2021β2023 LWML Mission Grant #3
Thirst to Learn: Bible Books for Africaβs Children
Lutheran Heritage Foundation β $100,000
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Watch the video about this mission grant!
About This Mission Grant
Lutheran Heritage Foundation continues its work of translating, publishing, distributing, and introducing Lutheran materials throughout Africa where the population is more than 1.216 billion people. Sadly, over half those souls are still waiting to be introduced to the one true Savior, Jesus Christ. Islam has made huge inroads in the continent. But thanks be to God, Christian missionaries have been spreading the Light of the Gospel also. Economic and political conditions may force missionaries to leave a country, but the Lutheran books they leave behind stay β and teach β for generations. This grant will fund the printing and distribution of 129,500 engaging, colorful books which will introduce children to Jesus in their Lutheran schools, Sunday schools, and orphanages.
Mission Grant Resources
featured November 2021
Mission Grant Poster β color
Bulletin Flyer (b/w half page insert, 2 per page)
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Amazingly, LHF is able to print catechism booklets for less than 50 cents each. Beautiful, full-color Bible storybooks can be produced for less than $3 per child. Just imagine how the Holy Spirit will use your gifts to share Jesus with tens of thousands of children β children who thirst to know the one true Savior!
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With the help of the National LWML, the Lutheran Heritage Foundation will introduce tens of thousands of children to the Savior, Jesus Christ, by translating and printing Bible storybooks and Small Catechisms into their own languages. "Children can learn!" exclaims Rev. Dr. Nicholas Salifu, pastor in Ghana. "By the end of preschool, every child at our school knows the 10 Commandments, the Apostles Creed and Lord's Prayer β and they know this and they're not even Lutheran!"
Approved Resolution at the LWML Convention
WHEREAS, African families face many physical and spiritual challenges, including extreme poverty, disease, civil unrest, and the ever-growing presence of Islam; and
WHEREAS, Lutheran missionaries and church leaders in Africa have witnessed a "thirst to learn" about the Savior and have expressed a deep need for easy-to-understand Lutheran books, printed in the languages of the people, to teach parents and children the Lutheran faith; and
WHEREAS, African Lutheran partner churches also need engaging, colorful books to introduce children to Jesus in their Lutheran schools, Sunday schools, and orphanages β books the children may keep for their very own; andΒ
WHEREAS, the Lutheran Heritage Foundation has 30 years of vigorously fulfilling its mission of translating and publishing high-quality Lutheran books for children, such as A Child's Garden of Bible Stories, Luther's Small Catechism, and Bible Stories in Pictures into the languages of the world at a cost of less than $3 per book; therefore, be it
RESOLVED, that the delegates of the 2021 Lutheran Womenβs Missionary League Convention scheduled for Lexington, Kentucky, vote the sum of $100,000 to help fund Thirst to Learn: Bible Books for Africa's Children.
More Mission Grant Photos
More than 400 million children live in Africa, nearly half of whom live in the spiritual darkness of Islam. Others are taught to worship nature or the spirits of their ancestors. Like the woman at the well, they thirst to know the one true God.
Can you imagine being responsible for teaching the Bible to a class of eager students, week after week, with absolutely no written materials to do so? For generations, this has been the situation for many Sunday school teachers throughout Africa. But with your help, Sunday school teachers will now have Bible storybooks and Small Catechisms, translated into languages they speak and read.
LHF has nearly 30 years' experience printing vibrant, engaging books like A Child's Garden of Bible Stories into dozens of African languages, which are given free to the families who need them. In easy-to-understand language, children β and their moms and dads! β learn how God made the world, how humankind fell into sin, and how God sent a Savior, Jesus, to take that sin away.
"We absolutely love working with LHF!" says Rev. Shauen Trump, who oversees LCMS mission work throughout East and South Africa. "The Church is rapidly expanding here, and the church bodies we are privileged to walk alongside constantly ask for materials and training for pastors, evangelists and new church members." LHF is very pleased to provide free resources to our LCMS missionaries and church partners, giving them the teaching materials they need to help African pastors and families share the Good News with Jesus' littlest lambs!
In countries where the typical child doesn't own a single book of his or her own, a book about Jesus makes a big impact! In addition to family devotions, the books are a cherished gift to impoverished Lutheran schools. In addition to serving as textbooks for religion class, the Bible storybooks and catechisms are also used in some countries as reading and literacy texts!
