History - Lutheran Braille Workers

Our History

The

Story

Lutheran Braille Workers started in 1943 in response to a shortage of Braille Bibles for Blind pastors in Germany. Mrs. Helene Loewe Koehler, with the support of her family, felt God calling her to first learn Braille, and then begin the process of transcribing the Bible into German Braille, one dot at a time, moving backwards across the page.

After months of hard work, and moving manuscripts and pages from under her bed, to her garage, to Trinity Lutheran Church’s basement, an entire German Braille Bible was crafted and shipped out. Helene thought her project would be over until she received a letter from somebody who benefitted from the German Braille Bibles. The letter read:

“Thank you for the Braille Bible. It was exactly what we needed. How many more can you send?”

Helene wrote in her journal, “I think about how much time and effort went into producing one Braille Bible. How in the world can we keep up with demand? But if people are asking for the Gospel, how can we ever say no?”

This is where Lutheran Braille Workers began. Through the support of her brother, Norman Loeber, who created a modern Braille press, friends, women from the local Ladies Aid Societies, and volunteers at other Lutheran Churches, Helene began expanding production of materials into other languages and titles. As production grew, demand also grew even larger.

Eventually, through the encouragement of The Lutheran Hour speaker at the time, Rev. Dr. Oswald Hoffmann, Helene expanded into Large Print production.

Lutheran Braille Workers exists to bring the Word of God to the 338 million people throughout the world who are Blind or Visually Impaired, completely free of charge, in Braille and Specialized Large Print.

Men, women, and children find hope in the Light of Christ through the Bible and other Christian materials provided by LBW in multiple languages in every part of the globe. LBW is one of the last remaining free resources available to them in which the Good News of Jesus is shared quickly and in high quality formats.

In over 80 years of ministry, Lutheran Braille Workers has produced and distributed over 15 million volumes of Christian material, in 40 languages, to people in 164 countries. LBW has never charged a recipient to receive these materials as we believe in freely sharing God’s Word!