9/26/20
Generosity brought our squad $1,000 to buy Bibles to give away in our ministry.
After our squad, led in this project by Eva, put out a request to meet our need for funds to give out Bibles, generosity met us with $1,000. There are a lot of people who care about making sure people in this world have access to a Bible. I NEVER in a million years expected such a generous amount of love to pour into the people we will minister to in the future that our donors will never meet. But, then again, considering that same love from people for people they’ve never met is the reason my trip was funded, I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised. Still, I am. And it’s been emotional for our group to see that we can truly bless people and impact their lives with Bibles for the entire rest of our World Race experience.
I want this to be real for you too. I want you to see a glimpse of the people who are impacted when someone believes in the importance of giving someone a Bible. Lives can be changed when someone can read about God’s love in a Bible.
So, in Bellingham, Washington we attended a big conference, The Awakening. And by big I mean about as big as you can have when Covid is still part of daily life for everyone.
The Awakening brought together all of the racers still out in the field with World Race America, which is B Squad, the original WRA F Squad, and the 6 from C Squad that decided to relaunch at this time. 21 racers. It’s absolutely crazy that in March there were 550 racers out ministering in the world and now there are 21 of us. It’s humbling to be one of the 21.
However, this conference was planned long before Covid, and WRA (F Squad) was always supposed to attend.
So, there were the 21 racers, our leaders, and some people from the community. As I said, it was what you could have in Washington in September 2020.
The Awakening as a conference was a set of discussions and teachings led by speakers who wanted to impart Biblical truths they felt God has shown them about topics like identity and working through offenses.
And in the middle of that, there was time set aside to be practical in our Christian walks by doing ask the Lord ministry.
And so we took Bibles (provided by the church, who also believes in the mission of giving out Bibles) with us and we went into the community in an area known to have homelessness and we shared our Bibles.
And let me tell you there were open arms ready to receive those Bibles because they didn’t have Bibles of their own. Personally, I was involved with giving 2 Bibles away in my group.
One woman we gave a Bible to stopped paying attention to us as soon as we gave it to her because she was intrigued and just wanted to start reading it. She identified as a believer but admitted she really didn’t know what the Bible said. When we left her, she was still sitting there with a Bible open in her lap.
The second gentleman asked us for a Bible as soon as he saw that we had them. He’s fallen on hard times and is homeless now, but he finds his relationship with God to be a light of hope in his life. And so he wants to keep growing. He was blown away when we not only offered him a Bible, but offered him a choice of a few different sizes and translations. Being homeless, we recognized that he will be carrying this Bible everywhere. We chatted with him for a long time, exchanging encouraging stories of faith in our lives. He even gave us a word of gratitude in recognizing that the Bible is better than weed.
And now I look forward to continuing to give away Bibles in the future. This was a taste of the joy of what it is to just bring a piece of hope to people in need. I didn’t realize how much we were missing by not just having Bibles available to give away before, but now I get it. I get how powerful it can be.
Don’t be afraid to offer the word to people you encounter. It’s a tool that can help them learn to fish instead of just being given a fish.
1,000 dollars wasn’t just a blessing for us. It’s a blessing for every person we give a Bible to as well. For people I haven’t even met yet.
Our blessings from this are priceless. We get to take Bibles into ministry any time we want now. We can offer this tool of hope to so many people we will encounter.
It’s a beautiful thing.
