Lutheran Braille Center moves to Chester

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[In late August, St. John Lutheran Church in Chester was contacted by Immanual Lutheran Church at West Point to request that the Lutheran Braille Center be transferred to Chester. A spring storm had damaged the parsonage where the center was housed causing the need for more extensive repair than was financially practical.

It is with great excitement that the transition has been completed and work is back in progress. The new center is located in the brick building directly across from the entrance to Pechacek-McClure Funeral Home. Four pre-existing work groups have already resumed their work schedule, and St. John welcomes interest from the area to form other work groups.

More than 180 million people around the world are experiencing life with a visual impairment. Among these, 45 million are blind and 135 million have only partial sight. There are countries where less than 10% of blind persons are literate. In a number of countries, less than 15% of blind children receive an education.

Lutheran Braille Workers (LBW) is one of the largest providers of Christian Braille and specialized Large Print in the world. All publications by LBW are offered free of charge and are made possible through the efforts of over five thousand faithful volunteers. These volunteers, located in 194 Work Centers throughout the United States and Canada, produced 16,945,152 pages of material in 2009. Their gifts of time and our generous donors make it possible to send Christian material in more than 30 languages to visually impaired people in more than 120 countries. The book currently being produced at Chester is A Book of Favorite Hymns for Grade 2.

St. John is very pleased to have this mission opportunity available to our community and invites any interested individuals to contact Paul and Mary Stallman at 618-774-2936 if they would like to volunteer time at the center. The Stallmans also welcome school classes, scout troops, or individuals to visit and observe the process of producing a Braille book. Please contact them to set up a time for your group to visit. Donations may be made to "St. John Lutheran Church" noted for "Lutheran Braille Workers" to help defray the cost of utilities and materials. The workspace has been donated by Ralph Kipp of Chester.