Starting a Library

More than a year ago I had a dream, seriously, I had a dream - and in that dream our community opened a library.  When I woke I remembered the dream and told Johan about it.  That dream stayed in my mind for a while and I began to wonder, why not?  The municipal library that had serviced our area was closed down many years ago and I felt it was a shame that there are so many denied the opportunity to lend books and read.  I guess I felt this way because I am privileged to have loads of books in our own home which I can read at any time...I can read them once, or twice or even more often if I like and I value the worth of words placed into a story.  After mulling the idea over in my mind for a while, we put it to our community at one of our meetings and it was decided to start our own. We sent out letters, wrote articles for our community paper and asked family and friends both near and far to donate any and all books they were willing to let us have.  We received books by the box load and then books by the bakkie load.  We posted it on our facebook page and soon books were coming to us from all over the country.  Friends from school who I haven't seen for many  many years, made a plan to drop books off with my sister, who in turn brought them up to us.  Book clubs sorted out their books and gave us loads to sort through.  We have been truly blessed over this time, collecting and sorting and storing until we had enough to put together that may look like a library.  Once we had enough books we had to think about shelving....that took a while longer than we had planned, but eventually with a hefty donation of wood from a local business in the area, George, our vice chairperson put it together to make us 8 shelving units.  In the last week we have been working like the clappers to bring it all together ready for our meeting today.  Unpacking all the boxes, sorting into fiction and non fiction, English, Afrikaans...and even a few books in Zulu, French and German, making piles alphabetically, cleaning, wiping and dusting.  A few times this past week I have caught myself with a lump in my throat at the realization we are going to have a library.  Books are on the shelves and we are almost ready to start lending books out.  We still have loads of books to pack out, but we need to wait for more shelving first....that won't stop us starting out with what we have though.  Hopefully one day our little community library will grow to a place that will also teach people to read, a place where people can grow and extend their lives by broadening their horizens.  When I think that it all began with a dream and the Lord has now made it reality....