Despite the lockdown, it is encouraging that many people are still keen to donate books for Book Aid Charitable Trust. Yesterday I delivered ten more boxes of Christian books to their centre in Southsea. Joyce who manages the local collection centre is a very young 87.

In the 1980s a desperate plea came from Africa and other countries where economic crises and foreign currency restrictions had reduced supplies of Christian books to an all-time low. This cry for help from vast numbers of Christians suffering from “Book Famine” became impossible to ignore.

Joyce has supported the Christian charity, Book Aid, for over 50 years and stores books in her church in Portsmouth ready for collection. We meet about once a month when I deliver books from Southampton. Every time I visit have to dissuade her from wanting to carry the boxes from my car to her store. In this short interview she told me more about the charity and why it is important to her.

Book Aid Charitable Trust was set up in order to make large shipments of new and secondhand Christian books and Bibles to these needy areas. In particular Book Aid supports Christian bookshops, mainly in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.

Visit Book Aid to find out how you can support their important literature ministry by donating, buying, collecting or sorting,