Books and Bibles

Raise your hand if you’re the sort of person who loves books and loves to recommend titles to others. (Esdras' hand shoots up) Well, book lovers, this post is for you. We don’t get to hear about Sowers4Pastors Bible bookstore very often but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t an important part of the ministry.

Reading is not a huge part of the Honduran culture, as Esdras explained. Why is that? It’s likely a combination of several factors, including the following: 1) Books are more expensive there and are not as easily accessible, 2) The average adult received less formal education and may not see the benefit of reading books beyond school, and 3) Life is busy and reading isn’t seen as a priority. As a reader himself, Esdras recognizes the benefit of books–especially for Christians.

Recently, Esdras made a trip to the post office to pick up two large boxes of books and Bible dictionaries that will be taken to the students of the pastors training school in Gracias. The dictionaries are used throughout the training school and every first-year student will need his own copy. When there weren’t enough copies on the shelves of the S4P bookstore, an order was placed. 

Since S4P buys books in bulk, they are able to get better prices than typical consumers. The ministry passes the savings on to the pastors, who are able to get Bibles, commentaries, Bible dictionaries, and Christian books at cost. As Esdras shared, “Our intention is to help the pastors be as ready as possible to preach. We are helping the pastors learn how to prepare a sermon and how to counsel people.”

While Esdras’s other duties don’t allow him to spend a lot of time in the Bible bookstore, he’s always happy to have a chance to be there when pastors drop by. When two pastors asked him for a book recommendation, Esdras didn’t hesitate to suggest The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. 

Later, after reading the book, the pastors reported back. One man told Esdras, “Brother, this book was a blessing. This is my life. I can see myself in this book! I’m in this book!” 

For Esdras, hearing that brought him joy. He said, “For the culture, it’s not important to read. But it’s important for Christians.”

If you were one of the people who raised your hand to say that you love reading and recommending books, would you please leave a comment below. Let Esdras know what Christian titles you recommend so that he might read them and pass them on to others. 

- posted by Christi

The Bible Bookstore and Gifts for Gracias

 (This post is part of a series on S4P's mission statement. Here's a link to introduce you to the series.)

If you go to the homepage on the Sowers4Pastors website and click on the drop down tab labeled “What We Do,” you will see a lot of really cool branches of the ministry. But you’re not seeing everything. It’s like going to a music concert where everyone is singing along with the Top 40 hits, but only the hard core fans are still singing the lesser known songs. It’s not that the lesser known songs aren’t as good. They just never got as much air time and publicity. Today, it’s time to talk about a couple of ministry branches that are every bit as worthwhile as the ones that make it onto the Sowers4Pastors’ Greatest Hits album. Let’s hear it for the Bible bookstore and Gifts for Gracias. Feel free to mouth the words or hum along if you’re a long-time fan and you know what’s coming!

The Bible Bookstore

When Allen and Russell go out to visit churches, they often ask the question, “Who here has a Bible?” Depending on the location, there might be three raised hands. Then they ask to see the pastor’s Bible. Again, depending on the location, it might be a plain Bible with no concordance, footnotes, etc.

All books are expensive in Honduras and the purchase of books isn’t generally a high priority for a family struggling to survive. A typical study Bible in Honduras would cost about $80. That’s not pocket change for most of us, but it’s about a month’s wages for the average Honduran family.

Allen found a supplier who sells him Spanish Bibles and study materials wholesale. Sowers4Pastors then sells the materials with no markup. Through the Bible bookstore, pastors and anyone else have the opportunity to purchase a beautiful study Bible for $20. That’s still a week’s wages, but it’s quite an improvement. The bookstore contains study Bibles, other study materials, Bible Dictionaries, and concordances. There are even materials to help pastors learn how to minister. Since its inception over 14 years ago, more than 40,000 Bibles and study materials have been sold or given away through this humble bookstore.

Gifts for Gracias

Another ministry that doesn't frequently get the spotlight (at least, not anymore) is Gifts for Gracias, and it comes with a brief history lesson. Some of you might recall Gifts for Guanaja. Allen and Trish started Gifts for Guanaja back when their family lived on the island. Gifts for Guanaja started as a shoebox ministry. Churches in the States would send shoeboxes for kids filled with toys, socks, toiletries, etc. You know the type. Guanaja is a small island and Allen and Trish were able to distribute shoeboxes to all of the children in their town. Being the forward thinkers they are, when they moved to Gracias, a name change seemed in order. When they moved from Guanaja to Gracias, they brought about 800 filled shoeboxes with them. Now that they weren't on an island, the communities were a lot bigger and there wasn’t nearly enough to distribute to everyone, so Allen began reaching out to pastors. He went from town to town, seeking out pastors and leaving shoeboxes for their children, which helped him meet a lot of pastors in a short time. 

Eventually, this program changed. The shoeboxes grew into Home Depot boxes filled with donated clothing and household goods. If you’ve ever filled a box of backpacks, you know that Sowers4Pastors asks that used clothing donations be packed around the backpacks to utilize every fraction of an inch of shipping space. Those donations find their way to Gifts for Gracias, along with plates, pots, sheets, and other miscellaneous household items. These are the ministry’s Christmas gifts to the pastors and their families (though the scheduling works out that they get the presents in April and May, go figure), so Sowers4Pastors makes a point of giving them the nicest donations they have.

Supervisors of the various denominations give Allen lists of the pastors working under them. Right now, that number is up to about 300. Each of the pastors' children also receive filled backpacks. Many of the pastors in the area are 2nd generation church leaders. The idea here is the same as with the backpacks the kids in the sponsorship program receive. The hope is the more kids have access to school supplies their families might otherwise be unable to afford, the longer these kids stay in school. With so many kids growing up to follow in a pastor parent’s footsteps, it’s extra important for these next generation pastors to receive as much education as possible. The Sowers feel blessed to be a part of helping improve that cycle.

- posted by Christi

We run a bookstore! Who knew?

Our little Bible bookstore has been a part of our ministry for almost ten years now - but it is rarely mentioned on the blog or website. It's not especially glamorous or exciting, but it has been quietly serving the community here all this time.

The store consists of about four large bookshelves, sitting in the front room of Russell and Iris' house. Casual businesses being run out of homes are very common here, so we fit right in with all the small household shops. The store is open when someone is home, and closed when they are not. Most often, Iris is the one manning the store.

The stock includes multiple versions and style of Bibles, study Bibles, commentaries, and a small collection of other Bible study materials. We price the books to cover the cost of purchasing them, so basically wholesale. Since there are no salaries or overhead involved, the money which comes in from the book sales is simply used to purchase more books . . . so this has become a more-or-less self sustaining aspect of our ministry.

Books are a rare, expensive luxury item in our part of Honduras. Many of the books we sell for around $20 are priced at $80 - $100 in the bookstores in the cities. Even at $20, one book could easily cost a pastor from a mountain village an entire week's wages, so we're delighted to have the ability to make these books available to them!

In the past, we have offered discounts on purchases at the store to pastors who attended the pastor training school or the occasional pastor training conferences which we have held. This year, the pastors who complete the school will receive, for free, several of the hefty "pastor's library" volumes which will be used as part of their school materials.

This little-known, not-especially-exciting part of our ministry is actually a valuable piece of the whole!

If you didn't know about it before . . . well, now you know.

MINISTRY - an update

When I think you've heard enough about our gardening, baking, animal and homeschooling craziness, I remember to write a post about the ministry . . . you know, the reason we're here in Honduras at all, right? So, here's an update on the ministry for you!

Yesterday Russell distributed motorcycles to pastors. It's a big deal, and yet it feels sort of ordinary to us, now that we've done this so many times. It is certainly a big deal to the recipients!

Preparations are underway for the annual graduation of the Pastor Training School. Following the graduation ceremony the school will be out of session for a few months, and will restart in February or March.

The Gifts for Gracias project is coming together. There are just a few more days to ship a package of gifts or used items in the mail to Maryland - the mailing deadline is October 20th. If you live near enough to Thurmont Maryland that you would care to make a delivery in person, you'll have another week or two for that.

I'm still worried about whether or not we'll get enough donations to fill our container . . .but I have to admit I worry about it every year, so I'm trying to hope and pray, instead of worrying. Seems like a better use of my time.

The bridge construction work is mostly on hold until January, when the water levels in the rivers will be lower. The Bible sales and feeding centers continue to run on "automatic" - okay, so really Iris handles most of the work on these ministries for us - and they are going strong!

We had a team from Jacksonville Florida here recently, and they helped us install roofs on two churches, as part of our Church Construction Projects. Thanks team!

Of course, on top of this, when there's some "spare time" we work on our new house! It's an exciting time for us!

Thanks for reading this ministry update . . . and look how many labels I was able to connect with this post - I actually went over the limit (who knew there even was a limit to how many labels you could tag to a post?) and had to remove some of them!

Selling Bibles

Just over a week ago we held the final set of classes for the pastor training school for 2009. In November, the students and their families will gather for a graduation ceremony, and then the school will be closed for a few months. During the months of December, January, and February coffee beans are harvested, and many of the agricultural workers in our area make their entire yearly income working for the coffee farmers during the harvest. Since many of our pastors are also agricultural workers, they can't afford to take time away from work during the harvest, so this is when we take our annual break.

In addition to holding the training sessions to help these pastors (and future pastors) learn more about the Bible, another of our goals is to help these pastors acquire a small library of Bible reference and study materials - Bible dictionary, Bible atlas, concordance, etc. Here is how we pursue this goal.

First, we maintain a Bible bookstore in our home. We can't advertise this store widely. We sell all of the materials for less than what we pay for them. Occasionally we have had to deny a purchaser, who wanted to buy Bibles from us and resell them at a higher price to others. Although we'd like to encourage this entrepreneurial spirit, our ministry can't financially support other businesses like this!

So, our private little bookstore sells a variety of inexpensive paperback New Testaments and Bibles, plus levels of better quality Bibles, large print Bibles (very popular amongst those who read by candle or lantern light), and study Bibles, as well as the reference materials mentioned above. Many of these Bibles end up in the hands of the pastors' congregations or are used in evangelism - to date, we've distributed approximately 7500 Bibles.

Second, the pastors and church leaders who attend the training school receive credits toward purchases at the bookstore, for each school session they attend. After each set of three sessions, we haul all of the books and Bibles out to the school, and set up the bookstore there, so the pastors can use their credits (and their lempiras) to make purchases. Here are some pictures of the recent Bible sales: