December2015

Written and told byKitty Anna Griffiths

Dear Friend,

Thank you for your prayers. Our project to help Sunday schools in China is moving along faster than we expected.

In case you missed our last newsletter, let me outline again our Tell the children of China Project. Sunday schools are now being allowed in places in China, but churches don’t have Sunday school teach-ers. For 50 years it has been a criminal offence to teach Christianity to a child under 18, and now many churches don’t know how to teach the Bible to chil-dren.

A Visit with Mrs. G Ministries has been asked to provide Mrs. G’s Bible Stories Alive for use in Sunday schools in China, and we have gladly agreed to help.

We will edit Mrs. G’s radio stories in English for 1. use in Sunday schools.

Trans World Radio will translate these stories into 2. Mandarin, voice them, put them into e-book and audio book format, and place them on Internet.

The Sunday school teachers in China will down-3. load the e-book and audio into their electronic de-vice (say, iPad) and take it to Sunday school.

The class will listen to the story. After that, they will 4. read the story in the Bible and discuss the ques-tions in the e-book.

A Visit with Mrs. G Ministries will be responsible for 5. the production costs.

Now we are happy to report that the stories may be on Internet in Mandarin very soon. In the new year, the children and young people may begin to listen to Mrs. G’s Bible stories in Mandarin in their Sunday school class (and elsewhere).

We have already planned the opening syllabus. Here are the first three sets of stories. First, Joseph and his Dreams (Genesis, Chapters 37, 39 to 50)— 13 stories, with discussion questions. Everybody loves the story of Joseph!

The second set will be Creation and Adam and Eve (Genesis, Chapters 1 to 4)—10 stories. These stories are the foundation of everything in the Bible. They tell the children how everything began, how everything went wrong, and how everything will be put right by the promised Saviour.

The third set, Jesus the Baby, will tell all the stories about the birth of the promised Saviour, Jesus Mes-siah, the Son of God, as given in Luke, Chapters 1 and

China Project: Progress Report

2, Matthew, Chapters 1 and 2.

Our aim is to help children to enjoy the stories in the Bible and to see what each story teaches about God and about man and about God’s plan of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

From the beginning, our vision has been global. Mrs. G went to college to train to be a missionary teacher. When A Visit with Mrs. G Ministries was incorporated as a charity, the purpose statement in the Articles of Incorporation read:

PURPOSE: to spread the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures to all peoples.

To all peoples means translation.

This missionary vision will demand a lot of work by a lot of people. It will also need a much broader base of support by individuals, churches, and foundations.

A recent missionary conference in the Philip-pines, in Manila, emphasized that one of the crying needs of the churches in the majority world today is for Bible stories for children and young people, Bible stories that will teach them the Bible and reach their hearts.

We have begun to meet this need. In 2015 we

have started in Mandarin for China and in Farsi for Iran, Afghanistan and Turkistan. In 2016, if the Lord enables us, we hope to start translation in Spanish, and in Arabic for the distressed children, young people and families in the Middle East.

Please ask your friends and your church to join us in prayer and partner with us. Thank you for your help.

God bless you in a special way at this Christ-mas time. As we celebrate the coming of God’s love in Jesus Christ, may He enable us to share His love with others.

In Christ,

President

P. S. Many thousands of children, young people and adults listen every week to our radio program, A Visit with Mrs. G, and every night many hun-dreds of children listen in bed to the Bible stories on CDs, and who knows how many listen on Inter-net? We thank God for the listeners. Listening is a first step. Let’s pray that they will do more than listen, that they will hear God’s Word and under-stand it, and put their trust in the Lord Jesus and live to serve Him.

The people who walked in darknesshave seen a great light;

those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,on them has light shone.

For to us a child is born,to us a son is given;

and the government shall be upon his shoulder,and his name shall be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and of peacethere will be no end.

—Isaiah 9;2, 6, 7 (ESV)

These children (in another village) are listening to the radio program from a speaker box. They are obviously enjoying the Bible story. So the speaker box method works.

A speaker box is given to the leader of each listening group in a village. The speaker box is loaded with radio programs and can be used anytime, anywhere. The leader is expected to act as “pastor” and take a personal interest in each member of his listening group(s).

Page 21 of 24 TWR Cambodia – Children’s Ministry July 2015 Report

The group from Somroung village

Listening to the Bible story

Praying

Bros explains about the Speaker Box

Mara explains about the GNR

Page 9 of 21 TWR Cambodia – Children’s Ministry May 2015 Report

quiet and pay attention to listen to the Bible story. Especially at the end of the meeting, I ask them the Bible story and they are able to give me the answer. This is very encouraging to me as I can see that the word of God that spread out is not worthless. Even I have sore throat but I can tell the Bible story loudly.” For the Bible verse, Mara teaches and he said, “It is not easy for the children to learn as most of them can’t read or write until the bigger kids finish school and come to join so they can read and help other kids to memorize the verse.” For the health lesson, we have Kosal from Orality team helps to teach. This province has a lot of hills, jungles, and raining so there are many mosquitos. For the teaching, Kosal uses the tree of hope and the tree of despair to get the feedback from the children on the reasons and the results of why we have the dengue fever and what should we do to protect ourselves. The children are very smart and brave to give the feedback and they really pay attention to learn. At the end of the meeting, we give the noodle and soap to the children. We also meet with the listening group leader. She used the HCG program to reach out to the children at three different villages. Every week she goes to these three villages to teach the children by using the HCG program.

Ta Krey Village On 19th May, we leave Pailin province to Battambang province. The first village in Battambang province is at Takrey village which takes 2 hours to get there. The road condition is not bad but it’s far so it takes longer time than we thought. The youth and the women start the meeting first. For the children, we have to wait for them until they finish the public school at 11am and come to the meeting. This is the first time for our team to visit this village. There is no listening group in this village yet but the pastor has been listening to the HCG program on the radio and he really wants to start the listening group. However, his village is far from the town so it’s not easy to send him the speaker box so on this trip we also bring him the speaker box. As we wait for the children, Mara sits down and explains to the pastor about the HCG program and how he can start the listening group and how to use the speaker box.

Pastor Ratha told us that, “I was born and grown up in this village. I heard the good news and know a little bit about Jesus. When I was 14 years old because of my family’s living’s condition is very difficult; I decide to give up on my school and go to work in Thailand. I work in Thailand for 5 years and I got some money and I decide to come back home. Back to the village, I found Jesus and God opens the door for me to go to study at the Bible school in the city. After I graduated from the Bible school, I come back to my village, collect the believers in the village to come and worship the Lord in my house. Years later, I can’t support my family by working as the full time pastor because of the church members can’t support me so I decide to leave my village, come to look for the job in the city. As I got the job in the city, I miss my little home church in the village and I wonder what happening to them as I’m gone. So, I work in the city for a while and then I decide to go back to take care my church. I start the Sunday school class and teach the English to the children in the village. I’m also seeking for

The children praise the Lord with joyful heart!

Bible Stories Alive in CambodiaEvery month we receive a full report, with pictures, of the outreach of the Trans World Radio (TWR)

program Happy Children’s Garden (HCG), on which Mrs. G’s Bible Stories Alive are told in Khmer.

The two pictures below are of village children in Battambang province. After listening to the program on radio, a pastor invited the TWR team to hold a meeting in his village. The children absolutely loved the Gospel songs and Bible stories told live by a TWR team member.

The pastor saw that audio was the way to reach the children and young people. The pastor has now started a Sunday school class in his church, using the radio program and Bible Stories Alive recorded in a simple electronic device called Speaker Box.

The leaders of TWR’s Children’s Ministry are young Cambodians. Charia, the director (first row, first left), told her first Bible story when the radio program began 16 years ago. She was then 17. She told the story of Creation in Mrs. G’s Adam and Eve book. The ministry is holistic and helps children and teens in many ways, but the heart of it is the radio program. Last year there were almost 18,000 written responses.

In Canada, A Visit with Mrs. G Ministries Inc. is a federally incorporated charity. Government businessnumber 118797505 RR0001. In the US, A Visit With Mrs. G Ministries Inc. is an Illinois Not-for-ProfitCorporation and a 50l(c)(3) charitable organization.

P.O. Box 933, Don Mills Postal Station, Toronto, ON Canada M3C 2T9(416) 755-5918 mrsg@biblestoriesalive.org www.biblestoriesalive.org

Chetra is 10 years old and in grade 5. “I’m listening to the Happy Children’s Garden (HCG) program each week on the radio. I really like this program because it helps me to know Jesus. Be-fore I believed in Jesus, I got angry and was jeal-ous. I fought with my friends. I didn’t go to school or listen to my parents or teacher. But after I be-lieved in Jesus, I now love Jesus, I have stopped lying to my parents, I go to school, and Jesus has taught me to love and help my friends.”

Srey Mom is 14. “Today I listened to the story of Jacob. Rebecca helped Jacob to steal the bless-ing from his father. Through this story I learned about lying, dishonesty, and the consequence of them. It’s sad at one side because Jacob had to leave his family, but on the other side, I learned that in life I should be honest and please Jesus.”

Phosis is 10 years old, in grade 4. “Today’s story was about the warning from the Jewish lead-ers to try to stop the apostles from sharing the name of Jesus. However, the apostles loved Je-sus and they continued sharing this Good News with others. Please pray for me that I will have the courage like them to tell others about Jesus.”

Oy is 8 years old. “I know Jesus through listen-ing to the HCG program. There is no church in my village but there is a youth that started a Bible class for the children by using the HCG program. I love the story of Apostle Paul. I learned from Paul’s life that, after he followed Jesus, God used him to heal the sick and he didn’t give up telling the gospel to other people. I also learned from Paul’s life that, no matter what problem he was facing, he trusted the Lord and prayed.”

TWR Cambodia

Children’s Ministry Listening Group Leader Training Camp Report

27 – 30 September 2015

16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

17 That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 (KJV)

A 3-day conference for leaders of listening groups

Testimonies from children in Cambodia —Translated from Khmer