Fay Hudnall is leader of the Blue Valley church library which has two locations—their main campus and their Ridgeview campus. She asked me to post their story.
After losing every item in our Ridgeview campus church library due to water line breaks across the hall and above the library, the Ridgeview campus library of Blue Valley Baptist Church is completely back to the pre-flood condition! Whew! As I reflect on the past 18 months, I see God’s hand and direction through good and bad times.
The insurance company never questioned our claim. Praise God for all of Bill Jones’s Concourse training of at our library conferences! The insurance company couldn’t believe the information we had about our books! All of the same titles were ordered as we had before...except we had permission to get updated editions of any title we had previously owned. Purchasing the same titles was a condition of our insurance company. Our local LifeWay store ordered about 50 percent of our titles and gave us the sale price of their promotion at that time! We received 30 percent off all adult books—nonfiction, biographies, and fiction. Our receipt was 30-feet-long.
Our insurance company even covered some the supplies we had used in processing the books. Labels, tape, jacket covers, book covering materials, and label protectors were purchased with insurance money.!
Our library team had just lost one of our precious members to a stroke a few weeks before the flood. Another passed away after an extended battle with a rare cancer that attacked her heart. Two others are still fighting disease, and two more of our team moved out of state. However, their love for Jesus is outliving their lives each time one of the items they helped process is checked out from our two libraries! I think one of the best lessons our library team has learned is that work for Jesus is never lost . . . and continues even if we are no longer present.
During the past months, we had six new workers in our library! None of them were asked to join our team—they volunteered! Each one of them are dedicated, talented individuals! God provided each one of them! Our team worked very diligently getting the Ridgeview campus library back to its former condition as well as keeping our Antioch campus library going.
Eighteen months ago, a dark cloud was hanging over our libraries and library team. However, joy has returned to our hearts and laughter fills our libraries. God is good...all the time.
Fay Hudnall
Comments
What an absolutely beautiful story!
Such a very special story. Thanks so much for sharing, Fay, and for your faithfulness. It is so encouraging!