World Missionary Press, Inc.
February 2008 Vision Letter

WORLD MISSIONARY PRESS produces millions of Scripture booklets in more than 300 languages and expedites them as quickly as possible to waiting distributors and coordinators around the world. This network of partners is a vital part of the mission of WMP - to give the Word to the world in their own language. Close communication with distributors helps us encourage each other as well as determine specific needs and production goals.

   As Harold Mack, WMP Director of Global Distribution, and Kent Biller, of the WMP production team, traveled to eight African nations, their on-site reports were thrilling. Here are report excerpts from the first four countries they visited:

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): We are visiting our new national coordinator for DRC, Brother Sita L. with Every Home for Christ (EHC). After bus rides, multiple plane flights, and waiting in various airports (about 33 hours total travel time), we arrived in Kinshasa safe and sound. In a city of 7-8 million people with unemployment possibly 80 percent, entrepreneurs try to sell anything to survive. Civil war continues in the eastern part of the country near Rwanda. Life is hard here.

   We had our WMP distributor meeting in Brother Sita's church, with about 50 attendees. Two men from the church go out every day during the week, house-to-house, to witness and hand out booklets. (This is the work of EHC in every country where they minister). After the meeting, Sita distributed boxes of booklets in French and Lingala. He says that EHC (in DRC) would not exist if he did not receive the booklets, because they would not have literature to hand out.  

   Sita told us of a pastor in an outlying village who had only a few pages from a Bible. He had walked 400 km. to copy those pages! He always preached from those few pages. They will appreciate the New Testaments that WMP is sending them.

   Brazzaville, Congo, is just across the bridge from Kinshasa and has a million people. Booklets can go from DRC to Brazzaville, which will make it easier to get them into that country, since we can no longer send by U.S. mail.

   (The 40-ft. container WMP is preparing for DRC will include booklets in nine languages as well as 14,000 French New Testaments and 6,000 New Testaments in DRC Swahili. A gift of $100 will provide 2,500 Scripture booklets for people there.)

South Africa : After missing a flight, we were joyfully met in Durban by our national coordinator, Warren Fuggle. We met with WMP distributors, who told us how they use the literature. Request was made for more material in Zulu, and we shared that WMP now has two new titles in Zulu - Satan versus CHRIST and an updated He Is Risen! They were very excited about these titles, so WMP will increase the amount of Zulu being sent on the next container for South Africa. Warren reminded us that his request has been in line for several months, and he is running out of many languages and titles. There are SO MANY requests for large shipments from SO MANY countries! The need is to significantly increase production.

   We flew to Johannesburg from Durban and met with Cor Reyneke (EHC Director for South Africa), who had also arranged a distributor meeting. Those present were leaders of para-church evangelistic ministries who work with EHC and each other. All use WMP booklets - mostly the 2-in-1 with a response card in the center, produced only for South Africa. (Cor and Aleta Reyneke find this combination of two booklets and a response card VERY EFFECTIVE.) These workers depend greatly on WMP booklets for training counselors, home-to-home visitation, hospital ministry teams, and follow-up discipleship for new converts.

   Each of these ministries acknowledges that the Scripture booklets are a huge blessing and sees the growing possibilities for using more and more WMP booklets. Just Soweto, a heavily populated black township with 3-5 million people, will require 2 million booklets to saturate. WMP has a lot of printing to do!

Rwanda : In Rwanda, the "genocide nation" that suffered the loss of over one million people in the mass slaughter of 1994, one question kept running through our minds. How can a country recover from such atrocity? How can the survivors forgive the killers? Amazingly, Rwanda is finding its way forward. The Church is playing a key role in the healing process by bringing people to Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

   We visited WMP's new national coordinator for Rwanda, Ananie B. We were first introduced to Ananie through Hennie Hanekom, EHC's Regional Director for Anglo Africa. Hennie told us of the great need for Scripture materials in the genocide nations of Rwanda, Burundi, and East Congo. He asked that we supply literature for these countries, sending a shipment to their new national director in Rwanda to be used in the three countries for home-to-home outreach.

   We responded by sending a large shipment from inventory. Only a few months after receiving his shipment, the Scripture materials - including booklets for Rwanda, East Congo, and Burundi - were exhausted.  It will take months to even begin production of the 20-ft. container on order for Rwanda, as several other desperately-needed containers are scheduled ahead of this one. We have such a need to GREATLY increase our production! We had to explain to the distributors at our meeting why they had to wait so long for more materials. Might God enable us to significantly increase production in 2008?

   At the distributor meeting we were lifted by the joy of the distributors, their heartfelt singing, and the appreciation they expressed. We heard accounts of using booklets in schools, where children were encouraged to memorize verses and then be tested on them; of how home-to-home visitation with booklets was winning back those who had been waylaid by false teaching; of how precious the booklets were to the people in the Congo who have been traumatized by years of civil war; of churches that have grown and new churches that have been established through the use of Scripture booklets. We heard more testimonies of pastors who have to share pieces of a single Bible.

   I wish all of you could experience the extreme appreciation we felt from these distributors. Everyone who has any part in supporting and/or working at WMP is helping to supply the life-blood of many distribution networks - in Rwanda, and in many other countries around the world. Without Scripture booklets, some outreach efforts cease. Souls hang in the balance.  These workers urgently need to be supplied with Scripture.

Tanzania : We were met by Joseph J., WMP's national coordinator. Brother Joseph and his staff of Tanzania Youth Ministries (TAYOMI) currently have about 4,000 workers, with Christ groups in hundreds of schools around the country. They work in primary and secondary schools as well as in colleges and universities.

   He Is Risen! coloring books and Help From Above are passed out and discussed with children in primary schools. In secondary schools they give the Bible Study on Genesis to each student, who is encouraged to answer the questions in the booklet for discussion at a later meeting. For colleges and universities, TAYOMI uses WMP’s Bible Reading Book.

   Brother Joseph also distributes boxes of WMP booklets to ministries throughout Tanzania who request them. He showed us his remaining stock of booklets, which was almost gone. We are planning another container for Tanzania in the coming months.

   In Dar-es-Salaam about 50 distributors met for a wonderful time of sharing. Again we heard testimonies of how various ones use WMP booklets. A distributor from Campus Crusade for Christ uses WMP booklets as follow-up material for those viewing the Jesus film. He was from the Maasai tribe and was amazed that we had booklets in his native language. Other distributors shared that they had come to Christ through reading WMP booklets. One of those, a former soldier, was so taken by the Help From Above booklet that led him to Christ that he began sharing it with his fellow soldiers. All were extremely grateful to WMP and TAYOMI for making the Scripture material available to them - free of charge.

   We were so grateful for the opportunity to visit eight African countries to hear and see what God is doing through WMP Scripture booklets. Let us, together, do much more in the days to come.   

-Harold Mack and Kent Biller

   [An investment of $20 will reach 500 people in these African nations. A gift of $200 will touch 5,000 lives with God's Word. $1,000 will provide 25,000 Scripture booklets in African languages.]

   [Harold and Kent's report will continue in next month's newsletter, with highlights from Zambia, Malawi , Mozambique, and Madagascar.]

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