Your Gifts to SIM Keep Project Moving Forward AFRICA Thanks in large part to your commitment to SIM's long-standing Pastor's Library Project, another 20,000 pastors in Africa will have a library of more than 50 Bible study and reference books to enhance their ministries and strengthen their people. Jim Mason, SIM literature consultant, also reports that the Pastor's Library conferences now being organized for Kenya, Zambia, and Ethiopia will feature speakers from fourteen countries! "This newest phase of the Pastor's Library Project is very exciting, but also an extraordinary challenge for us," Mason states. "We have received more than $643,000 in donations to date, approximately 42.8 percent of the total need." SIM is still able to print and ship these huge book sets for an incredibly low price because authors and publishers have waived their royalties. But even this low cost is well beyond what pastors in developing countries can

Jim Mason is working to help provide pastors all across Africa with a personal Bible study library.

afford. So SIM asks our supporting friends to provide $75 for each set, and you have responded in remarkable ways!

God at Work

It is inspiring to hear the stories of how these pastors--many of whom also work as subsistence farmers to feed their families--sacrifice and trust God to provide the funds they need to purchase their books. They also attend a three-day conference where they are trained how to use their new books and encouraged in ministry through the speakers who come.

Your response is also inspiring! Many SIM friends have gone the "extra mile" to help make these study libraries available to pastors who often have little formal biblical training or access to other resources. SIM missionary Joel Purcell, who works alongside Jim Mason to further this work, says that one SIM friend has given $37,500 to help provide books for 500 pastors.

"We are so encouraged when our SIM partners catch the vision for what these libraries mean to pastors in the developing world," Purcell says. "We are prayerfully challenging people to consider providing 10 book sets for $750--a gift that will literally bear fruit for generations to come as these pastors are better able to disciple believers and build the church in Africa." Project 092027