Tag Archives: Tracts

Tracts in Hand!!!

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Back in December we decided to print some tracts. We began praying that the Lord would supply the necessary funds. We also prayed about where to have the tracts printed. While John started working on the design work, I pressed toward finding a printer.

A friend of ours was planning on coming to Brazil soon and offered to bring in some tracts when he came. After checking into several places we quickly decided that it would be very expensive to have him bring them in from the US. We then turned to looking for printers here in Brazil.

A printer here in Brazil is not an easy thing to find. We looked for weeks at finding printers and getting prices. After comparing them to US prices, we found it possible to print them at just one or two cents more than if we printed them in the US. So we made our first attempt.


New Tracts

We found dozens of printers and went to talk to them. 90% of them either did not work with this kind of printing or they were shut down. So I kept searching online and wrote e-mails out to every company I thought would do the job we wanted. One particular sales representative responded and wanted our business. They sent us a good quote and we went after it.Now it is about the beginning of January and we are buckling down to get this job done. I sent them the files and they said they would look them over and give me a response. The response I received was, “These files will not work. Your black is not the right color. We cannot print them the way they have been designed. Please contact your design artist and tell them that the black color needs to be 100% Black and 40% Cyan.” What on earth does that mean? I started searching out what we could do to change the color. We tried everything we could. For days I went back and forth with them to try and solve the problem.

I downloaded a 30 day trial period for two recommended software programs, Photoshop and InDesign, to try and work out the problem. I knew that we were now dealing with professional printers and not quick digital printing jobs. These programs dealt with CMYK inks and not RGB which is the typical format used in photo manipulation programs.

I had a very limited understanding of what was going on. So I asked many questions. When I thought I had figured out the problem, I sent the file in again and again. The files were returned every time. We even set up a day to go to the printer for them to solve the problem for us. However, they were unable to solve the problem and would not listen to our advice in the matter. We wanted a specific design and they wanted to print something different. In my book, that means we are not going to come to a conclusion.

The next step was to look for another printer. We had already spent weeks on this project and I felt like I was at the end of my wits. Prayer was the only thing that kept me going. Actually, I told my wife I had quit several times, but something pressed me on. We had already asked advice from people in this business for over 10 years and they did not understand the issues. So prayer was our only solution.

After finding a new printer, we sent them the files. The expected answer was given. Your black is not the right color. I did a little more research to find out why things were not matching. I had solved the problem on our end, but when it reached the printer it was different. Once again I told my wife that I had no options left. I suggested we send in the same file again, however we just pray that the Lord would work out the issue!

This time we received a favorable response. The files were accepted! Within three working days I was sent a proof to authorize for printing!!! Hallelujah! Our God sure is a wonderful God. All of this went through on one of the last days of the trial period for Photoshop.

The problem seems to have been in the way one was opening the file. I was able to open the file in the correct way, but the printers were not opening it in that manner. Of course, they don’t want you to tell them how to do things, so God had to work that out on their part.

We received 20,000 tracts from the printer last week! We will keep about 5,000 of these. The remainder will go to people who wanted to purchase some of them from us to use in their churches or ministries.

Many of you prayed for us while this was going on. Thank you very much for your prayers.

–Jeremy

 

Posted in Literature, Ministry, Old Blog

Update on Recent Events

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It has been a good while since I updated the blog with any real news. So, here is what has been happening lately on the Tyler side of the ministry…

 

  1. Gospel Tracts – In December we saw the opportunity to print a few tracts to use. We have just about been out of tracts for the last five months or so. Because of this we wanted to print some very nice looking, attractive tracts that we could give out with the Gospel website name on them. We did not realize it would be so hard to print them. Yet, the Lord has still kept our hopes up. Printing here in Brazil is a bit different than the US with less technology. Though, the system they use is pretty modern, the programming used is different. The printers have also asked us to meet certain qualifications with colors that we have never had to do before. Because of this, I have spent days trying to fix things for the printers. We are still waiting, but are praying they will get printed this week.
  2. Music Lessons – I am now giving lessons to about 10 young people and children. This is an opportunity to help churches here in Brazil develop their music programs. It has been exciting to see them improve. Yet, we know our time here in São Paulo is short, so we must do what we can to move these students along quickly.
  3. Lightning Strikes – This is not normal in the US, but here it has become quite a trying circumstance. It has rained almost every day in the past two months. About 4-5 in the afternoon, the clouds roll in and we get not only rain, but lots of thunder and lighting. In the middle of January, we heard a very large crash on a Sunday evening. We had not unplugged everything that evening. So, we got struck by lightning. No, not personally, but our internet and everything connected to it got hit. So we are still working on getting everything back to normal. After weeks without internet (at home) and much time trying to figure out how to set everything up again, we are back online. We are praying we will be able to get things back to normal in the next few weeks to keep up with our correspondence as we should.
  4. Future Plans – Please pray with us about what this year holds for us. We would like to move to Porto Velho by the end of the year. Though nothing is set in stone, we are beginning to plan toward this goal. We are also praying about taking a short trip to the US to visit a few churches and see family and friends. Our goal is to take this trip so that we do not need to worry about returning to the US for several years after our move.
  5. Publication – We are designing and planning an online bi-monthly publication. The idea behind this publication is to promote good doctrine, unity, a high view of God, holiness, salvation and many other such things that are lacking in this country today. In the beginning of this year, we started sending out a monthly publication created by a fellow missionary, Jim King. This has been rewarding and a new source of encouragement for many people and pastors in our Baptist churches here in Brazil.

–Jeremy

Posted in Family, Literature, Ministry, Old Blog