Multiplication of Leaders

Prayer & Praise Report #1, January-February 2012 

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Dear Friends of God’s Story,

We saved up reports, and again, finally exploded with excitement wanting to share reports with you. God has been answering prayer, so thank you for praying and thank you Lord for your Word and that you are enlarging your family!

But first, this announcement: A week ago we said goodbye to Norm McGary, the talented artist who worked for 2 ½ years painting the hundreds of pictures in the film. His vision and love for the lost started God’s Story. He did all of the art for the movie. Our loss–heaven’s gain! We will miss you my friend.

Risk Taker: Today a letter came in from a worker in a mu/sm dominated country of less than 2% believers in Jesus. In only two years, this worker distributed over 3,000 copies of God’s Story in 3 languages! Why risk getting caught?... People want to know God. People are curious about Jesus.

Another Risk Taker: National Christians in another mus/ln country (that is often in the news) are working on 4 new language versions of God’s Story that target unreached people in their country. They too take a risk as they are seeing a hunger for Jesus and results from the one language version of GS available that works in their county.

Kenya: A businessman who witnesses in Africa using tracts received a gift copy of God’s Story. He watched it at night, got up in the morning and watched it again. Then he purchased a lot of copies, gave them out, and came back for more!

Wide Use: Another report came from a missionary in Asia. Her organization has distributed thousands of God’s Story for use in evangelism and decided to obtain rights for it so they could “seriously” distribute it.

In a few days I fly to India. An ace team of 25 STS instructors from 17 countries and 19 states of India are to lead advanced training of 70 instructors. Then, after this unprecedented training of trainers, workshops are set for 18 locations in 9 countries.  Why do these unpaid volunteers spend their time and money to commit to this training?  They see results.

One key man just was turned back. Please pray.

India: At an STS workshop, the lead instructor had encouraged mainline pastors to go out with him one evening and use Bible stories to witness to "strangers." “These pastors had NEVER done that in their lives. Until now, they only go to the

office and people come to them, or they preach in church. On the outreach 14 people accepted Christ! The pastors were ecstatic!

“Then a uniformed policeman and a plainclothesman came to "investigate" the situation. There had been a false report of a disturbance. Someone was trying to stop the training! The policeman in uniform asked, ‘what you are doing?’

“So I told him a Bible story and he too accepted Jesus. That day he stood in front of all attendees to give testimony of his new faith.”  [God's Word does not fail!]

What we are seeing now with Simply The Story and the Oral Bible Schools is production and multiplication of leaders; godly, motivated, deep-in-the-Word leaders. We just expanded our STS Handbook, the first copies being due off the press in March. One section includes impact reports.  Following are a few from the book that show how the time spent teaching and digging into stories touches lives and replicates.

Mentoring and Multiplication

Three of the testimonies below came from Bram..., Mark and Ramesh, men mentored deeply by the TGSP executive staff. Those they mentored have trained others – who are training others. Isn’t this God’s way?

“A Bishop in Embu stood up and said this to me. ‘The church is in trouble, because we lack church fathers who are biblical ... Please tell those who trained you, “Thank you for empowering Bram... to be a father to Bishops...’”

Bram... M - CEO Straight Path Resources, Kenya

“STS method helped us to train more spiritual leaders than before and multiplication is talking place in producing spiritual leaders, and keeping them in the church, and sending them to the mission field. His Word is for both literate and non-literate, both young and old. It is a complete spiritual meal to fellowship with our Triune God.” Dr. Mark Muniyappa - All India Council / TGSP-India

“I am non-literate but serving the Lord as Pastor and Evangelist since 5 years. I came to the Lord in the year 1993 and I wanted to serve the Lord and to get Bible knowledge in any Bible College, but Academic Bible colleges did not accepted me to get Bible training because I am non-literate and also I was not able to understand God’s messages on the pulpit because it was literate style.

“I was struggling to share the Gospel to my family members and friends; in this situation our Lord brought TGSP into our lives and ministry I thank God for that. I have learned 155 stories through STS method and now I am happy to say that I can share the Gospel to both the literate and non-literate.”

[Mark’s leaders trained this man.]    Y. Babu - Evangelist/Pastor MMBC-Karnataka, India

“What words do I use to express my gratitude to you all? I am so much thankful to the Lord and to this tool Simply The Story. In my 20 year's ministry time, it is most useful that I ever came across.

“STS certainly helped me getting deeper and wider into the Word of God but it also has many applications in my organisational life. Some lessons learnt from this is to look for choices before I made any decision and it also made my team farsighted to see the impact of our work.”

Ramesh Sapkota – CEO Kingdom Investments Nepal,

Organisation Fighting against Human Trafficking

“First of all I want to give all glory and heartily thanks for our all mighty Lord Christ Jesus and my co- prayer Elder brother Ramesh.  When I met him I was new in Christ and my ministry was just like new born baby. I needed Spiritual mother to continue nourishing me.

“Ramesh gave me STS training. This was the beginning. In that time we were very few people in Christ and had one fellowship that was very weak. He continued STS in my Church.

“Now in very short time through the STS training God used to plant eight Church and this year we have planned to plant two new Churches.

“I used STS method to multiply Church because of this reason wonderfully I got invitation to participate in the STS training not only me but to get the chance my daughter Church leader he is using STS method better then me.

“Thank you brother Ramesh, I was only a body of butterfly and now you are preparing me to complete butterfly!

“Thanks to the Servant of the Lord those who have labored for the STS to Glorify His Name and to bless me and my ministry.”

Ps. Krishna P. Ghimire - Asst. Gen. Secretary, National Churches Fellowship of Nepal

Follow Simply The Story on Twitter!  Looking forward to tweeting.

The official link is http://twitter.com/SimplyTheStory and click +Follow or Text follow SimplyTheStory to 40404 in the United States.

We would appreciate prayer for upcoming summit in India, and for all of the godly leaders who sacrificially train others. There is much opposition.

Blessings,

Dorothy A. Miller

Executive Director TGSP