So many new resources

I am really excited about all of the new resources that we now have available here at the mission.  We have really made a concerted effort to freshen up our online catalogue with some great new books and DVDs.  Some of our new arrivals include books like A Greater Call (the true story of Chinese evangelist Wei), Why Haven’t You Left (the touching letters of Marc Nikkel, a missionary to southern Sudan), The Bible or the Axe (a fantastic testimony from Sudan), A Small Price to Pay (the true story of a pastor who suffered in the former Soviet Union).  By popular demand, we’ve brought back the wonderful Christian novel by Randy Alcorn, Safely Home and added a new historical novel entitled Perpetua.  We have Ezra Levant’s best-selling Shakedown available at a great price and an updated edition of the Richard Wurmbrand classic devotional that was out of print until recently, Reaching Towards the Heights.  We have two new children’s resources that tell the story of Richard Wurmbrand, a DVD in the Torchlighters series and the beautifully illustrated book, God’s Prisoner.  We also have an incredible new DVD on Vietnam entitled Enemies of the State? that was produced by our UK sister mission, Release International and a 75-minute documentary on the martyrs of Malatya, Turkey. Next month we will release another new DVD on the persecution facing Christians in Egypt called Egyptian Voices: Testimonies of the Persecuted.  Watch for it for the July newsletter!

Why am I mentioning all of this? Only that these resources can be used by God to genuinely change your life, motivating you to a deeper walk with the Lord and opening your heart and the hearts of others to the needs of your brothers and sisters in restricted nations around the world. Richard and Sabina Wurmband believed in the power of literature. That’s why books, in particular, have always played an important part in our ministry.  We certainly don’t fund our ministry by book sales – we keep our prices low.  If I could give them all away, I would. 

But just to give you one example of how these books can change a life, it was through reading Richard Wurmbrand’s testimony In God’s Underground that Harold Ford, who faithfully served as VOMC’s Board chairman for many years, came to know Christ as his Saviour.  Let me give you another example. It was by reading Tortured for Christ while in hospital to give birth to her son Floyd, that Nellie Brobbel was exposed to the needs of the persecuted church.  A few years later, she founded The Voice of the Martyrs in Canada and her son, Floyd, is now our Chief Operations Officer.

These books also make great gifts.  I remember how, when I was a teenager, rebelling against the Lord, my mother gave me a copy of a book (that is now out of print) that told the story of a Russian soldier who persecuted Christians relentlessly but who finally came to Christ as he witnessed the courage, faith, and forgiveness of those he brutalized.  I don’t know if it contributed to my coming to Christ, but I have never forgotten the story.