God saved me for the purpose of compiling, printing and distributing the book How To Be A Child of God into the prisons of America. In retrospect, he provided all; John Magee, designer, Randy Rogers, illustrator, a large group of proofreaders, my wife Vickie and my daughter Samantha among others who have helped to put this little book together.
As I look back, I can now see that he picked me for the background in publishing, printing and promotion, but also because I too, should be locked up. I just didn’t get caught doing the wrong thing at the wrong place. He just wanted to accomplish through one of His children a reasonable simple task, but of great proportion.
What task could be of more significance than that of delivering the gospel message to two million of the least and lost in America’s prisons? He even included the addresses of these and through my assistant Paula Grimes, built a database of twenty-one hundred prisons and jails so we would unmistakably know where to deliver His message. Not only deliver, but craft it in such a way for this all important target audience could understand it, even if some have difficulty seeing or reading it. He made it into a wonderful and colorful picture book with large type and easily understood text. The kind of presentation a college graduate would call a comic, but a captive in Texas’ Eastham State Penitentiary would might call an important book.
Why then, have I continued to look for ways to sell it? I have tried Amazon, contacted publishers and literary agents, attempted to sell it on it’s own website and traveled far and wide to discuss the book’s appeal with local and national distributors of Christian material. I have been teased a little, but never had success with any of these conventional routes to commercial sales of the book. I had thought on one hand the book sale profits could offset the cost of printing for the incarcerated. I also thought the profits from sales could offset my lack of savings and augment my retirement income which I had not sufficiently provided for myself. None of these have proven the right inclination or successful plan of action.
So all of my commercial tryouts have failed and I have come the conclusion that God wants this book primarily in prisons and that is his mandate! So I am to do this with supposedly money raised through those who who have a heart for the lost and those who are incarcerated. I have found that these are few and very hard to find.
Today’s date is 11/19/17 and I have become utterly dependent on the Lord Jesus Christ to provide the $300,000 needed to perform this task. I am out of ideas and resources on my own.
Perhaps this is where He wanted me in the first place. Amen.
David Howell
Prison Evangelism, Inc.
PO Box 571977
Houston, Texas 77257
713-623-0690
www.prisonevangelism.com