Luky;
LAUNCHING MY FATIMA BOOK was an exciting yet at times hair-raising experience.
My reader friend I told you about, the one who had promised to have the printing done, sent me a copy of the way it should have been typed. This arrived the day after the typing and illustrations had been completed, and it turned out I had not typed the book in the way I should have.
So I took a deep breath, approached a local printer instead, and asked Sean to guarantee the printing costs, in case I should not be able to cover them.
My reader friend sent me a considerable sum to start the ball rolling, and I then approached friends and fellow parishioners for donations.
Lots offered
The generosity of my friends and fellow parishioners staggered me. Within three weeks the entire cost of the first thousand copies had been settled.
On May 13, exactly 66 years after the day Our Lady first appeared to the three little shepherds at Fatima, I posted the first lot, which contained gift copies to sixty-odd Bishops then resident in southern Africa.
Although I had prepared the manilla envelopes with addresses, the evening of May 12 was a busy one, with my bedroom converted into an office and children closing manilla envelopes wherever you looked.
We organised the youngest with a box of colouring pencils and she coloured in the pictures of her own copy while the rest of us were working away.
About three hours after starting, when we'd nearly finished, one of us spotted the youngest, seated at her little chair and table which she liked to pretend was her office desk with tears pouring down her face, looking as if her heart would break.
Non-plussed we asked: "What's the matter?"
"I went out for a little while," she sobbed, "and when I came back someone had posted my colouring book."
As I comforted her the awful thought hit me. Some Bishop was going to be the lucky recipient of a Fatima book half coloured in by my youngest.
With horror I gazed at the enormous pile of envelopes.
Let it go
"Should we tear them open, Ma?" my second son asked.
"What, and lose all those stamps and readdress all those envelopes? No ways", I decided, but a lot of the satisfaction had gone out of the job for me.
One way and another, I was happy to know that I had finally been given my long awaited opportunity of spreading the beautiful message of Fatima.
One thought kept bothering me: which Bishop was presented with the coloured-in copy?
For those who wish; here is the book
http://childrenpraise.blogspot.ie/2013/12/three-little-shepherd-meet-our-lady-of.html
Chapter One; http://childrenpraise.blogspot.ie/2013/12/three-little-shepherds-meet-our-lady-of.html
Chapter Two; http://childrenpraise.blogspot.ie/2014/03/three-little-shepherds-meet-our-lady-of.html
Chapter Three; http://childrenpraise.blogspot.ie/2014/03/three-little-shepherds-meet-our-lady-of_16.html
Chapter Four; http://childrenpraise.blogspot.ie/2014/03/three-little-shepherds-meet-our-lady-of_1064.html
Chapter Five; http://childrenpraise.blogspot.ie/2014/03/three-little-shepherds-meet-our-lady-of_1732.html
Chapter Six; http://childrenpraise.blogspot.ie/2014/03/three-little-shepherds-meet-our-lady-of_6579.html
Chapter Seven; http://childrenpraise.blogspot.ie/2014/03/three-little-shepherds-meet-our-lady-of_7087.html
Chapter Eight; http://childrenpraise.blogspot.ie/2014/03/three-little-shepherds-meet-our-lady-of_9510.html
Chapter Nine; http://childrenpraise.blogspot.ie/2014/03/three-little-shepherds-meet-our-lady-of_17.html
Chapter Ten; http://childrenpraise.blogspot.ie/2014/03/three-little-shepherds-meet-our-lady-of_8108.html
Chapter Eleven; http://childrenpraise.blogspot.ie/2014/03/three-little-shepherds-meet-our-lady-of_5048.html
Chapter Twelve; http://childrenpraise.blogspot.ie/2014/03/three-little-shepherds-meet-our-lady-of_5857.html
Chapter Thirteen; http://childrenpraise.blogspot.ie/2014/03/three-little-shepherds-meet-our-lady-of_4678.html
How to Recite the Rosary; http://childrenpraise.blogspot.ie/2014/03/three-little-shepherds-meet-our-lady-of_7459.html
The Great Promise of the Five First Saturdays;
http://childrenpraise.blogspot.ie/2014/03/three-little-shepherds-meet-our-lady-of_6761.html
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