Carol Steinbach is the Manager for Vision Partner Care and Communication at Desiring God.

As Pastor John wrote on Friday, there are real people in our prisons who need to hear the gospel and to be encouraged in their faith.  Desiring God seeks to serve them and the chaplains in those prisons through our volunteer-led inmate ministry:

Individual Inmates

Every inmate who writes to us for the first time receives a welcome packet that includes a letter describing our ministry, a copy of our evangelistic booklet, For Your Joy, a copy of The Dangerous Duty of Delight, and an application for free correspondence courses through Mount Zion Bible Institute. We also send them one other Piper book under our whatever-you-can-afford policy. (If an inmate does not request a specific book, we select one for him or her.)

After our initial correspondence, inmates may request a book once a month.

Currently we receive letters from approximately 200 new inmates every month. We have a group of volunteers who come in every week to read these letters, pray for the inmates and write a personal note of encouragement on the welcome letter. The volunteers also read mail and process book requests from inmates who have contacted us previously.

Prison Chaplains and Volunteers

When chaplains request resources from Desiring God, we work with them to determine what will best meet their needs. We frequently send out sets of 12-15 Piper resources for their prison libraries, as well as multiple copies of books for use in Bible studies or chapel services.

If a volunteer at a prison has permission to take Piper resources in for a Bible study, we'll happily supply books, DVDs and study guides.

We have also produced a brochure for distribution to inmates which includes a tear-off, business reply-paid postcard on which an inmate can select one of five Piper books to receive. We send these out in bundles of 100 to anyone who is able to distribute them in prison.

Will you help us spread a passion for God to people in prisons?  Please contact me for more information!

Thank you to all who contributed to the African Pastor CD Project! The project is now complete and we are wiring $6,000 to Conversation Ministries in Springs, South Africa. They will use the money to purchase a CD duplicator for producing CDs from their church and Desiring God. These will be sent without charge to local African pastors, missionaries laboring in Africa, and to individuals who may have no exposure to sound, evangelical preaching. May God use these CDs to spread a passion for his supremacy in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ in southern Africa.

Back in March we announced that we had the opportunity to send 30,000 copies of Don’t Waste Your Life to an Army reception center in Georgia. Since then, we have sent nearly 53,000 copies of the book, study guide, and leader's kit to the military. We've sent another 5,400 copies into jails and schools. Books have gone all over the US, as well as to Japan, South Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan. All of the costs for the books and shipping are covered by donors who give specifically to the "Don't Waste Your Life" sponsorship effort.

It is very exciting to watch how God has quietly been moving in the hearts of people to give toward the DWYL sponsorship program. At this moment, having sent all those books, we are only about $2,500 "under" on the funds. Almost as soon as we get requests for books, we also receive donations which cover the costs.

We can’t wait to see where God opens up the next opportunity for the books!

From a recent email:

I'm the Executive Officer of a company stationed in Afghanistan. We are currently engaging with the enemy daily in some form or another. But I am writing to you as a Christian first and a soldier second. We have no chaplain, but one of my platoon leaders has stepped up and has been leading a weekly service.

We're hurting on resources. We need Christ-centered resources that turn us towards the Word and teach us of the joy that Christ longs for us to have in Him. I have been changed by Piper's books, including my favorite, Don't Waste Your Life, and long for others to have the opportunity to benefit in the same way.

Would you please consider sending some resources, such as the Don't Waste Your Life Group Study Kit, or anything else that might lend to weekly group Bible studies and personal devotions? We would appreciate any efforts to help us produce a meaningful Christian library in this small room that is serving as our chapel, as well as a stack that soldiers can read through while serving on our Observation Posts on nearby mountains for a week at a time.

Thanks for your help. Pray that the faith of the believers here would not stagnate and that more would come to know of his wonderful death on the cross!

A shipment of 125 Piper books is on its way to Afghanistan. We’re able to send them because of the generosity of those who sponsor books for the military. Gifts given to “The Army DWYL Sponsorship Program” are used to help distribute books to men and women in the military throughout the world.

God has opened a door for us to send one case of Don’t Waste Your Life books and study guides to each of the 60 prisons in Florida. We just received this note from a chaplain in the Florida Department of Corrections:

Thank you so much and God bless your ministry. The men and women in our prisons will enjoy the books and study and many will be encouraged. I want to pray over the books before they are distributed and ask for souls for eternity. Thank you, thank you.

We’re able to do things like this because of the generosity of our supporters. Gifts given to “The DWYL Sponsorship Program” are used solely to distribute DWYL books to others who cannot afford them.

To those of you who have donated so we could give out free books, here's what your gifts have accomplished so far this year:

1,000 books to Christian organizations at Virginia Tech.
500 books to schools and prisons across the country.
39,300 books to US military bases in nine states, Japan  and Iraq

We would love to reach 100,000 people in 2007.  Thanks to our many supporters, we’re well on our way.

A few days ago, we asked anyone interested in giving away books in the armed forces to contact us. A few hours later I received an email from the chaplain at an Air Force base in Nebraska. We agreed to send him 200 copies of Don't Waste Your Life to distribute at the base. Here's his distribution plan:

The first way the books will distributed is through our Single Airmen’s Ministry. This ministry is called Tuesday Night Together (TNT) and they study God’s word and fellowship together in the Lord. Most of the airmen who attend are young and many are asking questions and seeking for the Truth. This book will help them understand the Truth is through Jesus Christ. The second way is through our small groups that meet in the Chapel. The third way is on our deployment line. As Airmen get ready to deploy out they walk through a line visiting different agencies on base. The Base Chapel is one of those agencies and we supply free religious literature for our warriors. This book can go on the line for the airmen to take.

We're thrilled to be sending these books into another branch of the service! Please pray for the impact they will have, and ask God for donors who can sponsor the costs of more books going out.

If you are in the armed forces and would like to find out about receiving copies of Don't Waste Your Life to distribute, please email Carol Steinbach or call her at 888-346-4700.

Yesterday we sent over 1,000 copies of Don't Waste Your Life to five different Christian student organizations at Virginia Tech: New Life Christian Fellowship, Campus Outreach, Campus Crusade, Reformed University Fellowship, and the Navigators.

Please pray for these ministries, which are in a unique position to meet the spiritual needs of VT students in the aftermath of such violence and destruction. Difficult situations have a powerful way of opening hearts and minds.

In addition to the copies of Don't Waste Your Life, we sent over 300 copies of the CD, "Where is God?" to individuals in Blacksburg who will be distributing them. Today we are sending 900 copies of For Your Joy to a church in Blacksburg. The church has organized a card-writing campaign, so these books will each be accompanied by a hand-written card of love and concern and an invitation to the church.

If you would like to help cover the costs of these donations for Virginia Tech students, please go to the Donate page of our website and enter an amount into the "DWYL Sponsorship Program" box. Donations over and above the cost of sending the books to Virginia Tech will be used to provide DWYL books to prisoners, military soldiers, high school students, and organizations that have requested books to distribute but cannot afford to buy them. Thank you.

Last week we announced an opportunity to give 30,000 copies of Don't Waste Your Life to young men and women going through the Army reception center in Ft. Benning, Georgia. We have already sent off the books and are trusting God to supply the funds needed to cover the costs (about $30,000). Here is our first report from the base commander:

I wanted to send you a quick update that we received all the materials this last week. It has been really exciting the past few days. I was bit overwhelmed by size of the shipment, but we quickly found a home for it. I want to thank-you, the staff, and donors for making all this possible. It is worth mentioning that I did not anticipate the soldiers to be receptive to the materials this early. In a short weekend, over one hundred books were distributed. I can't say enough that this is all incredibly encouraging that God would seek to make himself known within the hearts of our soldiers. Again, thank-you!

As of this morning, we have received $4,000 toward this project. If you would like to donate, you can visit our donations page and select "The DWYL Army Sponsorship Program."