My church is making a special push to support Christian ministry globally this Christmas. We have two projects picked out - one in Africa and one in southeast Asia. We are trying to raise the funds to accomplish specific tasks, such as building desperately needed wells and rebuilding a ministry center that was destroyed by arson. My small group decided to do something similar (in addition to supporting the church's goals). Open Doors allows individuals, families, and small groups to meet specific needs for persecuted Christians. For instance, $4 provides a Bible to a Christian in a persecuted area, and $60 provides literacy training to a new Christian who cannot read. For $10 a person a group of ten can provide ten Bibles, as well as literacy training for one person.
This past July I had the privilege of delivering Bibles to persecuted believers in southeast Asia. I can hardly express how precious these books were in the eyes of those who received them. Many of them were barely literate, since subsistence farming is the norm, and the opportunities even for elementary education are few. Even so, they were lit up with joy when receiving this treasure. I imagine that just receiving these Bibles provided a new and unparalleled incentive to self-educate.
I've been to many Christmas parties where gifts in the $10 to $20 range are exchanged, haven't you? It's entertainment, more than anything, because most such gifts are either discarded or used without much appreciation. That is, they aren't seen as anything close to precious. Precious gifts, in contrast, are salutary for recipient and giver alike. In fact, "It is [even] more blessed to give than to receive " (Acts 20:35). So I encourage you to give something precious this Christmas. Anything that helps God's light to shine into open hearts qualifies, whether or not it requires much money.
Albertus
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