What Joy!

The following is an excerpt from Jacob and Carol Lee’s newsletter:

Godfrey, who has been undergoing a mentoring process here at RAU and an intense time of study, is nearly ready to make his move to Obongi.  He is truly excited, not only about the Word of God, but also about being able to be a part of the milestone outreach to this unreached area.  Jacob has so enjoyed helping to equip Godfrey in different ways and has had great conversations with him. Last night, after having had some time to read in his new Kindle, loaded with over 100 Christian books, Godfrey came inside from the veranda, nearly giddy, and stated, “You know, God gave Adam this beautiful garden with all kinds of fruits for him to enjoy.  What God gave Adam in the garden, you have given me in this Kindle!”  Awesome!  Thank you, Delmar Hager, for your vision and provision of this most excellent tool for pastors!  The fruit that the Kindles, as well all the Christ centered books given out, will bear in eternity cannot even be contemplated now!  Thank you to all who have been a part of providing Bibles and books to enrich pastors. We look forward to seeing the harvest of wisdom in Godfrey through the resources he has been given and planted within him. Pray for him as he leads a new church in the center of Muslim dominated Obongi. Pray for us as we seek to encourage him and assist this church plant which has only new converts.

This is ground zero for the ministry. Pastors who are given resources to study and serve the Lord. I thank the Lord for Jacob and Carol Lee who are on the ground in Uganda. They are the conduit that make this ministry so effective.

 

Another Country Zambia

We have fulfilled a request to send Kindles to Zambia, Africa. 10 Kindles were sent to this country with the prospects of sending many more in the future.

This group of Kindles included the 65 new books we are now distributing. The Monergism.com site gave a list of good books that are free for the Kindles. I was able to download 65 additional books. The books are no longer copyrighted and are available in the public domain. If you were to print these books it would cost over $1500. What a blessing to include these books on the Kindle for these pastors.

 

The cost of a Kindle

People have asked how much does a Kindle cost? We are using the Kindle PaperWhite. This the most practical Kindle for this ministry because it is durable; it has a battery charger that will last 8 weeks, plus you can read it in the dark.

The Kindles cost $170 for the hardware, which includes the cost of the charger. I usually put $90 in books on the kindle for the  initial rollout. Publishers such as 9Marks have given us the rights to many of the books so we distribute them for free.  The cost per Kindle is $260 for the initial delivery.

The following books are included in the initial distribution:

  1. Who Is the Holy Spirit?: 13 (Crucial Questions Series) by R.C. Sproul    
  2. What Can I Do with My Guilt?: 9 (Crucial Questions Series) by R.C. Sproul
  3. Does God Control Everything?: 14 (Crucial Questions Series) by R.C. Sproul    
  4. The Truth of the Cross by R C Sproul
  5. Can I Know God’s Will? (Crucial Questions Series) (Crucial Questions (Reformation Trust)): 4 by R. C. Sproul
  6. Who Is Jesus? (Crucial Questions Series) (Crucial Questions (Reformation Trust)): 1 by R.C. Sproul
  7. How Should I Live in This World? (Crucial Questions Series) (Crucial Questions (Reformation Trust)): 5 by R.C. Sproul    
  8. The Trellis and the Vine by Tony Payne  
  9. ESV Study Bible by Crossway Bibles    
  10. The Complete Works of J. C. Ryle by J. C Ryle    
  11. Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by J. I. Packer    
  12. Christian Beliefs: Twenty Basics Every Christian Should Know by Wayne Grudem    
  13. What Is the Trinity?: 10 (Crucial Questions Series) by R.C. Sproul
  14. Can I Trust the Bible? (Crucial Questions Series) (Crucial Questions (Reformation Trust))
  15. Am I Really a Christian?  by Mike McKinley
  16. Biblical Theology Study by 9Marks
  17. Church Discipline by Jonathan Leeman    
  18. Church Leadership Study by 9Marks
  19. Church Leadership Study by 9Marks
  20. Church Membership by Jonathan Leeman
  21. Church membership Study by 9Marks
  22. Church Study by 9Marks
  23. Conversion Studyby 9Marks
  24. Discipleship Studyby 9Marks
  25. Evangelism studyby 9Marks
  26. Expositional Preaching Study by 9Marks
  27. Gospel Study by 9Marks
  28. Sound Doctrine by Bobbie Jamieson
  29. The Everlasting Righteousness – Horatius Bonarby Haratio Bonar    
  30. The Scripture Testify about Meby multiple authors

 

The average cost per book is $6. These are theology books 🙂 and not big sellers.  This is also important for the ongoing ministry of updating the Kindles with new books and as critical as the initial delivery. We do have publishers that periodically give books away for free. In each country we try to setup the means  to be able to update the Kindle with new books on a periodic basis.

Bed and Breakfast

On Sunday evening we stayed at Brandkraal Bed and Breakfast outside of Winterton May 5th. It was Linda and my first time at a B&B. We really enjoyed the hospitality of Freddy and Agnus. We highly recommend this B&B. The breakfast was really great. Agnus did an excellent job.

We had a really enjoyable conversation with them on Sunday evening. I was able to show Freddy an Kindle device. He is loosing his eye sight and he was excited to see a device that can read to him. He wanted to get one right away.

Freddy had really good questions about the state of the evangelical church in South Africa. He made a statement that to much emphasis is on a making a decision for Christ without seeing a life change. How true this is.

Here is a picture of where we stayed.

More Kindles Delivered

I delivered 5 more Kindles to pastors and workers in the New Castle area on May 3. We held the meeting at the Osizweni church. They were really appreciative of their new devices. Most of they leaders do not have a computer.

While I was instructing the leaders on how to use the Kindles, Linda was doing a prayer journal seminar with the women.