An Unexpected Yet Encouraging Challenge

As I finished reading that recent grant award letter, I was Praising God for this most recent, very generous gift. However, the additional challenge presented in it hit me strongly and suddenly, in a good way. This faithful Foundation truly wants to see the number of brand-new donors to SIU increase in support of our partner training efforts in Southeast Asia. The message stated that “for every new donor to SIU donating to your partner trainings in Southeast Asia, the foundation will match it $1 for $1 up to $25,000.”

Whoa! We have had matching challenges before, but not restricted to one specific field. This is exciting, and also challenging, as we take on this new matching challenge. We have so many opportunities in countries in Southeast Asia; Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam to name a few. These fields are truly ripe for the harvest and most of the people living in these countries are of oral cultures where SIU’s orality toolkit with the Holy Spirit’s guidance is opening up many hearts and minds to the Gospel message.

Pass It On

That is where each of you come in. You are receiving this message for a reason. Many of you are very familiar with SIU and the uniqueness of our equipping and training approach.

Do you know others in your circle of influence who have a similar, like-minded approach to seeing more souls added to God’s Kingdom and the Great Commission completed in our lifetimes?
This would be a good email or message to forward to them.

The Word of God Shared through Bible Storytelling

We are always reminding people that it is currently estimated that of the remaining unreached, unengaged people of the world, 90% (3 to 3.5 Billion) are living in oral cultures. SIU’s orality tools are making breakthroughs in Southeast Asia because many of these least reached peoples are highly oral. Typical Western evangelism and discipleship tools have struggled in Southeast Asia; however, our partner ministries find over and over again that believers of oral cultures, including those who are non-literate, become powerful disciple makers when they memorize and share the Word of God through Bible storytelling.

Recently one of our partners shared this about a persecuted leader who is a dedicated church planter in Cambodia: “His desire and prayer is for more believers in the church. As he was looking for an effective way of growing the number of believers and planting new churches, he found storytelling very matching to his efforts in church planting. He therefore wanted to hold a session of Bridges training and prayed earnestly.

God answered his prayers, and a session of Bridges training was held for his church planters and his colleague’s churches in and around his region. To God be the glory! Since the churches there are not growing as fast as the leaders wished and prayed, the Circular Process of Church Planting as taught in the SIU Bridges lesson 6 was liked the most in this training. Participants learned to choose a right story for the right time instead of telling the gospel stories straight away. They found this to be more effective in communicating the gospel message to new people.”

What an amazing statement and impact from this persecuted leader! The Bridges oral engagement strategy and training toolkit works well in these hard-to-reach places. Please consider this new donor matching request in your prayer time as led by the Lord. We are truly blessed to be associated with so many faithful foundations and major donors who want to be a part of what our international partners and their leadership networks are doing. God is doing amazing work through these faithful partners, advancing His kingdom through oral Scripture engagement.

Join the Match Challenge

Use the button below to join this match challenge with your gift of any size.