International (MNN)–Bible Pathway Ministries is celebrating outreach in 56 countries.
It’s a mark of cooperation and partnership in outreach, so says Pathway’s Ken Sharp. Many times, as a result of a radio program, or a specific campaign, mission groups get inundated with requests for the Pathway study program. “They oftentimes will send them on to us, and then we’re able to fill those requests for Bibles, Bible teach materials, both for individuals as well as for pastors, missionaries, churches in a lot of these countries.”
BPM gets daily requests from around the globe; sometimes 8 or 10 people make requests in a single letter because the cost of postage is so high they cannot afford to pay for the stamp alone.
They send pastors a library consisting of a study Bible, a commentary or other reference books, and at least one other Bible teaching book as well as several sets of Bible Pathway
Sharp says because they help ministries with free materials for global distribution, they need funding and prayer. “We can always use more and more Bibles. We’re never able to fill all the requests for Bibles and Bible Pathways that we receive, partly because we just don’t have the resources to purchase them and to get them as fast we send them out.”
The needs are ever growing. For example, BPM shares that there are pastors in some countries who do not have a Bible. One pastor had preached for four years and didn’t have a Bible. He told BPM teams he felt like a farmer going into a field without a sickle.
A church in Zimbabwe had 1000 members and only 4 Bibles for the whole congregation. In some underpriviledged countries, Bibles are still carefully torn apart so that each church member may have a few precious pages to take home and read for themselves.
A teenage boy in India, while a former thief, stole a woman’s handbag and found a Bible Pathway in it. He later wrote requesting a Bible because he had gotten saved and now that he was a Christian he couldn’t steal one.
These are just a few of the stories BPM shares when explaining the needs around the world. It costs $15 to send a Bible and a one-year set of Bible Pathway to someone. For details, go to: http://www.biblepathway.org.
