Imagine trying to get somewhere you have never been before without any directions on how to get there. You don’t know if you should go left or right, or even where you should start. Imagine purchasing one of the newest tech gizmos that’s available, a cell phone, iPod, video game or the latest television set with all the bells and whistles and a remote controller with more buttons than you care to have. You bring your latest and greatest home, and you can’t wait to start using it. Oh, but wait, you first need to find the on button and maybe if you can find the menu, you can make this thing work. Where is the menu button, how do you turn it on? Do you push, press or rotate? You look for the instruction manual and lo and behold, they forgot to put one in your box. How are you going to operate this thing without an instruction booklet? How frustrating this must be, what are you going to do?

Imagine how frustrating it is for those we minister to in the Baptist convention churches we serve here in Lusaka, Zambia. On Friday evenings we have a weekly, church-wide, bible study where we teach people to apply Scripture to everyday life. We are sharing the Gospel, calling people to Christ and encouraging them to grow in their understanding of God’s word, equipping them to change their community as they are empowered through the word of God. We give them homework, oh, but wait, they have no bible at home to complete their homework or reread the passages that were under study, nor can they read ahead for the next week. They have no instruction book, the Bible.

We were able to hand out only a few bibles to the ladies group that Sarah leads on Thursdays. They desperately wanted and needed this precious gift. Before giving their lives to Christ, some of these women were former sex workers, not only involved in but immersed in, and surviving by, prostitution. Since starting to attend this bible study they have gotten out of the sex trade industry, some have opened small business enterprises making or cooking food or selling produce or crafts. They are growing spiritually and our group is growing in numbers. As we open God’s word and understand more about who we are in Christ, lives are changing. Charles baptized some of the ladies from this group the last weekend in October and we are all rejoicing at their changed lives. They are starting to make positive impact in their community and their family’s lives.

We are in desperate need of New Living Translation (NLT) and New International Version (NIV) Bibles. We can get them here in several of the seventy-two different official languages of Zambia -- English included. Each bible costs about K40,000.00 (Kwacha) or $10.00 (US Dollar) each. This is more than most of them earn in a few days of “piece-work.” Most of the people we minister to and serve among are unemployed, so if one of them is blessed to work and bring in about K20,000.00 (Kwacha) a day, food and shelter would take priority over purchasing a bible.

Please consider partnering with us to distribute bibles in Nyanja, Bemba, English and other languages. $10.00 would purchase one bible, $20.00 two and $30.00 three bibles. Each $10.00 gift you give would provide godly instruction and comfort to the people we minister to. International Ministries has made it easy for you to donate. Just go to the www.internationalministries.org website, click on Giving, go to Africa on the drop down menu, click on Charles and Sarah West and make your donation. It’s as simple as that. Please help us put more smiles on the faces of God’s children as they receive their instruction book, the Bible.

Figure 1: Sarah, handing out bibles to a happy group of ladies at the Thursday bible study group.

In His Service,

Charles and Sarah West