c. 2007 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) It’s an effort to send more than 35,000 boxes of Christian reading material as an alternative to what one retired chaplain called “girlie magazines” _ and it all began with a request sent to the wrong location.
An American soldier serving in Iraq had thought he was writing his hometown Christian bookstore, a branch of the larger LifeWay Christian Resources, to request reading material that was “uplifting and encouraging.”
What the soldier didn’t know was that his request had actually reached the desk of the president of the company.
LifeWay, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, then contacted Jimmie Miles, a retired military chaplain and director of education at Winfree Memorial Baptist Church in Midlothian, Va., to help follow up on this request.
Miles helped local Baptist church associations get the new “LifeBox” project started. He acknowledged that the idea for the project was an effort to keep clean images in front of the soldiers.
“The LifeBox will offer alternatives, certainly,” Miles said. “If it’s like any time when GIs get together, you are going to have girlie magazines, but for those who are Christian, they wanted something else available to them that they can’t buy off the bookstand.”
LifeWay, in an effort to join churches that piloted the project, initially donated 4,000 pounds of magazines and offered additional ones at a discounted price.
Rhonda Buescher, director of LifeWay’s magazine advertising and circulation, said troops were requesting alternatives to magazines available on the newsstand. She said LifeWay’s magazines _ including “Home Life,” “Christian Single,” “Stand Firm” (a devotional magazine for men) and “Journey for Women” _ were available to many of the servicemen and women at their home churches.
“It is just a different type of reading,” Buescher said. “Different persons have different preferences. Men’s magazines may deal with secular culture issues and our publications deal with secular cultural issues as well, but in a biblical worldview.”
She said LifeWay’s magazines address “the life issues they deal with,” specifically marriage, parenting and financial issues.
Sandy Bain, director of missions for New River Baptist Association in Jacksonville, N.C., also served on the committee that put the LifeBox project together. Bain said he wanted the project to put “wholesome material” in the hands of troops to “give spiritual guidance.”
Bain, whose association includes churches with many military families, said he hopes the project will inspire Christians and non-Christians alike.
“For those who aren’t Christian, it’s to encourage them with the hope we have in Christ and to look to him for all they need,” he said.
Churches have decided what additional contents go in each box based on recommendations they have received from military personnel. Buescher said the troops have asked for what she called “comfort things” _ candy, stationery supplies, nonperishable goodies as well as LifeWay magazines.
Some of the boxes will be addressed to specific soldiers from lists gathered from congregations and will include a “personal note from someone back home,” said Buescher.
Others, Miles said, will be sent to military chaplains for further distribution.
He said his association anticipates sending 750 to 1,000 boxes _ out of an expected total of more than 35,000 _ before Easter. Bain hopes the LifeBoxes will send a message “to say we care and that we haven’t forgotten them.”
KRE END STEE
