LHF The Word at Work; Vol. 27 No. 2

Reading the Small Catechism in Finland

Lutheran Heritage Foundation:

THE WORD AT WORK

Volume 27 Number 2 ■ March/April 2020

COMING TO FAITH IN AN I.C.E. DETENTION CENTER Each year, tens of thousands of men, women and children pass through the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers. For many, it is a dark time of worry, fear and insecurity. And yet, it can be a time that God works miracles.

Chaplain Dustin Cameron, who works in an ICE detention center in Louisiana, has seen these miracles for himself and knows ICE detention centers to be a mission field where the Holy Spirit can change lives.

Chap. Cameron began working at the facility in 2018, speaking in chapel services, distributing Christian materials and providing spiritual counsel to the detainees. Religious materials are in high demand but are sometimes difficult to find.

“Here, we rely on donated material,” shared Chap. Cameron. “To be honest, it is quite difficult to get Christian material in a lot of languages, and once you look past English and Spanish it can

I’m out of Bibles, three cases, you know.

One day I was passing by the kitchen, and one of the kitchen workers stopped me and said, ‘The Bible you gave me a couple weeks ago was the best gift I’ve ever received. It’s the greatest gift I’ve ever received my whole life.’”

While about 75% of the deMatt. 25:36 tainees are Latino, many other nationalities are also repreget really hard. I was researching and sented. At any one time, people from trying to find books in these guys’ native more than 50 different countries can be tongue, and I found LHF online. held in the Louisiana center.

“Close to the time when I first got According to Chap. Cameron, LHF here, there weren’t many Spanish Bibles is the only place that translates good here, and there was a big, big demand Christian books into the languages that for it,” he continued. “I went down to he’s seeking. His most recent request the sidewalk and I was just giving LHF’s included Small Catechisms in French, Bibles with Small Catechism to everyICE detention center one walking by. The next thing I know cont. on page 3

“I was in prison, and you came to me...”

INSIDE:

TRANSLATING PUBLISHING INTRODUCING DISTRIBUTING REFORMATION BIBLE-BASED CHRIST-CENTERE BOOKS TRANSLATING PUBLISHING INTRODUCING DISTRIBUTING REFORMATION BIBLE-BASED CHRIS TERED BOOKS TRANSLATING PUBLISHING INTRODUCING TRANSLATING REFORMATION BIBLE-BASED CHRIST-CENTERED BOOKS TRANSLATING PUBLISHING PAGES 2-3: PAGE 4: INTRODUCING DISTRIBUTING PAGE 4: REFORMATION B LHFCHRIST-CENTERED Bible storybook embraced BOOKS TRANSLATING Small Catechisms distributed in Double your giftDISTRIBUTING to the LHF BLE-BASED PUBLISHING INTRODUCING REFOR in Muslim Kazakhstan Indonesia’s Muslim schools mission – at no extra cost to you!

TION BIBLE-BASED CHRIST-CENTERED BOOKS TRANSLATING PUBLISHING INTRODUCING DISTRIBUTIN

KAZAKHSTAN:

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Despite increasing persecution, LCMS missionary is

INTRODUCING MUSLIMS TO JE

Kazakhstan – the world’s largest landlocked country, sandwiched between Russia, China and the Middle East – is at a crossroads, literally and figuratively. The contemporary, modern lines of Astana, the capital city, stand in stark contrast to the snowcapped mountains where eagle hunters practice their centuriesold craft.

But one aspect of Kazakh life that remains the same, whether in brightly lit urban centers or on the wide open steppe where herds of horses graze, is that nearly 100% of the Kazakh people worship Allah.

The tiny population of ethnic Kazakh Christians worships primarily in private house churches, seeking to avoid the attention that can result in estrangement from family, physical attacks and death threats. Proselytization of Muslims by Christians is strictly prohibited by Kazakh law.

An LCMS missionary who needs to remain

anonymous for the safety of his parishioners has ministered to Kazakhs for well over a decade.

To strengthen the faith of new believers, and to have ready resources to introduce non-believers to Jesus Christ, LHF recently published A Child’s Garden of Bible Stories in the Kazakh language.

“Over 90% of our church members are new Christians, baptized in our churches over the last six years,” explained the missionary. “They come into the church completely Biblically illiterate. So, the Child’s Garden of Bible Stories is the first Bible overview for most families.”

Church leaders are making a concerted effort to encourage their members to have family devotions, and the Bible storybook has made a big impact.

“I think we find a good illustration in the eleven-year-old son of one of the local Christians,” recalled the missionary. “The little

boy’s mother had been trying Gospel with his elderly grandm six years. However, the grandm understandably reluctant to be her own daughter.

“The boy loves the new Chil of Bible Stories because it brin Bible stories, presenting them that he can read for himself. H share his joy with his elderly g reading her the Bible stories e “Though unwilling to listen t the boy’s grandmother was ha grandson spend precious time He even asks his grandmother questions at the end of each s bright faith and humble love o this elderly Muslim woman is n God’s word proclaimed to her! childlike faith stands as a beau us all!”

ICE detention center cont. from page 1

ESUS

Korean, Russian, Haitian Creole, Tamil, Hindi, Chinese and Georgian.

“I see the Gospel totally changing people’s lives,” said Chap. Cameron. “We’ve even had people come in here and say they believe the Lord sent them here just so they could be saved.”

One complication of Chap. Cameron’s job is that he cannot show any preferential treatment to any religion, since the chapel is a communal worship space. While he can lead a Christian chapel service there, the Islamic men also use it for their own worship.

However, that too can be

to share the mother for over mother was e instructed by

ld’s Garden ngs life to the m on a level He decided to grandmother by each day. to her daughter, appy to have her e reading to her. r the reflection story. Through the of her grandson, now open to hear ! Certainly such utiful example for

A child holds her very own copy of the Kazakh-language A Child’s Garden of Bible Stories. LHF has translated and published this colorful collection of 60 Old and New Testament Bible stories into nearly 40 languages for churches around the world.

To adopt a project like this at your church, go to www.LHFmissions.org/projects.

an opportunity to witness!

“There was an Islamic gentleman, and I’d noticed he’d stopped attending the Muslim services,” Chap.

Cameron said. “He stopped me one day and said he’d like to meet with me privately. He wanted to know Chap. Cameron what the plan of Salvation holding LHF’s Haitian-Creole was. He was turning his Small Catechism back on the whole Islamic religion.

“He said, ‘In doing this, I know that my whole family is disowning me; my whole outside touch with the world will be gone.

I’ll have no connection outside of this place with anybody,’” recalled Chap. Cameron. “He said, ‘I want to know that Jesus is my Lord,’ so I...explained that [he’d] have the free gift of Salvation, and he was weeping. I could sense the Holy Spirit just hovering in such a profound way.

“The role the Gospel plays in this setting is central to how many cope with the situation that they find themselves in, knowing their only true hope is in Jesus Christ,” said Chap.

Cameron. “Having the material to share and use with the resident population is more precious than pure gold, as they get to have something in their own language to read and study!”

by Anna Bagnall, LHF Staff Writer 3

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$4 6,

Indonesia:

BRINGING THE SMALL CATECHISM INTO PUBLIC SCHOOLS DOUBLE YOUR MISSION GIFT with the

LHF MATCH! The LHF Match is back! All donations from individuals, churches or groups who haven’t given to LHF in the past 12 months will have their gifts matched, dollar for dollar, until the match goal is met!

Your $25 gift becomes $50. $500 becomes $1,000 for printing the books that introduce people to Jesus!

The maximum individual gift match for this program is $5,000. Grants and bequests are not eligible.

No extra paperwork is required.

Give online at LHFmissions.org or mail your gift to the address below.

LUTHERAN HERITAGE FOUNDATION 51474 Romeo Plank Rd. ■ Macomb, MI 48042 1-800-554-0723 ■ info@LHFmissions.org www.LHFmissions.org

LHF “WORD AT WORK” STAFF:

EDITOR: Rev. Dr. Matthew Heise MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Bagnall GRAPHIC DESIGN: Jennifer Bagnall “The Word at Work” is the official publication of the Lutheran Heritage Foundation. Permission is hereby granted to excerpt from this publication for not-for-profit purposes.

The Lutheran Heritage Foundation is a Recognized Service Organization of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. LHF translates, publishes, distributes and introduces confessional Lutheran materials throughout the world so that people can be brought to Christ. LHF is not subsidized by the LCMS or any other church body. It is entirely supported by individual donations and grants.

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When guessing which country in the world has the largest population of Muslims, most people probably wouldn’t think of Indonesia in Southeast Asia, where about 85% of the nation’s 270 million citizens follow the teachings of Islam.

Although the majority of the country is Sunni Muslim, Indonesia’s founders admired diversity, so the country does not proclaim itself an Islamic State.

This pride in diversity and a certain amount of tolerance provided just the opening Imelda Aritonang, LHF’s coordinator for Indonesian translations, was looking for.

“Schools in Indonesia are mostly state schools, built by the government,” Imelda explained. Religion is part of the curriculum, and Christians are often allowed to teach their own faith.

“The government provides textbooks for every subject, but the amount is very limited,” she continued.

“And unfortunately, religious books besides those that are Islamic are very hard to obtain. I often encounter complaints from Christian religious teachers who find it difficult to get high

quality, Biblical teaching materials.”

LHF has stepped in to provide thousands of children’s Bible storybooks, catechisms and catechism workbooks in the Bahasa language, which are being distributed to several public and private schools throughout the country. But because of the sheer size of the Indonesian population, many thousands more are needed.

“Praise the Lord, the books we have shared receive positive reviews from everyone who reads them,” Imelda said. “The children love to see books with images full of color. The teachers also give a good response because they know and believe that the lessons in LHF’s books are based on the Bible and are trustworthy.

“As followers of Christ, we can share the fruits of the Spirit with our neighbors, because we have received the most love first, namely the love of Christ on the cross,” she encouraged.

“Our Christian faith teaches love and forgiveness, while Islam spreads fear and the threat of the torments of hell.”

To learn more about supporting this project, go to www.LHFmissions.org.