A Letter from Pastor Mark Smith-
Faith Baptist Church, 5714 29th St. Northeast Tacoma, WA 98422
Website: www.foundedonfaith.com
We are working on a project to reach out to the hard-hit city of Baguio in the Philippines. Nearly 1 million people are effected by the still ongoing typhoons, flooding, and landslides; hundreds have died, and tens of thousands are homeless. We are planning a massive rescue effort – not to get them out, but to get the Word of God in! Bibles for Baguio, August 5-14, 2010! We are flying 50 trained workers from our church to the field to distribute 1 million tracts in 7 days. We have designed 3 different 4-fold tracts and 1 tract booklet for mass distribution. Each tract has a 5-fold follow up: text message number, phone number, physical address of the distribution center, website address, and a mail-in response card. We will establish a distribution center office that is manned 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to receive phone calls, emails, text messages, walk-ins, and mail. We hire families from the local churches and use Bible college students in the evenings. When we did this in Manila three years ago, we had 32,000 text messages in the first 13 days and over 100,000 people saved who then sought discipleship through the website which was up for 1 year. We are now working on a website that will be permanent (more on this later). All materials will have this web address! The database tracks, registers, and assigns them to local churches and missionaries in their area, and also initiates the discipleship online or for pick up at the distribution center. The discipleship material in the front of the New Testament coincides with the materials in the discipleship program.
We want to supply New Testaments to the approximately 100,000-150,000 people who will respond. As you know, the reports have indicated that 3-5 people will read one New Testament. If even 2 or 3 were influenced by 1 New Testament, the impact would be monumental in any city or country! We need to supply whole Bibles for those who get saved, baptized, and complete discipleship through the local churches. The pastors would distribute them first to their church families, then to the new converts that complete their discipleship, and then to officials, teachers, and political leaders (these will most likely be 10,000 BEAMS whole hardback Bibles, or in some cases as we did for the Congress in Manila they will be 250-500 whole leather-bound). The churches have requested 100,000 - 200,000 John & Romans for mass distribution across their region, and these too would have the contact information and an insert section explaining why the book of John and why the book of Romans, and the message they contain, and the plan of salvation. We are requesting from BLMF 10,000 - 25,000 English whole Bibles, and a variety of booklets and tracts for the pastors and the Bible Institute students. In addition to these tools, we will have a series of messages in the newspaper, on the radio, and on the television. We are printing outdoor advertisements (banners, posters, flyers, and 10,000 peel & stick 11x17 Gospel presentations in full color with the contact information which can be applied to Jeepneys, buses, metros, light poles, buildings, windows, etc.), Children’s Bible Club materials, discipleship booklets, teacher’s lessons, and song books.
We will design the covers, tracts and booklets, banners, posters, discipleship lessons, flyers, and the “Bibles to Baguio” literature for promotion and preparation. We are asking BPS Milford, as was done for the I AM project in Africa 2 years ago, to print the New Testament covers (100,000 - 150,000) and to match Word of Faith Scripture printing with 50,000 English New Testaments. We are also seeking 50,000 Tagalog New Testaments with special covers, and are designing covers for John & Romans as well, and asking several other ministries to help us with 100,000 copies (we supply the covers). We are hoping that Seedline churches would join in providing a second 100,000 John & Romans also. We are undertaking the website development, all the promotional publications, and the operations center, as well as arranging the logistics and lodging in the Philippines at the invitation of our lead and host Pastor Froi Medina, Grandview Baptist Church in Baguio City. We want this effort to touch the individuals, but also the nation with the Word of God. As we planned this project and prayed for direction, reports began to come in of an impending typhoon, and God confirmed the urgency of the hour and our answer to the call. Will you join us? The materials are desperately needed, money is needed, laborers are needed, and prayer is needed, as are hours of work in preparation. We have answered this call before to Manila and to Mexico City, and what God did there has enabled us to plan for even “greater works than these.”
There is a place for laborers – although limited – there is a place for pastors and missionaries to join us, and perhaps you may be interested, but most of all we need Scriptures, and lots of it! We know how to get the Word out! This is no vacation – the only sightseeing is done while seed sowing! We have 5 teams of ten, each individual has 2 nationals that go with them, and all teams are made up of 5 sets of two Americans. Each team leader has their communications, locations, and projections for each day. With a ground force of 200-plus distributing, 1 million tracts becomes a task of only 700 per day for 7 days, or about 100 per hour per person, about 2 per minute. Unfortunately, some people get into some metros and pass out 3,000 - 5,000 in one day, and someone gets left out. In Mexico we did 1 million in 4 days, in Manila we did 2 million in 5 days! God willing we can and will reach Baguio City in one week, and the surrounding area!
In the early spring of 2010 we will send out information packets like those enclosed to those who plan to go with us or meet us there, and for those helping with the project. If you’re interested, we’d like you to receive them as well. So we said all that to stir up some interest and solicit some help!
We will need to ship the container by May 1, 2010 and will probably need help there also, if anyone has any money left by then! So, what do you think? We’d love to hear from you! We are committed to go and convinced that where God guides, God provides! Yes, we’re praying about Rio De Janeiro in 5 years, in case you were going to ask. In the meantime, let’s go through the open door!
Thanks and God bless,
Bro. Smith
Colossians 4:17