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I have a beautiful, leather-bound Life Application Bible that I bought back in my younger, stronger days.  For a long time it went with me everywhere, but more recently its size and weight meant that it was abandoned in favor of lighter, easier to carry Bibles, and my later switch over to an electronic Bible meant that this very valuable resource began to collect dust as it set on the shelf. I had really appreciated the points the commentary made in my individual Bible study, and although valued as a resource it was just too much to carry around.

I had window shopped the iLumina product long before I finally decided to purchase it. My stylus just itched to click on that neat row of tabs along the bottom of the screen that I saw in the screenshot, but I had already purchased many of the resources that were available in the package.  As amazing as the original Bible Reader was with its split windows, those little tabs were the ultimate in window organization. I could bounce back and forth between a Bible and a commentary and retain a full size window. I could even add a second window to a tab! How much more organization and flexibility could I handle?

My fiancé, who was new to Olive Tree and didn’t have concerns about any duplicates, bought the iLumina right away because it was a great package for him to start with. It was he who told me what I didn’t know before…those wonderful Life Application Notes were right there in the iLumina edition, tucked neatly in one of those tabs I so admired! I knew then that I had to have it.  iLumina became the basis of my fiancé’s and my daily reading, which always included a selection of scripture plus the corresponding Life Notes. Thought provoking and illuminating, they were all that I remembered them to be from my earlier days.

Hi, I’m Genny, and I’m the newest employee here at Olive Tree. But long before I was an employee I was a customer and an enthusiast. I’ve been using PDAs for about ten years, and bought my first Olive Tree product over five years ago. I’m very excited about being part of Olive Tree, and I hope that I am able to help you have a great experience as an Olive Tree customer.

If you are reading this blog, you probably already have a PDA, Smartphone, or iPhone device, and have or are considering getting an Olive Tree product. My PDA became a serious and necessary appendage to my life, in large part because of the impact of Olive Tree products. Olive Tree put some life-changing tools for Christian living in the palm of my hand, and I’m going to share with you some of my experiences as a user. My hope is that my experiences might help you find products that can transform your life as well.

I can’t remember how I obtained my first version of the Bible Reader, but I can tell you that I bought my first resource from Olive Tree in 2003: the NASB with Strong’s Concordance. For many years my life has been enriched with a study of the Bible, and as a result I was very familiar with Strong’s. Unfortunately, it was a big blue book that sat on my shelf, its size and unwieldiness not encouraging me to take it anywhere. Once I installed it on my handheld (at the time a Sony Clié), it not only went to church and Bible study with me, but it also went to work, to the doctor’s office while I waited for an appointment, and anywhere else I had a few minutes to read. I was able to look up words on the fly while sitting in church or Sunday school. And the thing I liked best about it? Even though I can’t read a word of either Greek or Hebrew, the ability to look at the word in its original language, well, it just made me feel smart!

Having the NASB with Strong’s Concordance really gave me the ability to dig deep and have a better understanding of scripture. And it was so accessable to me as a lay person, I didn’t need a degree in theology to use it. All I had to do was put my stylus on the word I wanted to know about, and a window would open up right there on my screen giving me the word in its orginal language, its English equivalent, and a short definition. Of course, as my first Olive Tree product it will always hold a special place in my heart. I hope that you are able to find products here at Olive Tree that can help you grow spiritually as well.