We have great news for you. Two of my staff, Jeff Pallansch and Ryan Miller, have just returned from a pastor’s conference in Southeast Asia where they taught 500 pastors how to use our Discipleship Course to teach and train members of their churches.
One pastor who attended is head of 45,000 other churches in Southeast Asia, and wants to use our course with his pastors. Jeff and Ryan also taught 12,000 Christian leaders in Hyderabad. So, God is at work in Southeast Asia. Please pray for all of these pastors as they start using the course.
Our course is a 40-lesson study entitled “‘Follow Me’: Experiencing the Joy of Walking with Jesus,” which can be found at our website, jabible.org. Our three teachers are Sunder and Shyamala Krishnan, and me.
Sunder and Shyamala grew up in Delhi, Southeast Asia. Sunder received a scholarship to attend MIT, became a nuclear engineer, was employed by the Canadian Nuclear Energy Commission, and taught Sunday school for 13 years at a Christian church near his work in Canada.
When the pastor resigned, the church asked Sunder if he would become their pastor. He accepted, and was their pastor for 31 years.
He has a deep love for teaching the truths of the Bible. I asked Sunder and Shyamala to participate with me in this course. For four years we put together these lessons and taped them for television. Then we translated them into four Southeast Asian languages and eight other world languages. Through these 40 lessons we teach what it means to be a disciple of Christ, and how to live a Christian life.
The study is free to all, and you can sign up for yourself at https://jabible.org/courses/.
As I am relating this tremendous opening for training pastors in Southeast Asia, Isaiah 55:11 reminds me of how much I treasure your faithful prayers and support for me and for this ministry.
God tells us His Word “that goes out from my mouth… shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
When you pray for us, when you send messages of encouragement, when you provide financial support, you are reminders to me of the faithfulness of God. So, I thank you, and I pray that God will return His blessings to you many times over.
I believe because of your prayers we are receiving many new testimonies from people. One is from a man in the Middle East. Rami was a believer, but his brothers Eli and Tony were not. Eli had lost most of his sight because of a war injury. But one day he was offered an Audio Bible. Rami explains what happened next:
“The man came back with an Audio Bible loaded with Scripture in our heart language. However, Eli wasn’t there. Instead, the man found my older brother Tony—still a non-believer who refused to read the Bible. He asked Tony if he could leave the Audio Bible with him. He shared the gospel and told Tony about Jesus’ love and sacrifice on the cross. Afterward, they prayed together, and the man left.
“I found out a couple weeks later that Tony was in a fatal car accident. The most painful thought I had was that my brother had never accepted the Lord nor experienced His love. But Eli told me Tony had been listening to and memorizing Scripture ever since the Christian man brought the Audio Bible. I believe God delayed my brother’s death until he had a chance to meet and accept Jesus. Now, he lives in God’s presence. I thank the Lord for the Audio Bible He used to save my brother.”
This astonishing testimony is just one of hundreds we receive regularly. God’s Word, in the form of Audio Bibles, is transforming lives around the world as a direct result of your gifts. We simply cannot thank you enough for continuing to give so the gospel can be preached, heard, and received.
In the most recent report I received from Faith Comes By Hearing, they estimate that 14,787,489 people in 83 countries are now in listening groups. They are listening to an Audio Bible that you or one of our other donors have given. And they are learning in one of 253 different languages about how to follow Jesus.
About half of these people, or about 7.4 million people, have come to know Jesus as their Savior as Tony did. God has used you in an amazing way to bring His truth to those who might otherwise never have had the opportunity to hear and respond to the Good News of salvation through Jesus Christ.
And please keep in mind that Morgan Jackson will be with us in December to give us a report of the impact of your giving. He will share the testimonies of people whose lives have been changed by hearing God’s Word. Be sure to tune in to hear these exciting testimonies. I’m certain you will be blessed as I always am as you hear how God is working in the hearts and lives of people around the world.
May I also ask you to continue praying and giving as you are able while we seek to reach the 1.5 billion people who are still waiting to hear? Events in our world give us hope that Christ’s return is near, so we cannot lose any time in sharing the gospel.
Speaking of the Lord’s return, we recently had three scholars in our studio to tape a prophecy series of programs about Jesus’ return.
Dr. Ron Rhodes, Dr. Mark Hitchcock, and Jeff Kinley will be my guests. Between them they have written more than 150 books explaining what the Bible says about the rapture, the tribulation, the return of Christ and what we can expect in eternity future.
We will begin these eight programs this month. I believe you will be encouraged as you hear about the promises God has given us in Scripture.
The Apostle Paul told us in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18,
“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will be the first to rise. After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.”
Thank you again for walking with me, our staff, and this ministry as we declare the only Savior to a hurting, seeking world.
For those still waiting to hear,
John and Darlene