Gospel Literature Needs in Asia

In America, it is hard to fully grasp how great this need really is. In this country, we have thousands of new Christian books each year on every conceivable subject. Yet in Asian nations, gospel tracts, books, and Bibles are incredibly lacking. Though using literature is one of the best ways to reach the massive number of unsaved in these countries, only a tiny amount of funds is being used to fill this need. The result is millions of people are left without Christ.

In the following, Dr. K. P. Yohannan shares some of the needs he has seen on the mission field. Born and raised in India, he now directs Gospel for Asia and has published several books on missionary work. Below is a portion of a recent book he has written on how to reach the lost in Asia.

Satish Sahu had never seen a tract or heard the story of God’s love. He was a Hindu acolyte to the demon idols of a little village near Simdega, Bihar State, in North India. In order to find peace and forgiveness of sin, each year he would travel hundreds of miles to scoop water from the Ganges River. Then he would carry some back, traveling from one idol shrine to another with the village priest. There they would anoint the filthy stone idols, bowing before the images of the demons.

One night all that changed when an indigenous [native] missionary gave him his first Gospel tract. Like tens of millions around him, he had never before received the Word of God in any form

When he first saw the indigenous missionary preaching in his all-Hindu village, Satish was enraged. Breaking up the street meeting, he argued that Hinduism had 333 million gods and goddesses to bring salvation, not just one God like Christianity.

He took the Gospel tract home, however, and began tearing the pages out to roll opium cigarettes in them. But that night he couldn’t sleep. The Holy Spirit began to deal with him about the contents of the tract. In the darkness he lit a candle and read some of the pages he had torn apart. Then he found the words that changed his life: “The blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin.”

The next morning Satish went to the quarters of the indigenous missionary with a broken and repentant heart. After some hours of questioning, he committed his life to Christ. “I feel a great burden removed from my back” testifies Satish today. He then started riding his bike 35 miles to find fellowship with the nearest Christians. He grew rapidly in the Lord because he was soon able to obtain his own copy of the Bible, a rare book in that part of the world.

Satish and his family were bitterly persecuted for his new faith. His own father, who had been a Hindu priest for 22 years, was beaten by fanatics for allowing his son to become a Christian. The whole village turned on them. But eventually Satish led his father and brother to Christ. Soon many other in the village listened to the witness of Satish and tured from idols as well.

Today, Satish pastors a growing church among the Birthor tribal people and stell preaches to Hindus in the markets. All this because of a power of a simple Gospel tract.

There are millions of stories like this one, testimonies of people whose lives have been changed by a simple Gospel tract. In the Two-Thirds World nations such as India, Gospel tracts are not thrown away on the streets as they are in the West. The printed world is treasured. Tracts are read and reread, passed from hand to hand until they wear out. Asians and Africans who can read are hungry for books, pamphlets and tracts of all kinds. Even simple Gospel tracts in some places can have the power of a book or magazine in the United States or Canada. For $50, it is still possible to print as many as 10,000 tracts.

Our mailboxes in the West are jammed with Christian magazines, newspapers and appeals for funds, but on the mission fields millions have not yet seen their first Gospel tract. Some Christians will receive three or four different devotional guides a month, while 2 billion have yet to receive a copy of John 3:16.

It is possible to change this pattern if we will change our priorities in printing and distributing Christian literature. I would like to propose a special literature tithe. If everyone who buys a Christian book, Bible or Christian music CD in West would tithe 10 percent of the purchase price of overseas Gospel literature, hundreds of millions of dollars would become available to reach those who have never heard the Gospel- a wonderful step toward meeting the needs for Gospel literature in the Two-Thirds World.

-From K. P. Yohannan, Come, Let’s Reach the World. Copyright, 2004. Used with permission of Gospel for Asia.