Tuesday, November 13, 2007

One Bible Makes a Difference


My husband and I took a stack of Spanish Scriptures along last summer on a vacation to the Dominican Republic. We gave most of them to a poor pastor we got to know a few years ago. Their church is very evangelistic, and they have new Christians regularly. Poor Dominican Christian families often have only one old, very worn Bible for the whole family.We also gave a Bible to another poor pastor, Pastor Garcia, who felt led to start a church a few years ago in a very poor community, where alcoholism and illiteracy are rampant. He also started a school (Kindergarten and Grade 1) and pays the teacher out of his own pocket. He himself is poor and supports an extended family. The offering at the church is about seventy cents a week, which probably buys a handful of rice or some bananas.
Pastor Garcia had led a woman to the Lord just the night before, and she had asked for a Bible. He didn’t have one for her, so he was very happy for the one we gave him. We went to visit a family in Santiago (a grandma and four orphaned grandchildren) whom we support. They live in terrible poverty in a miserable shack, without running water or a bathroom.I had two New Testaments left, so I gave one, Mi Ciudad, Mi Dios (My City, My God), to 12-year-old Michele, the oldest of the orphans. She immediately started reading and was immersed in it throughout most of our visit. The other one, How to Find God (in Spanish), went to a young woman who is part of the extended family. She also started reading it right away, from the beginning. The grandma is illiterate, and I didn’t see any reading material in the home.
Carol & Walter Warkentin

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