The passion and vision of your OneHope ministry is: God’s Word. Every Child.
We want every boy and girl to know that Jesus loves them, and this year our faith goal is to get God’s Word to 136 million young people all over the world.
This is critical because the next generation is under attack: the pandemic, the economic chaos, religious and political upheaval — children and youth today need God’s love and protection!
They’re young people like Russian teenager Schura, who lived in poverty with a very dysfunctional family and had no hope for the future … until you sent the Hosanna Plan team to his village, and he received the Book of Hope and learned about Jesus.
Today Schura has Christ as his Savior and is growing in God through the local faith community. His life has been transformed!
Thank you for reaching out to Schura, and millions more like him, with God’s Word. With your partnership this year, we’ll reach more children and youth through print programs, film media, and digital outreaches than ever before!
The Bob and Hazel Hoskins School of Mission was dedicated recently as part of Southeastern University, a recognition that honors the faith-filled walk and missions impact of my parents. This got me thinking about our familial legacy.
My mom and dad modeled what it looks like to live with emboldened faith in many different spheres of life. I had a front row seat to my mom’s day-to-day reliance on the Lord until she was called home a few years ago. Dad and I still work closely on OneHope initiatives, continuing to strategize how to innovate Scripture engagement programs for the next generation.
My parents had a history of trying and accomplishing great things for God — a legacy of faith that still guides, inspires, and models vision for us today.
They didn’t always see the next five steps ahead of them, but they were careful to take the next step in reliance on the Lord.
My dad has often said that as Christians, we plant and water, but it’s God who brings the growth. We can be good stewards of what we are given, like sharing Scripture engagement programs with children and youth, but ultimately growth or transformation happens in God’s timing.
Students who take classes in the Hoskins School of Mission (including OneHope teams from around the world meeting virtually) will be learning a combination of ministry and marketplace skills through their courses, being encouraged to walk in faith no matter their job title. I’m glad Mom and Dad will be an inspiration to students for years to come, as they are to me.
Camila was a Christian.
In her home nation of Chile, her mother had been taking her to church ever since she was a little girl. She heard about the crucifixion every Good Friday, the Resurrection every Easter, the baby in the manger at Christmas. She knew the whole story.
But now, as a tween girl about to become a teenager, Camila had other things on her mind! She had a cell phone and an Instagram account; she had her favorite YouTube channels and loved texting her friends —
In fact, now it felt like her mother was dragging her to church when she had better things to do!
But then she saw The GodMan film. She was face-to-face with a Jesus she had never really known, a Friend and Savior who was willing to lay down His life so that she could live a full and happy life, with heaven in her future.
After that, everything changed! Camila rededicated her life to Christ — and while she still has her phone and her friends and a busy social life, she’s also joyful in Jesus and happy to go to church with her mom and learn more about the Savior.
Thanks for showing Camila the Jesus she never knew.
OneHope digital programs are going strong! The Bible App for Kids, the Kids Bible Experience, What If It’s True?, and other digital programs grew dramatically over the past 2 years, and we expect their reach to continue to expand in 2022.
At the same time, our core print and film programs will also be expanding, to reach even more children and youth in 2022. Among the programs we expect to make a tremendous impact in the new year are:
Created in partnership with John Maxwell’s organization, EQUIP, Lead Today empowers teens to lead with biblical principles by showing them a leadership model they can admire, respect, and follow. Powerful stories of biblical leadership help students discover their God-given potential as they begin influencing others right where they are.
The Bible App for Kids brings the Bible to life in a whole new way by providing God’s Word digitally to children around the world. It even reaches children in countries that have restrictions and severe resistance to the Gospel message. The Bible App for Kids has been installed over 75 million times and in every region of the world.
Some cultures place emphasis on the importance of storytelling, passing down their history through spoken word. To meet the needs of children who can’t read yet, and those in storytelling cultures, OneHope created the God’s Big Story program, a collection of picture-cards that depict Bible stories without written text. The teacher explains a new story each week, and the children take home a collectible card to show their family and friends. Then, the children return the next week to collect another card and learn a new story. When they receive all 16 cards, the pieces fit together to reveal the metanarrative of the Gospel.
The GodMan is a live-action, animated retelling of the story of Christ’s life, designed to innovatively share God’s Word with children all over the world who can’t read, or in places where Gospel literature can’t go.
Zar, a young girl growing up in an Asian nation where to be Buddhist is regarded as one’s social heritage and natural state — and to leave Buddhism is seen as something akin to treason.
Buddhists who choose instead to follow Jesus are ostracized and subject to persecution.
Zar had never given religion much thought. Her family is extremely poor; her parents work long, hard hours in the struggle to put food on the table for the family — and Zar took advantage of the many hours she was on her own to pursue her own desires. “I didn’t listen to my teachers or my parents,” she recalls.
But then she went to a children’s club at the local church. They were studying God’s Big Story and our Stories of Hope curriculum together. And today Zar says:
“Now, I am changing gradually from inside out … I worship the Lord with all my heart. I know more about God and His love. He is the living God, the Creator of all and the Savior of my soul too. Now I believe God and I will follow Him till the end of my life.”
Alma didn’t know how to teach her son about Jesus. She brought him to church and hoped he was learning in Sunday school, but she mentioned to the children’s pastor that she felt unprepared to answer his questions or guide him spiritually.
The pastor introduced her to the Kids Bible Experience for children who are growing out of the Bible App for Kids. He suggested she watch the Kids Bible Experience along with her son.
Today Alma and her son are both using the app as a regular part of their devotional time. It has completely enhanced their relationship with God — and touched their family, too: Alma’s husband and her son’s grandmother are all attending church with them now.
The entire family has been transformed by the power of God’s Word!
Emerick felt like he lost everything when his parents separated. His mother took him with her to live with his grandfather. His dad disappeared.
Their home nation of Venezuela had been in economic and social turmoil even before the pandemic, then the year of isolation in this new, dysfunctional home caused 11-year-old Emerick immense grief and pain.
His mother tried to help him, by taking him to church … but his grandfather, an angry and profane man, had a bigger influence on the boy. Emmerick began to disrespect his mother and cuss just like his abuelo. Anger and bitterness were his constant companions.
But then Emerick received our special edition Superbook Book of Hope and began attending sessions at church. What he read in the pages of this book offered him hope for the first time he could remember.
“Superbook Book of Hope has taught me the true value of things and responsibility that we must have towards God, since He has sacrificed for us, and I have accepted that sacrifice and it is very valuable to me,” Emerick says today.
He dedicated his life to Christ.
“I’m so thankful for this series, which is incredible and fantastic,” Emerick says. “It taught me how to know the Lord … I have been saved and set free.”
Emerick’s mom, too, is thankful. She says, “Superbook Book of Hope has been a very powerful influence in the life of the whole family.”
She and her son are now praying Grandpa, too, will soon come to faith in Christ.
