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By JENNIFER L. HENN; Times Leader Staff Writer
Monday, December 21, 1998     Page: 3A

DALLAS- If you have trouble imagining a white leather Bible, embossed with
pastel pictures of little boys and lambs, sitting on a cot in a jail cell,
you’re not alone.
   
Linda Weaver got quite a chuckle from the thought too. But beggars can’t be
choosers, and when you ask people to donate Bibles to prison inmates, the best
policy is to take what you can get.
    “This is no time to be picky,” Weaver said. “Big Bibles, little Bibles,
Bibles with pictures, Bibles in big print. I’m glad to have them all.”
   
She’s glad to have collected them all, that is.
   
Weaver and her employer, Gifts From Above in Dallas, are coordinating a
local branch of the national Bibles For Prisoners campaign. Since Nov. 1 and
until Christmas Eve, the program is accepting donated Bibles of all shapes and
sizes at the store.
   
After Christmas, the good books will be distributed locally to prisoners at
the State Correctional Institute at Dallas and the Luzerne County Correctional
Facility.
   
“The idea of a prisoner being saved by one of these Bibles, of being saved
period, that really makes me feel good,” Weaver said. “It’s like the Holy
Spirit is running through the prisons, up and down the halls.”
   
As of Sunday, Weaver had collected nearly 100 Bibles. The books are stacked
in brown cardboard boxes in the back of her gray mini van.
   
Rifling through the boxes, Weaver uncovered a virtual treasure trove of
unique editions.
   
At the top of the stack sits a Precious Moments Bible decorated with the
pastel-shaded, doe-eyed characters of the same name. On the cover, a little
boy stands flanked by two lambs in a field of yellow flowers.
   
“The store donated that one,” Weaver, 46, said. “That was a special order
that came in slightly damaged.”
   
A few layers down, an old, leather-bound family Bible sits with a list of
names on the inside cover and an inscription:
   
“Presented to Robert Verlon Nichols from Mr. Maurice Crowder, February 6,
1957, First Baptist Church, Fort Mill, S.C.”
   
In another box, a shiny wooden case with brass closures and fancy
script-writing holds another white leather-bound Bible.
   
“This is what surprised me most about the program,” Weaver said. “I can’t
believe how many old, almost antique Bibles people brought in. You’d think
families would want to keep these as mementos.”
   
Weaver learned of the nationwide program through a trade magazine for
Christian book stores. Those who donate a Bible are rewarded with a $5 gift
certificate towards