Screen Printers

     Just before my third child, Elizabeth was born, my sister, Carol, and I decided to start our own business, screen printing T-shirts.  We both had some artistic talent, so screen printing seemed like a way to use that talent.  We started by making a very unprofessional looking flyer.  It was 1983, and neither one of us had a computer so you can imagine how bad this flyer was.  We mailed out about a dozen flyers to local businesses and suprisingly, one of the businesses called and placed an order.  We were so excited, we could hardly wait to get started.  At the art supply store, we bought a screen printing kit and an instruction booklet.  When I think back on it, I'm surprised how confident we were considering we were two house wives with absoultly no idea as to what we were about to do.  We took the kit to my house and began by studying the instruction booklet.  After reading the whole booklet we thought that we had a good understanding of how to make the screen, the biggest part of it.  We estimated it would take a couple of hours from start to finish.  We were excited and ready to go.  We followed each step as the instruction booklet had said, and everything seemed to be going just right.  There were many steps; coating a screen, putting it under a light for a certain amount of time, washing the screen and letting it dry.  We finished the screen and we were ready to print our first shirt.  We carefully lined the screen up with the shirt, added the ink and slowly dragged the squeegee across the screen.  As we lifted the screen to see our first printed shirt, we were both disappointed and discouraged to see that it hadn't worked.  Not a drop of ink, on the shirt.  Feeling frustrated, we made screen after screen, changing the process a little each time.  Finally, after eight hours, we had a screen that we could use. 
     We filled that order and mailed out additional flyers, orders came in and we had to make more screens.  We weren't sure what we had done right to get that first screen to work.  Knowing how hard it had been left us feeling a bit anxious, but after many mistakes, we learned exactly what we needed to know to make a perfect screen every time.  We found that we didn't get a perfect screen by doing just one thing right, it was a number of things combined.  Each step had to be done just right for the process to work.  It was very complicated, and just reading the directions wasn't enough to get it right the first time, or the second or the third, or fourth.
     At the end of a year we had mastered the complicated process of screen printing.  Not just by reading the directions, but more so by hands on experience.  We could have had those directions memorized word for word, and it wouldn't have been enough for us to make a screen.  Trying the process over and over turned out to be the best teacher.
     A month or so after we had gotten into business, I remember meeting a lady who was also in the screen printing profession.  I told her about our problems making the first screens and she said that she had been making screens for so long, she could probably make one in her sleep.  I remember thinking, "Wow, I wonder if I'll ever be like her?"  Then at the end of the second year, I felt as though I too could make a screen in my sleep!
     Repetition, trial and error, is what taught us what we needed to do each step of the way.  Hands on, was the way that sometning very complicated turned into someting easily done.
     I have read the New Testament, a few times.  I have read about half of the Old Testament, and heard Pastors talk about the Bible most of my life.  The Bible is God's direction booklet for our life.  Reading, studying and memorizing is important.  The next step is trying to follow those instructions for a Christian life.  We may have a hard time at first, just like Carol and I did when we tried putting the knowledge from reading into practice.  But unlike Carol and I, we have a teacher, a counselor, the Holy Spirit, and with the Spirit's help, I believe we can succeed.  John 14:26, "But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit whom the father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and remind you of everything I have said to you."
     So read, study and learn the Bible, but also be hands on and you will triumph.