100,000 Anchors Arrived at the Book Depot

Steve Bury, Ernie Schulz, and Steve Oltman talk about how the Book Depot works.

Ernie explains the system to Brian Bill.

The whole crew in the almost-empty Chicago Book Depot.

The big truck backs up to the storage facility in Pontiac, IL.

Steve Bury signs for the delivery of the books.

The storage facility director goes by the extremely cool name of Chopper Lee.

One of Chopper’s men unloads the books.

96,000 books in the depot, ready to go out the door.

Skip Olson holds up Anchors to remind us what it’s all about.

In the last weeks 100,000 copies of An Anchor for the Soul arrived at our new Book Depot in Pontiac, IL. For the last few years we used a storage facility in Chicago where Ernie Schulz spent hundreds of volunteer hours preparing boxes of books for free shipment to ministries across America.

When we printed 100,000 copies of the edition of Anchor in February 2011, we expected those books to last at least two years. But God opened so many doors to partner with prison ministries, military ministries, rescue missions and crisis pregnancy centers across America that we were almost out of books by the end of the year.

That’s why we ordered a new printing two months ago. 

In the meantime Ernie had to retire from the Book Depot for health reasons. At the same moment God raised up the “two Steves,” Steve Oltman and Steve Bury, longtime friends who had recently come to faith in Christ. They both attend Pontiac (IL) Bible Church, pastored by KBM board member Brian Bill. The Lord also led us to a very convenient storage facilitity in Pontiac.

Now the “two Steves” oversee the new Book Depot in Pontiac. Here’s an example of one request just received:

I pastor a native American mission church on the Turtle Mountain reservation in North dakota. We have been here for almost 6 years now and have seen God bless us beyond measure. We have seen his favor poured out in huge measures.

We minister in some very poor and dysfunctional  housing projects on and near the reservation. We live and have lived since we first arrived on 2006  totally on faith. Faith for our perosnal support and living expenses and faith for the church and all ministry outreaches.

I am very interested in being able to receive copies of An  Anchor for the Soul.If I can get as many as 75-100. that would be wonderful. We want to use them in our monthly community outreach as well as for our food pantry ministry.

We will be shipping the books to North Dakota very soon.

The total cost of this project (printing, shipping to Pontiac, storage, and shipping to the various ministries) comes to around $58,000. So far we’ve received over $32,000 toward that amount. 

You can read all about it in the Spring 2012 KBM Newsletter. 

If you feel led to help out, you can write a check (with the word “Anchor” in the Memo section) to Keep Believing Ministries, P. O. Box 257, Elmhurst, IL 60126, or you can give online. 

Please join us in praying that these new books will find their way into the hands of men and women who need to know Jesus.