South Africa - Bibles for Prisoners
Time Frame: 2007 - 2009
Funding Required: $160,000.00
Funding Required: $160,000.00
Scriptures provided by Bible Society are the vital element in a life-changing discipleship program being undertaken by World Hope Ministries in South Africa’s crowded prisons.
Challenge Literature Fellowship - whose evangelistic newspaper reaches thousands of prisoners with the Good News each month - is the third partner in this exciting work.
Those who respond to Challenge’s invitation to commit their lives to Jesus commence a four-part discipleship course - made up of four booklets and a complete Bible. “The need for Scripture material is overwhelming,” says Carl Carmody, “and frankly, we are struggling to keep up with it.”
World Hope Ministries’ Director, Rev Willie Dengler, agrees: “When a prisoner commits his life to God, his immediate desire is to hold and own a Bible. To read and study his own Bible becomes like a great thirst in his heart… Nothing is more important than seeing for himself what he has heard about Jesus and the Scriptures.”
Bible Society WA is providing Bibles free of charge for every prisoner who completes World Hope Ministries’ initial discipleship program.
Bible Society has helped provide over 17,000 Bibles free of charge.
“The South African Government is desperate to ‘rehabilitate’ its prisoners - 98% of whom are black South Africans,” Rev Dengler explains. “However, we ourselves are witnesses to the fact that the only way to really change a man is through a transformation of his heart and the renewal of his mind.”
At just 21, Alta has already served 5 years of a 20-year gaol sentence. But God’s Word is helping steer her course as she grows up in this discouraging environment:
“The Bible means everything to me,” Miriam says. “It is my Mum and Dad. It tells me who I should be and what I should be to others… It leads and encourages me - it is my everyday bread… I can’t grow without it.”
Challenge Literature Fellowship - whose evangelistic newspaper reaches thousands of prisoners with the Good News each month - is the third partner in this exciting work.
Those who respond to Challenge’s invitation to commit their lives to Jesus commence a four-part discipleship course - made up of four booklets and a complete Bible. “The need for Scripture material is overwhelming,” says Carl Carmody, “and frankly, we are struggling to keep up with it.”
World Hope Ministries’ Director, Rev Willie Dengler, agrees: “When a prisoner commits his life to God, his immediate desire is to hold and own a Bible. To read and study his own Bible becomes like a great thirst in his heart… Nothing is more important than seeing for himself what he has heard about Jesus and the Scriptures.”
Bible Society WA is providing Bibles free of charge for every prisoner who completes World Hope Ministries’ initial discipleship program.
Bible Society has helped provide over 17,000 Bibles free of charge.
“The South African Government is desperate to ‘rehabilitate’ its prisoners - 98% of whom are black South Africans,” Rev Dengler explains. “However, we ourselves are witnesses to the fact that the only way to really change a man is through a transformation of his heart and the renewal of his mind.”
At just 21, Alta has already served 5 years of a 20-year gaol sentence. But God’s Word is helping steer her course as she grows up in this discouraging environment:
“The Bible means everything to me,” Miriam says. “It is my Mum and Dad. It tells me who I should be and what I should be to others… It leads and encourages me - it is my everyday bread… I can’t grow without it.”
