The Bible tells of Jesus healing people who are blind. While Grace cannot do that, for many years, members of Grace worked to produce Braille books for the blind. This is the story of how it happened.
Fred Graepp was a blind man living in California who became committed to spreading the word of God to Europe after many of the publications in Braille had been destroyed during the Second World War. He formed the Lutheran Braille Workers, Inc.
A member of Grace, Diana Lund, heard about Fred Graepp in 1975. By August 1979, equipment was acquired and in the first year, 1450 copies of the epistles of James, Peter, John and Jude were produced in Portuguese braille.
Diana organized 40 volunteers who worked 2 hour shifts producing books. There were seven shifts per week. The books were primarily mailed to Portugal and Brazil, although shipments were also made to other countries. The books were provided free to the recipients.
Only two other churches in Canada established braille centers.
That early group of volunteers includes people you may recognize. Jean Schwartz, Audrey Rahn, Jeanette Bieler, Lyn Christian, Diana Lund and Ursula Bock. You can see their smiling faces in the picture above.
The braille center at Grace has now been closed. It is with much pride that we tell this story of Christians at Grace helping others.
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