This refrain haunts me as in my mind's eye I see a tall, slender black man, his eyes squinting against the African sun, feet dusty as he walks the roads to neighboring homes and villages. In his hands he carries books, and he is excited, his heart sings, for these books carry something precious — eternal life.
Only weeks before, these books sat in a box in a hallway at Juneau Adventist Christian School in Alaska under a poster labled, "Bibles for Africa." The project started with a letter we received in late November from James Lumumba, elder, who leads the church in Kisii, Kenya. His letter begged for Bibles for his people, and we just couldn't turn him down. I replied that we would send some, but needed to collect them and the money for postage.
Before Christmas break, our church collected offerings for postage, and we sent two boxes. On Feb. 22, we received a letter, dated Feb. 3, praising God and thanking us for the literature, saying the boxes were received on Jan. 8. After receiving the boxes, the Kenyan Church immediately went house to house in a spiritual campaign, and 40 people accepted Christ as their Savior. On March 1, we received a letter, dated Feb. 11, saying an additional 16 people had been added to the number and they needed more Bibles!
We also received another request from a pastor in a different district for Bibles for his congregation. We passed this request to our sister school, Anchorage Junior Academy.
What a joy to share with my students and church family the result of their and Lumumba's faithfulness, and to see how God waters a dry and thirsty land.
Front row, from left: Sterling Zuboff, Reggie Younker, Aristotle Perdon and Meah Shangin-Morris. Back row, from left: Skylene DeAsco, Angela Gozun, Vanessa Balogh, Christian Schenker and Jordan Laboca.
