This story is about what happened when a visitor came to a little boy’s school one day. The school is in South Africa – not as well equipped as our schools.

All of the pupils have black skin and most of them come from very poor families.

One day a man called Neville Turley from the Bible Society in South Africa came to the school with a gift of a Bible Storybook with pictures that told about Jesus. There was one for each boy and girl. They were delighted – they had never seen storybooks like these before. Afterwards, one of the boys (he was aged 10 or 11 years) was upset because Neville had mentioned that millions of children throughout the world had not yet had a chance to receive a special storybook like this.

The boy thought about this long and hard and at the end of class, he told his teacher that he wanted to do something to help other children to receive Bible storybooks like his. He didn’t know what he could do to help. Neither did his teacher. Day after day he discussed this with his teacher, but he had no money or anything else that he could offer to help the Bible Society. However, one lunchtime, he was sitting with the other children eating a mealie (a bit like corn on the cob) that his mother had prepared for him, when he thought, ‘I’ll share my lunch with boys and girls in other countries so that they can have Bible books too’. He told his teacher but she didn’t think his idea would work – she kept saying that his mealie would go stale. But he persisted.

Finally, one day the teacher agreed. Instead of eating his lunch, the teacher posted the boy’s mealie to the office of the Bible Society of South Africa in Johannesburg together with a letter telling this story. The teacher was right. By the time it arrived, the mealie was all mouldy and unpleasant looking. The Bible Society staff didn’t know what to do with it. But Neville Turley, who works there, took it and whenever he went out to speak to churches about Bible Society work, he would show them the mealie with the envelope it had arrived in, and tell them how much this little boy wanted others to hear about Jesus. As a result, these churches have given enough money to the Bible Society in South Africa to buy tens of thousands of Scriptures for people of all ages throughout South Africa and in different countries.

That little boy gave up his lunch and God used an unlikely gift. Just think how many people might receive Scriptures if we all followed his example and gave up something to help others hear about Jesus?

___________________________

PRAYER TOPICS

• Translators currently working on over 760 Bible Society translation projects;
• Those who have received Scriptures in recent months – that they would be blessed;
• Bible Society staff in Southern Africa countries who are seeking to provide Scriptures to millions of people who are short of food because of the famine;
• Bible Society staff in Ireland, N. Ireland, Scotland, England/Wales, and in over 130 other countries;
• Give thanks for Amity Printing Press in Nanjing, China as the staff prepare to print the 30 millionth Bible there.