There's Hope For TodaySample

KRAZNOYARSK, SIBERIA, 1992: A 12-year-old boy named Dima was given a copy of the Book of Hope by an American volunteer.

He accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. When I met him seven years later, he was serving as the Associate Pastor at the Christian Life Church in Kraznoyarsk and learning Chinese so that he might fulfill his missionary calling. During our 1999 crusade, Dima gave the altar call and hundreds of boys and girls responded, just as he had in 1992. When we returned to Siberia in September 2000, Dima joined our team in Chita, just one hundred miles from the Chinese border. Our hotel was filled with Chinese merchants, and Dima won his first Chinese convert in the lobby of the third floor. His eyes were dancing as we celebrated the grace of God so simply received by a little Chinese lady. The only thing keeping Dima from his mission field was a $600 plane ticket. Our team quietly collected an offering, and Dima was one step closer to his mission field.

Short-term missions are often criticized as “one shot” encounters, lacking any long-term strategy. In this case we can read the rest of the story. A fully prepared Russian missionary is headed for China … and it all began with a OneHope team and one copy of the Book of Hope.