It’s a new year of outreach and a new God-given faith goal for your OneHope ministry. In 2023 we are believing by faith that we can get God’s Word to 142 million children and youth!
As you stand with us, you will be providing the life-transforming power of God’s Word for young people like Aziza in the West African nation of Burkina Faso.
Most of the population of her nation follows Islam — but in rural villages like hers many people follow ancient tribal and animist religions.
All her life Aziza had feared the gruesome idols her family prayed to … she wanted to believe in a God who cared for her — but she saw no evidence of it in her tribal religion.
Then she attended a showing of The GodMan film — she saw the God she had been looking for — the loving Savior, Jesus!
The very next day, Aziza burned her idols as a public testimony that she had chosen to follow Jesus.
Today she’s attending the local church and growing in her faith!
Reflecting on the start of a new year, this C. S. Lewis quote comes to mind,
“There are far better things ahead than anything we leave behind.”
If you watch the news, follow social media, or plug into the Twitter-sphere, you would think everything in our world was going to hell; that bad news is everywhere.
Even the Christian news cycle seems to be loaded down with doom and despair. However, no matter how grim the headlines, what we need to remember is that Christ has come in power and victory, God is always at work, and His is an indestructible Kingdom.
God is never that predictable; His solutions are rarely natural or common. They are extraordinary and supernatural.
Like Paul being an unlikely choice for revival in his time, I hold out hope for influences of our time to become forces for the Kingdom as well, coming not from recognized or traditional Church leaders but from new voices, encountering the Spirit of God in a fresh new way.
God is always at work. He will prevail — there’s nothing that can stand against Him or change the ending to the story. Even with the most horrific headlines, we need to remember that not only is the Kingdom not in jeopardy, it is triumphant, and victory is inevitable.
Let’s anticipate the new year with fresh resolve and passionate commitment to follow our King toward His victorious ends.
That includes our resolve to reach 142 million children and youth with God’s Word this year! Thank you for being part of it.
His life was difficult, and Sang sometimes wondered if it was worth it.
He lives in a majority-Buddhist nation where Christians often suffer persecution, and he didn’t know anything about Jesus … and the Buddhist faith gave him no hope at all.
He felt tortured by dark thoughts of suicide.
Then he met a team of OneHope partners who told him about a God who loves him and wants him to be happy and filled with abundant life. Sang was overjoyed! They shared the Scriptures with him … and he committed his life to Christ!
Thank you for reaching out to Sang with the Good News that Jesus loves him.
Thank you for opening your heart to the next generation worldwide. If you’re wondering how you’ll connect 142 million children and youth with the Good News this year, here’s a sample of the powerful programs you’ll provide.
The film is contextualized to the local setting with a live-action introduction and conclusion that help young people understand how the story relates to them, and the basic story of the life of Christ is clearly presented.
In fact, The GodMan film is one of the most important programs used in the Lumière Project for sub- Saharan Africa, reaching children and youth in several majority-Muslim nations. The GodMan film presents Jesus even in limited access regions.
The original resource you helped us develop first in 1987 has been translated into over 175 languages and dozens of different versions. It contains the life story of Jesus from the Scriptures and clearly communicates the Gospel message — and is enhanced with extra sections that connect the Scriptures with the heartfelt needs of the children.
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 live in places where Gospel literature can’t go.
This special-edition Book of Hope features the stories and illustrations included in the app. It can stand alone as a clear presentation of the Gospel or be used in conjunction with the Bible App for Kids.
One of the most in-demand of all our programs, Lead Today is designed to help teenagers become godly leaders by focusing on the ultimate leader, Jesus. Created in partnership with John C. 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. It also invites students to choose new life in Christ.
Created with our partners at YouVersion, the app is the most popular online children’s Bible! It has been downloaded more than 75 million times, and is available in 65 languages. It’s perfect for limited access nations because some contexts, a printed Book of Hope, could be dangerous for our partners, but the digital app is a free resource that is easily used to share truth to children.
God’s Big Story is a collection of picture cards that depicts Bible stories without written text. Children learn the stories and collect the cards week by week. When they receive all 16 cards, the pieces fit together to reveal the metanarrative of the Gospel. It’s a powerful program for pre-readers and cultures that rely on storytelling rather than the written word.
You are sharing the Gospel with young people all over the world, together with OneHope today, and what a blessing this is to the next generation!
You doubtlessly want to see this good work continue … and you’ve been considering how you can build on this legacy by including OneHope in your will or estate plan.
You’ve been wanting to do it … and now, at the beginning of a new year, is the time.
For more information on strategic ways to maximize your legacy of sharing Jesus with the next generation, please reach out to stewardship@onehope.net or call 1.800.448.2425.
Theirs is a majority-Hindu nation where radical nationalists persecute believers with violence and societal traditions are in place to try to prohibit people from receiving the Good News.
But local believers are dedicated to sharing God’s Word with the next generation, and that’s how sisters Laksmi and Chaitna received the Bible App for Kids Book of Hope, a printed book with illustrations and stories that correspond to the app.
They loved it! They read all the stories, and both girls chose to dedicate their lives to Christ!
Their parents have not made that decision yet, but they are allowing Laksmi and Chaitna to attend church, where they are growing in God and were recently baptized!
Thank you for sending God’s Word to this Hindu family. Please pray with us that the parents will soon come to know Jesus, too.
The new church Gozo en Familia (Joy in Family) wants to thank you for sending the Book of Hope and other Scripture programs! Through OneHope programs, they saw triple The number of new children — and their families — attending. About 400 children have received God’s Word through OneHope programs.
Rachel felt unwanted and unloved. She had no friends at school and was sometimes bullied! When she saw Jesus in The GodMan film befriending the unwanted and unloved, she knew she wanted Jesus to be her friend, too. Today she is following Jesus, and she has Christian friends who love and care for her!
His dream from earliest childhood was to be a soccer star! Yusif wanted to be a champion!
But as a poor boy from a majority-Muslim nation, he never had a chance for international stardom. As his dream faded, he instead devoted himself to having fun with his friends, partying and drinking.
And watching pro soccer matches. He was standing outside the stadium when someone handed him our Champions Book of Hope.
“I thought it was a book about the game, and I was surprised it was about religion,” he remembers. “But I liked the book, and I didn’t know why.”
The book inspired him to visit the nearest church, an Orthodox one.
“I couldn’t find any connection between this book and this church,” he says. “But I want to be part of these words in the book.” So next he went to an evangelical church.
“I was surprised because I never knew about this Christian church or what they do,” Yusif says.
And it was there he felt the connection to the words in the book. At church he made new friends, received a Bible and learned how to study it, and soon dedicated his life to Christ!
Today Yusif is all grown up. He married a Christian woman from church, and together they started a ministry in their majority-Muslim city.
“I had no hope in my life — and one small book changed that!” Yusif says. Thank you for sending that small book to give him hope and a future.
