Requests for Scripture increase in Africa

Africa (MNN) — World Missionary Press (WMP) is seeing an increasing hunger for God’s Word in African countries, reflected in requests for their Scripture booklets.

“We’re having tremendous feedback from Africa. It seems to be moving across the continent,” says WMP’s Helen Williams. “Right now we have projects going in 10 or 12 different countries in Africa. We have about 20,000,000 booklets on order for different places in Africa.”

Materials are continuously circulating into countries and being distributed among thousands. Nearly every distributor says the same thing: they couldn’t minister to people without WMP Scripture booklets, and if they left the house without them, they wouldn’t be complete.

Williams recently spoke with a distributing partner in Uganda who shared the story of a man tearing a Scripture booklet apart. Confused, he asked the man why he was destroying it. The man responded by saying he wasn’t destroying it: he was tearing it so he could give two pieces of the literature away instead of one.

“[The partner] said the hunger is there. They’re seeing responses. He’s entered a new order. I just got his new order here for another shipment to go to Uganda, and we’re just thrilled with that,” says Williams.

WMP is ecstatic that Scripture booklets are making such an impact. Lives are being transformed, believers are growing in Christ, and more requests for booklets are coming in each day, showing the hunger for Christ’s healing words.

WMP has sent thousands of booklets to Guinea, a country recovering from the outbreak of Ebola, with sporadic cases still popping up. Williams says the booklets were stuck at the border for quite some time, but now that the disease is diminishing considerably, the gates have been opened and the booklets are being distributed.

Often, there is the prospect of low literacy rates among numbers of people in Africa. Some would argue there wouldn’t be any way for the people to read the Gospel or comprehend their need for a Savior.

But, Williams says, “Even though the literacy rate is low in some places, children will take them and read to their parents. Or one person in a family will gather a whole family around and read the booklet, and read it over and over and over again.”

The excitement over the work being done in Africa is overwhelming. There are projects in Zambia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, and more.

WMP wants to share a free DVD with you to talk about the work in more depth. A recent partner from Souls for Jesus, a major contact from South Africa, and a WMP staff come together in the DVD at WMP’s Anniversary Dinner to share what’s happening in Africa, how it’s helping, and what the next step is. Find out for yourself by getting the DVD!

Also, with 20,000,0000 Scripture booklets in the works, WMP could use your help through financial support and through prayer.

“We covet [your] prayers. We are trying to fill so many orders because we believe that time is limited. And there are so many distributors out there like these in Africa that are just standing with their hands out saying, ‘As soon as you get it to me, I can give it to someone else.’ And, that’s our challenge.”