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What is your vote for the best Bible study leader? Maybe Mr. Sills who managed to sustain an interest in God's word with a teenager like me, and nine or ten other teenagers. Maybe a pastor or teacher or a friend that helped you to see eternity inside the pages of what had been a lightly used Scripture. Maybe then you encountered Jesus. Can that happen even for adults?
Dr. Tesfai Tesema is proof this still happens. Tesfai was a rogue Christian - growing up in a privileged family in Eritrea he was tempted away from Jesus by things too many adolescents find enticing, and damning. Having suffered the consequences of a pernicious life, in the middle of a desert in Saudi Arabia, at the invitation of two Chinese laborers, Tesfai came face to face with Jesus. The rest of the story is told in the biography published by Mission Nation, "No Accidental Missionary". Lutheran pastor John Stieve says about this book, "No Accidental Missionary is foremost about the hand of God's Spirit through the Word changing the life of a man, his relatives and friends, and through them, the lives of countless others." The book is available in print, Kindle and audio.
Hearts change when we see the lengths God is willing to go to love us. Each book in the Missionaries to America series shows the power God's Word has to change the heart of even the most defiant unbeliever. Prof. Shan Ik Moon " The Bulletproof Missionary" was found by God in a snow storm in the mountains of central Korea; Gagan Gurung, evangelist among Nepalese in St. Louis, finally knew God's love when the light shown on him, at midnight, in a college on the border between India and Nepal. I could go on. But I do not have to. Many of you already know this. Like Rev. David Davis, President of the LCMS Michigan District.
When he was a pastor in Michigan, President Davis would purchase Mission Nation biographies with his own money to give to confirmation students after they had finished confirmation studies. He said his hope was that at least one of those students would be moved by the Spirit of God to become a missionary.
Our books have the capacity to change hearts. They narrate stories of struggling individuals brought to their knees and then lifted to their feet by the might of God's Word. In these biographies, you can not only encounter Christ but also delve deep into the profound love of God, perhaps in the intimate setting of a small group Bible study. This holiday season, consider gifting a book to someone in your life; years down the road, that person might reminisce and express gratitude to God for the life-altering experience.
Click on the pictures to purchase book bundles, or to donate to Mission Nation Publishing.
