Pray for India, Nepal, Myanmar

Brief update regarding the situation in Myanmar. Our leader asks for prayer "to bring peace and harmony soon." He states that covid continues to take lives, the military continues to arrest people, and there is fighting every where during this political crises. Even in the midst of all this, our leader shares what he has with those in need. Prices are soaring. In the past few weeks eggs  cost more than 8 times what they did!

Thankfully, several of the believers fellowship together on Zoom and are able to do STS once a week. The difficulties drive people to Christ, including baptisms, and the church is growing. Just in the last year, about 30 people have accepted the Lord. We praise God for His blessings.

Please continue to pray for the people of Myanmar. Many have lost jobs, businesses, and have no income. Many people currently live hand to mouth. Still our leader writes that "God want us to learn something more about Him and closer to Him…  1 Peter 5: 7, 10-11: encouraging me 'Casting all your care upon him; for he cares for you.' and 'But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.  To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.'"

Refugees Graduate & A New Center Takes Root

Uganda recently had close to 200 refugees graduate from STS Oral Bible Schools. All the students are challenged with oral based testing to make sure they know the Bible stories and can share specific insights to those Bible passages. The leader stated that these graduates are very good.

Our leader for the refugee camps in Northern Kenya recently had the paperwork for a new center approved. This center will help reach the refugees, the Turkana and many people in the local area. Building has now started on this center.

As soon as they started work, neighbors from 3 sides of the property showed up demanding payment for part of the land that was "taken from them".   From that confusion, the village chief became involved and called a meeting to straighten it out.  At the meeting a pastor stood up and said, "This man came … to help us.  This center will help your children and this area. You would be glad he is willing to build this center."  The entire village then agreed to not go against the center and the village chief had all the neighbors sign as witness that the center was good.  Also, the neighbors, instead of demanding land from the center, donated 50% more land.

We still need prayer for the center as they need water and materials to build.

Indigenous Groups Love STS

At a recent training in Mexico there were 6 tribal groups who were very excited about using Bible stories in their own indigenous language.

One pastor and his group shared their excitement about having a future training in the village with translation. Another leader is making plans to see STS taught among 10 churches in her area. Praise the Lord, God's Word is reaching remote areas!

Taking Jesus to the Highways & Byways!

Say the word "evangelism" to many Christians and it often conjures up the emotion of fear. Yet, we have the greatest gift of Jesus to share with the lost and broken hearted.  One woman from Europe, now working in central Africa, shared that evangelism scared her. However, equipped with God's Word and STS skills, here's what happened.

At the end of the day, this European woman brought materials to the print shop. The busy owner responded briefly to the normal questions like, "How are you?".  This woman shared that she was still learning Bible stories and the shop owner listened. They had a discussion over the storm story from Mark 4:35-41 (because Jesus asked the disciples to go across the sea at the end of the day and it was the end of the day for the shop owner). The people in the shop listened intently, and at the end, the shop owner asked for the location in the Bible of that story!

Then on the way home, a motor taxi driver yelled something at this European woman and so she asked if he wanted to hear a Bible story. Two drivers listened and discussed the Bible story. For a woman uncomfortable with street evangelism, now she is doing street evangelism.

Just received this report from a man in Southern California.

"I was listening to a message and the preacher talked about people seeing our peace and our joy and asking us ‘why are you at peace with yourself why do you have such calm joy’ and then it opens up an opportunity to share the gospel…. I felt a longing and like I wish somebody would say that to me so I could share with them the good news. So I walked out of AutoZone an hour later and started to get in my car and I saw a customer standing there and I thought to myself OK probably I need to give him a Bible story right now and I went over there I gave him a Bible story and talked with this man named Gilbert for a couple minutes. He said he had lived a hard life but he didn’t want to be like that anymore and I told him some good things about the Lord and then he started to get in his car. It was time to leave.

"As I was walking away … He asked “you’re really at peace with yourself aren’t you”? So I told him what a joy it was to have my sins forgiven and it makes me have peace and joy that the world could never give. So he got a good Bible story and I was super encouraged then when I got in the car I realized that God ministered to both of us simultaneously hearing my hearts cry and also hearing his cry that he wanted to change…."

Bible Stories Have Power!

For the past 10 years many of our STS instructors have been praying for one instructor's spouse to come to Christ. This instructor would practice Bible stories with her husband for these past 10 years (amazing since before that, he wanted nothing to do with Jesus or church). This past month, we received a text that he now knows Jesus is the Christ.

Listen to Heart Pocket Podcast on iTunes or HeartPocket.org for August 24, 31, and September 7 for more on this story.

The Blind Men See!

Several trainings have just completed in West Africa. In Cote d'Ivoire, our leader now has the wonderful assistance of her 2 teen children helping to train. Then a team conducted training in Liberia that included more than 13 blind people!  Nine of these trainees received Christ! As well, several people from the local Muzlim community attended.

Who's Afraid of the Police?

This amazing story demonstrates the power of God's Word. An STS trained Bible storyteller wrote, "Today I drove 9 hours … The interstate is very straight with 75 MPH limit.  I set my cruise control at about 79 but was passed the whole way by scores of cars…. I saw a patrol car in the median and I slowed down a couple of mph and thought nothing about it…but then I saw in my rear view mirror that he pulled out and eventually he pulled even with me for about 10 secs…then he put on his lights and I pulled over. 

"He said I was going 78 mph in a 75 mph zone. I had to sit in his patrol car while he did a criminal check and filled out forms for, fortunately, just a warning… But as we chatted he noticed my hat “Ask Me For a Story” and he asked, “What type of story do you have for me?”  …  I said, “I have a story from the Bible about “security guards and a jail break"…would you like to hear it?” 

"Interesting enough I had just reviewed orally all the stories that I know from the book of Acts just before being pulled over and so I started into Acts 18 and Peter’s jailbreak.  He listened to it all and then I told him where to find it in a Bible. [The] patrolman then promised that he would read it when he got home!"

Thank you for your prayers,

Andrea & The whole staff of The God's Story Project (TGSP)
Executive Director