The gospel grows fastest among the poor, perhaps because they have no other rope but hope. Their hope is something so akin to faith that God smiles on it and honors it.

Our budding church has been blessed with people, all of them poor. One poor family last week was praying for wood to burn in their stove to fight back the cold of winter. The husband, a friend of mine, was away, and the wife thought she might be able to ask a close friend for help but was ashamed to ask. She knelt to pray about the situation. While she was on her knees, the doorbell rang. It was her friend with an armload of wood! The wife was so happy she immediately called her husband to tell him about the miracle. When he heard the news he clapped his hands and let out a loud “Praise the Lord!”

In that moment of rejoicing, he heard the voice of the Lord in his head urging him to go and sit on a certain park bench and open his Bible. He immediately obeyed. He had been reading the Bible for about four minutes when a man walked by and then stopped and looked at him. “Is that a Bible you’re reading?” he asked.

“Yes,” my friend replied.

The man began describing enthusiastically how some Christians had given him a Turkish translation of a book called More than a Carpenter. Now he was looking for a church to attend. “Do you know of one?” Of course my friend knew of one! He welcomed the man to our newly opened church.

To all of you who have donated so generously to Turkish evangelism, thank you. You have brought a spiritual armload of wood to the door of a spiritually impoverished nation. Your gifts have started a church here that is now bringing warmth and Light to this nation.

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