EVERETT — For more than 10 years Janet Bernhardt has produced books she can’t read.
Using a simple wooden press — a box-shaped contraption she says works like an old ringer washer — the Marysville woman and her volunteers press the intricate dots of Braille onto thick paper to make books for the blind. They produce more than 5,000 pages of text every other month.
All the work is done by hand.
The labor-intensive operation conducted from the basement of Everett’s Immanuel Lutheran Church is one of 60 Lutheran Blind Mission work centers around the country. The volunteer work centers produce Bible studies, devotionals and other Christian materials for the blind and visually impaired. The materials are created by the Lutheran Blind Mission, founded by Dave Andrus, a pastor who became blind at age 11 from a rare disease.
On a bright December morning, Judy Hannenburg, Denise Clark, Linda Rodgers and Carol DeGeest worked with Bernhardt to print and bind the January issue of “Today’s Light.” The devotional is mailed to blind people around the country, including to a few who live in Seattle and Tacoma.
The five women work methodically. Step-by-step, plate-by-plate and page-by-page, they produce one book at a time.
On this day, Clark loads the 9 1/2 by 13-inch aluminum plates into the machine, while Hannenburg feeds 10-inch by 13-inch sheets of thick paper between the press’ two rubber rollers.
As the two women work, an intricate dot pattern emerges on the paper.
When each freshly embossed page is done, it is delivered to the next station. Clark and Hannenburg feed another sheet and plate into the press.
Rodgers and DeGeest proof, stack, assemble and bind the embossed pages into books.
Working in this tedious fashion, two teams at Immanuel Lutheran produce roughly 20 books every other month — about 120 books per year, Bernhardt said.
Their handiwork helps hundreds of men and women across the country who have precious few Bible-based resources from which to learn about God, she said.
“It’s all about getting the Gospel message out,” said Bernhardt.
The work is not hard, just precise, she said.
“We number the pages in pencil, to make sure we haven’t forgotten to print a page. Then we check them to make sure the Braille isn’t slanted and that there’s at least a half-inch margin at the bottom and edges. Blind people need the pages to be exact. It’s difficult to read if the pages are slanted or there is not enough margin at the end of each page,” said Bernhardt.
The women talk and laugh as they stack, sort and assemble. A pot of hot coffee and a plate of cookies sit on a nearby counter. Most of the women working today have been working with Bernhardt since March 1998, the year the work center was established at the church.
Half of the volunteers — there are roughly 30 — come from Immanuel Lutheran; others are from nearby churches, including Messiah Lutheran in Marysville, Grace Lutheran and Zion Lutheran in Everett, Bernhardt said.
Lutheran Blind Mission supplies all the materials for the work including the press, the aluminum embossing plates, the heavy paper and large white pre-addressed envelopes for shipping. When each batch of Braille is complete, Bernhardt sends the aluminum plates back to the mission in the large wooden crates they came in to be recycled.
The National Federation of the Blind estimates there are more than a million people in the U.S. who are blind, with 50,000 more becoming blind each year.
Clark is one of them. Her blindness is not apparent. She was born with macular degeneration, she said.
She doesn’t read Braille, but can read large print.
Clark said when she taught Sunday school, she had to enlarge the pages of her teaching manual so she could read to her class.
Reporter Leita Crossfield: 425-339-3449 or crossfield@heraldnet.com.
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