We have arrived in the beautiful city of St. Louis. In case you don’t know who “we” are, let me introduce four of the New Hope Publishers’ staff. Jonathan Howe is marketing manager. Randy Bishop is one of our fine editors, serving both New Hope and WorldCrafts. Ashley Stephens is publicity manager for New Hope and marketing manager for WorldCrafts. Joyce Dinkins is managing editor. I’m behind the camera.
We have already discovered many great facts about St. Louis. For instance, St. Louis is the home of iced tea and ice cream cones, both invented at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. The first ice cream cone happened when an ice cream vendor ran out of cups and asked a waffle vendor to help by rolling up waffles to hold ice cream.
St. Louis is also called “The Gateway to the West” and the first successful parachute jump to be made from a moving airplane was made by Captain Berry at St. Louis in 1912.
We arrived in St. Louis 10 hours after leaving Birmingham. We checked into our hotel and found food
near the river on our way to the Gateway Arch where we met New Hope author Dan Darling and his family, and then toured the museum.
As you can see, Randy was nearly eaten by a bear while we were there. 
Since we can’t do without his excellent skills, we were glad to see him escape the bear’s advance!
The New Hope team is here for business, but it was nice to have a few hours of fun yesterday. Every team needs time to enjoy each other away from the stress of the deadlines, sales objectives, and ongoing challenges that come with any job.
Today was a full day as we put our New Hope and WorldCrafts booths together. Exhibit halls are never air conditioned during the set up, so we did lots of sweating and drank lots of water. Our booths are ready, look great, and we anticipate a terrific week at the ICRS. We are especially grateful for the help of our sales team, JMS Sales. You’ll probably see photos of Jim, Cathy, and Nancy this week, the most wonderful sales partners a publisher could have.
Meanwhile, please pray for New Hope authors, the impact of their messages, and retailers who sell their books. Please pray for artisans represented by the beautiful handmade crafts sold through WorldCrafts. These are the reasons New Hope and WorldCrafts are here in St. Louis.
