Dear Friend,
From the 10th to the 19th of February Samuel Adams and Gary Bolton visited some of our friends working in Venezuela. As you read this report we trust that you will be encouraged to see how the Lord is using and blessing the Gospel literature that we print. Many times people expressed their appreciation and thanks for all of the literature which has been provided and we would like to pass on our appreciation and thanks to our many supporters. The following is the report:

“We have been in contact with Pastor H. Engels for many years. As a family they have been working in Venezuela for the past 30 years. During the last few years Pastor Engels has handed over the responsibility of the literature distribution to his daughter, Swannie and son-in-law Douglas. Both of them are professional Doctors, but have felt the Call of God upon their lives and have dedicated themselves to evangelism and literature distribution. Douglas travels all over the country of Venezuela visiting churches, pastors, evangelists, sharing with them supplies of our literature and conducting seminars explaining how the literature is to be distributed.

Venezuela is a country of 28 million people. We arrived in the capital Caracas which has a population of approximately 8 million people. This is an amazing city with the centre of the city in a valley surrounded by many very steep hills. Over the years people have built small houses on the sides of these hills creating barrios where thousands of people live in very cramped conditions. This picture was taken from Pastor Engels’ home showing part of the barrio where he lives.
On our first day we loaded a van with a supply of Gospel literature and drove for 6 to 7 hours to the city of San Fernando de Apure. There we were welcomed into the home of Jose and Iris who very kindly looked after us for the next five days. As they had insufficient beds we had the new experience of sleeping in hammocks!

On our first day in San Fernando, Douglas conducted three different seminars to pastors and church workers. He took time to explain to the people how they could distribute the Gospels of John – how there was the introduction “Seven Steps to Knowing God” that could point a person to the Saviour. He also explained how to distribute the Gospel tracts to the adults and to the boys and girls. It was very evident from all that he shared that they value the literature greatly and want every single item to be well used. They do not believe in simply distributing the literature, but also to take time to talk to each individual person who is receiving a Gospel tract or a Gospel booklet.

He also took time to explain how the set of children’s Bible lessons are to be used in teaching the boys and girls the Word of God. Frequently they will hold seminars that will last for 2 days for Sunday school teachers as they place a great importance on child evangelism. At the end of each of these seminars the pastors and church leaders who attended each received a supply of Gospel literature. It was interesting to watch the eagerness and excitement as these pastors received their supply of literature and, many times, they passed on their grateful thanks to us with big smiles and hugs. Many of the activities that we saw were connected to a church called “Emmanuel” in the centre of San Fernando. Pastor Nevis is a man who has been greatly used by the Lord. Fifteen years ago he commenced “Emmanuel” church and since then they have formed a further 100 daughter churches from this one church and they have been using our Gospel literature for a number of years.

They place great emphasis upon teaching the boys and girls the Word of God. The members of the church conduct 35 different children’s meetings each week in homes all around. We visited 4 different children’s meetings and this gave us a good impression of what was going on. In one of the meetings we were amazed to see the Bible lesson being taught by an 11 year old boy using one of our own Bible lessons! He spoke for about 20 minutes to a large group of boys and girls and some parents.

Emmanuel church also have about 45 adult home Bible study groups. We visited one of these and we found that the leader of this Bible study spoke very good English. Immediately we noticed a set of our Bible lessons on his knee. At the beginning he enquired if we had ever heard of the chronological set of Bible lessons which New Tribes Mission produced. We tried to explain to him that we had printed these but he did not fully understand! So he proceeded to show us a set of lessons which we print. We then explained to him that we had printed that particular set of lessons and he was totally amazed! He went on to explain that he works amongst the tribal peoples of Venezuela and told us how they had been using these lessons to teach the Gospel message to the Indian people groups.

Gary had the opportunity of opening the Word of God on a number of occasions. Firstly, there was Saturday night at the young people’s meeting and then on Sunday – both the morning and evening service in Emmanuel church where many people appreciated his ministry. He also had the opportunity of telling them about the ministry of Revival Movement Association which helped people to understand where the literature came from and how it is part of an international ministry.

The Christians in San Fernando are involved in many different forms of evangelical outreach. On a Saturday morning they hold a tramps’ breakfast. A number of these are held in different parts of the city. The one that we attended had only 4 men present. The Gospel message was shared with them through preaching and by song. At the end one of these men told us how he was a backslider and how he had killed his neighbour when this man had attacked his wife. He shared with us how he wanted to get right with God and there he prayed a prayer of repentance.

Many of the Christians go to the hospitals to take time to visit the patients and leave with them either Gospel tracts or Gospels of John. As we visited one of the hospitals we were encouraged to watch how the Christians chatted to the folk, heard their problems, took time to pray with them and then left the Gospel literature. We noticed that this was a very acceptable form of visitation to the patients.
One day Pastor Nevis took us to see the Savannahs. This is a huge area of land where isolated families live on very flat land and they try to earn their existence by farming with some beef cattle. We had to travel for miles on dirt tracks in order to meet three pastors who are working in this area. We were told that, Pastor Nevis many years ago, travelled this whole area on horseback preaching and teaching the Word of God. At first the people hated him and even tried to kill him but, eventually, they started to receive the Gospel message.
Today it is estimated that about ninety per cent of the people living in the Savannahs are evangelical Christians. They told us that, during the wet season, some of these people will actually travel to church by canoe as much of the land will be flooded. When we arrived at the Pastor’s house we found a very simple home with the hens, ducks and chickens running in and out of the house with the water pump outside. They had prepared a large meal for our arrival which included Piranha fish.

After the meal was over the lady told us how she knew we were coming and she wanted a special wild bird for the dinner table. The problem had been that none of these birds had appeared in the area for a number of days. The night before we were due to arrive, she was so concerned about this that she prayed that the Lord (cont’d back page) would send some of the birds into the area. The next morning when she got up birds had arrived and she was able to catch two of them and have them on the dinner table which was a real answer to her prayers.
Douglas shared with these pastors about the literature and then gave each of them supplies. One of these pastors had travelled to meet with us for one hour on a mule and he was going home with a box of literature on his mule. We, in turn, were delighted to know that our Gospel literature is spreading into the remote areas of Venezuela.

One morning we visited the local prison which has about 600 inmates. After getting through all of the security we were amazed to find a church service in progress in the prison. The evangelical Christians have made such an impact upon prison life that they are allowed to have their own area for a church and church services. We were thrilled with the enthusiasm of, between 70 and 80 prisoners, singing and then the pastor who is a prisoner introduced us and allowed us to share a brief message with the prisoners. We also took the opportunity to distribute Gospels of John and the other Gospel booklets to these prisoners. After the meeting was over 3 of these men came to us and told us that they wanted to trust the Lord as their Saviour. We were able to take them through the seven steps to knowing God in the introduction to the Gospel of John and then to pray with them. We were told that, when these men trust Christ, that they are watched very carefully by the other prisoners to see that a real change comes into their lives.

On our last evening in Caracas Pastor Engels told us that they had invited friends to the church for a meeting for us to share about our ministry and for Gary to be able to speak. We were very surprised that many folk from 5 different churches arrived. After we had spoken, some of them got up and shared how that they used our Gospel literature in different forms of outreach around the city. One man, a taxi driver, told us that no one gets a ride in his car without hearing a Gospel presentation and receiving some literature.

We also had the opportunity of going out with the evangelistic team from the church as they visited from door to door to talk to people concerning the good news of the Gospel. Looking on, we were amazed at how open people were and even how a group of teenage school boys coming home were quite prepared to stand and listen while the Gospel message was explained to them.
As we sat and talked to Douglas and Pastor Engels we became very aware of the tremendous needs for the Word of God in this land. On one occasion Pastor Engels explained to us how they use our Scripture booklet, “The Gospel of Jesus Christ – The Light of the World” for a series of Bible studies to be conducted among young converts awaiting baptism. We were trying to understand the significance of using this particular Scripture booklet, but he explained to us that they use this booklet because it is Scripture and most of the young converts do not have a Bible.

Impressions from Gary

As we travelled home from our trip to Venezuela, the visit to the prison in San Fernando de Apure left a deep impression on us. The motto text within the prison’s Church was John 8:32: ‘And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free’. It was very evident that many of the prisoners had experienced the reality of this verse in their own lives; God’s word is impacting these individuals as they find forgiveness of sins through the Lord Jesus Christ.
This was true, not only in the prison but throughout the whole of Venezuela. It was encouraging to see the literature from Every Home Crusade being prayerfully used in so many situations; from the capital city in the north, to the jungle in the south. We were only in the country a short time before we realised the great need for further supplies of literature and Bibles. A visit to a Christian bookstore in Caracas revealed to us that Bibles and other evangelistic material were much too expensive for the average person to afford. This highlighted afresh the immense value of the ministry of Every Home Crusade to place Gospel literature in the hands of people who can’t purchase it for themselves. As we encountered many people who didn’t own a Bible it challenged us to pray that God would enable us to help in a greater way.
Wherever we travelled the people were so thankful for the literature we are providing. They asked us to continue to send consignments of God’s word to help them in their evangelism. During our visit we met many young people and adults who need to read and understand the message of salvation through the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. The ten days we spent in Venezuela highlighted the mighty work that we are involved in and spurred us on to continue printing God’s word that many more might come to know the freedom from sin that only Christ can bring.

A New Appointment

The Directors have appointed Gary Bolton as a Mission Representative. Gary has been working in our ministry for the past 10 years. During the past three years he has been studying at Bible College and continuing to work with us part time. He is clearly gifted as a preacher and we want to use his talents by making him available to preach and report on the ministry at Church services, Missionary Conferences etc. We especially hope that he will receive invitations to speak in churches where we do not have opportunities to present the work at this time. Please pray for Gary in this new role. Booking can be made by phoning the office.
Other members of staff will continue to be available to take deputation meetings.

As we left the country we were very encouraged to see how the Lord has been using all of the container loads of Gospel literature that we have shipped into this country over these past few years. We pray that we will be able to do much more in the days that lie ahead to help reach the people of Venezuela with the Gospel through the printed page.”
PLEASE continue to pray for every aspect of the ministry that the Lord will continue to guide and to bless.

Yours for a Great Revival,

Samuel Adams and Clive Allen