Kenya (MNN) — While Kenya's power-sharing deal has brought subtle peace to the country, ministry is still being affected by the political and racial unrest.
Book of Hope Intnerational's Cal Ratz says each year their ministry sets goals for each country. Ratz says those goals have been put on hold. "I'll be there in a couple of days, and I'll be reassessing the situation. We have books in the country. But our distributors have not been able to get out and travel to get them into the schools. I'm hoping that we'll be able to get back to that."
The Book of Hope is a harmony of the Gospel that's written in the language of children and youth for several different age groups. Ratz says, "We go into schools, present the Gospel in a relevant dynamic way, give out the books and then have a follow up with our movie. Churches are growing and developing."
Ratz says Book of Hope was affected by the violence. "One of our churches full of people was burned. About 50 people died in the fire. One of my coordinators has two uncles: people of an opposing tribe came in burned all their crops (and) burned all of their houses and buildings." Then they were killed.
According to Ratz, the political and tribal issues have created an openness to the Gospel. "People realize the political progress or the economic progress is not the answer to their dreams and aspirations, and we are finding a great opening to the Gospel. Our director there said, 'When I go in and talk about hope, that's what the young people do not have.'"
He says going in with a message of hope has an expectant audience.
Ratz is asking believers worldwide to pray that the ministry of Book of Hope will resume and that Book of Hope will be the tool God uses to bring many to Himself, while also having an impact on racial reconciliation.
