When the letter from the attorney came, Dale Detro wondered if it was some official business.  It was—Kingdom business!  The letter explained that the writer was beginning to think someone was trying to get a message to him.  The gospel tract that came in the mail marked the third time in three months that he had been told that he was going to hell.

From the phone number on the letterhead, Dale called him and before the conversation was over the angels were rejoicing over one more soul entering the kingdom. 

Dale and his wife Sue, started less than three years ago to place small tract holders on the counters in retail stores.  Marked "FREE TAKE ONE" the little displays would hold a few dozen tracts.  Dale discovered that he had to go back about once a week to keep them filled. 

Soon, he had to spend several hours each week restocking the 25 holders that merchants had agreed to host.  He has placed them in restaurants, gas stations, convenience stores, ice cream parlors, and others, He found that he had to order several thousand at a time from Chick Publications to stock the holders.

Invigorated by the project, he and his wife looked around for more uses for the tracts.  Since they lived in a small, rural community, they hit on the idea of mailing a tract to each address in their phone book.  Their church agreed to buy the tracts and they enlisted friends, Rick and Brenda Clark to help them.  To date, over 150,000 tracts have been seeded into the community.  Besides the tens of thousands that have been taken from the holders, they have mailed tracts to three-fourths of the addresses in the phone book.

When they go shopping, they are faithful to hand tracts to people that they meet.  Now lots of the people have already read some of the tracts.  Often they remember which ones they have read so Dale offers them a different title.

"We have people calling all the time with questions," says Detro. "About 90 percent of the time, they are happy to get the tracts."  One lady called, who had been in another church a long time but couldn`t get her husband to go with her.  When he read one of the tracts he asked his wife to call and find out more about Detro`s church.  She thought he might soon be joining her at church.

Another lady was given the tract, The Choice, when she came to the church for financial assistance.  She ended up getting saved and is now excitedly growing in the Lord.

About a year ago, a man saw them filling one of the holders and asked if they had tracts in Spanish.  Detro began supplying him and he called recently for more. He said that 150 Spanish people had been saved.  The Detros know of 7 people who have been saved and are sure there are many others that they have not heard about. They have had several calls from people in other states who wanted details of how to start a similar ministry in their communities.

Detro feels like he has about covered his county and is looking over the fence to the counties next to his.  With the help of the Clarks, he feels he will be able to expand and reach into neighboring communities. Jesus said that only a small percentage of the people will respond to the gospel. We need to use mass techniques to find them.  Detro is doing that by blanketing an area.  Paul planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.