A Protected Investment

It’s no secret to regular readers of this blog that we favor our digital books over their print counterparts and consider them to be superior when it comes to things like longevity, usability, space savings, cost savings, time savings, and ease of shipping and moving. Many of you are already convinced and choose digital over print as often as possible, but some of you may still be a bit skeptical. A couple of weeks ago, I came across another perfect illustration of how investing in Logos is one of the best ways to protect your investment in a biblical and theological library.

Ryan M. is a Logos user. I met him a while back on the Logos newsgroups. Over the last several years, Ryan has acquired more than 4,000 Libronix digital resources. He chose to build his library primarily with Libronix books partly because he and his wife, Sandi, were planning to do full-time mission work in Quito, Ecuador (and partly, I’m sure, for some of the other reasons I mentioned above).

After a few years of deputation and raising their necessary support, the time had finally come to leave the US and head to the field. As they made their final preparations, Ryan and Sandi gave away most of their earthly possessions and carefully stored up exactly what they would need to take with them. They were set to fly out of Detroit on January 5, 2009 and head to San José, Costa Rica, where they would spent their first year in language school.

The night before they left, the vast majority of their belongings were stolen—everything that they had prepared to take with them, except for their overnight bags and laptop.

Here are some snippets from a email that Ryan sent me last week:

My parents drove us to the airport in Detroit—about 2-1/2 hours from our home in Grand Rapids—to save us having to rent a car (we’d already given ours away). They reserved a nice hotel room for them and us quite near the airport; we stayed the night, and when we awoke the van and all our possessions were gone. (We think the vehicle has probably already been chopped up and that our stuff is being enjoyed by the thieves. Our name, address, and eddress was in every box, so there’s no secret about how to contact us to return any or all of it. But these were obviously evil people.)

. . .

Logos has been wonderful for us in this circumstance! The theft we experienced could have been even more damaging to our finances if I had packed a good number of paper books. I would also be without those ministry helps if I had been relying on paper resources. As it stands, I haven’t lost my theological library, for which I’m extremely grateful. I even have a digital copy of numerous Spanish resources and a Spanish-English dictionary!

Though this is a horrible situation to go through, Ryan doesn’t have to mess with the hassle and massive expense of trying to replace his library. And even if his laptop had been stolen as well, he could have gotten his entire Libronix digital library up and running with very little effort and at almost no cost. His 4000+ resources and all of his licenses are safe. But how easily could you replace your library?

Please pray for Ryan and Sandi as they adjust to a new culture, learn a new language, and try to replace all of the things that they lost. If you would like to be a financial blessing to them, you can donate directly through the HCJB Global website. (To help them in their immediate need, be sure to put “for personal use” in the “Add an Additional Note” blank.) You can read more about how you can pray for and help Ryan and Sandi at their blog.