons - and they soar too.

God willing, we can be done with the set and the Gems volume in early 2018, far ahead of my best expectations - thanks to the help of so many. Norma Boeckler has the art ready before the editing is done. How so? She looked up a complete set of sermons in PDF, so she can figure out the layout of each one.

 The total cost for all of the above - including shipping to the missionary - is $90.
We already have the $100 for the mailbox to Africa.

Africa News
As I wrote before, there is a great need for Luther books in the African seminaries.

We already received a donation for the shipping cost of the first books - $100 for a mailbox, 20 pounds. By chance we have free shipping via the missionary's daughter.

So I have ordered a new set of books sent so those books can go to a second seminary fairly soon. The shipping is already paid for, thanks to that previous gift.

If you want to give toward the African seminary book fund, make out the check to Bethany Lutheran Church, 1104 Letha Drive, Springdale, 72762. We have an IRS tax number as a church and are incorporated, thanks to attorney Glen Kotten.

Some people use PayPal, so I transfer stipulated gifts to the church fund. PayPal allows a memo on funds sent, so that is an easy way to route the gift. Dr. Lito Cruz had us get that started, and it is handy for a lot of uses, such as paying for the mailbox, which is sent from St. Louis.

One reader is sending six copies of each Luther volume as Christmas gifts. My thinking goes like this - the readers are the best distributors, since the big money church publishers boycott me. The important part is getting people to read Luther again, so giving Luther books is one way to do that, and the cost is very low.

In the near future, the Gems from Luther's Sermons, in full color, will be available as a great introduction to the best of Luther.

Lutheran Books for African Missions

 Graphic by Norma A. Boeckler
This is her author's page on Amazon.

We have known a Missouri Synod missionary for 25 years. He worked in Africa and has gone back there, but has health problems now. We have often talked about using Lutheran books.

I keep books in the our fleet of cars (a 1994 Lincoln Town Car and a 2002 Voyager). When the opportunity arises, I give them to interested people. Our biggest day included giving 10 books away at the doctor's office - Creation Gardening. I mentioned to our friend how inexpensive Luther's Sermons are, so we discussed the need for Luther's books in African seminaries.

One copy of every book title (black and white, some are color only) costs $90 at the author's price. We can ship that collection of books to Africa for $95 in a flat rate box. Note that glitches in publication caused some titles to be listed as incomplete or not available. So far, Luther's Sermons are available volumes 1-4.

Compare this to the current price of a textbook in college -
English Grammar - $160 for one book.
Mathematics - $200 for one book.

Gregory L. Jackson Author's Page

Money donated for this will go into a designated account for Bethany Lutheran Church. Thanks to our attorney, Glen Kotten, we have incorporated with a new IRS tax number.

We are starting slowly to see how this works. I am giving permission to the world missions to translate the books without any fees or permissions. The whole plan has consisted in getting Luther's Biblical doctrine recognized and taught again. The synods are not up to the task.