God Wrote a Book

To a lot of people the Bible is just an ancient book of stories that are hard to read or understand and not even considered relevant to our day to day lives. I bet most homes have at least one sitting on their shelf somewhere collecting dust. Or it’s displayed on a side table as a family heirloom. Sadly, I believe most Americans take it for granted that we can walk into almost any store and purchase a Bible. But did you know that in numerous countries around the world Bibles are not readily available if at all? And in some poor countries, if they are available, it can cost them a month’s wages. Did you know that so many don’t even have one written in their own language? That’s where Word First Bible Publishing ministry at Heartland Baptist Fellowship comes in. With a vision to get Bibles in the hands of those who are hungry for God’s Word and have no funds or access to one, we exist for that purpose. Word First Bible Publishing ministry team works on average two Saturdays a month in our Armoury assembling Bibles in several different languages to ship to missionaries, churches, etc. in other parts of the world. We also assemble Bibles in the English language for numerous ministry partners and churches both local and around the country. Every year since 2010 we have held an annual Bible Conference that expands Wednesday through Saturday with Thursday, Friday and Saturday being full days 8:00 am to 10:00 pm. We turn the whole church building into a Bible publishing factory. We have Bible assembly going on except for a break at lunchtime, during which time we enjoy a pastor giving a short preaching session as we fill our bodies with nourishment to continue the work. At early evening we break for supper and then another time of preaching from a pastor along with a time of worship and an update of the day’s happenings. It is a great time of fellowship as we work side by side to assemble and pray over the Word of God to get them into the hands and hearts of those who are without.

This year was another amazing Bible Conference! We have an open invitation to anyone who wants to come and help us assemble Bibles. We had one local business, Beyond Wealth Management, that brought their work force and some kids with them to participate. Also participating was a private Christian school from Blue Spring called Marian Hope Academy that brought several carloads of teens who did an awesome job helping us. As always we had numerous sister churches that sent many people to help and also lent us one or more of  their pastors for the preaching sessions. These include Maple City Baptist Church in Monmouth, Illinois; Midtown Baptist Temple, Kansas City; Harvest Baptist Blue Springs; Grace Baptist Lee’s Summit; Grace and Truth Baptist Church, Independence; Crest Bible Church Merriam, Kansas; Living Faith, Lee's Summit; and Harvest Baptist Iola, Kansas among others. We also had members of Raintree Community Church that somehow heard about what we were doing and brought several people to join in helping with the Bible assembly. Our target goal to cover the cost of these Bibles was about $17,000.00 with the final offering coming in at just over $10,000.00. This year we assembled Spanish Bibles, tracts and John and Romans for our missionary to Oaxaca, Mexico, Joe Hendrigsman. The final number completed is 4,800 Spanish Bibles, 10,000 tracts in a native Indian/Aztek language and 1600 Johns and Romans. These are now in the hands of Seeds of Grace to get transported to where they need to go. You can still be a part of this Bible conference by joining us in prayer for these Bibles, tracts and John and Romans to get where God desires them to go in His perfect time and destination. If you are interested in how you can be involved in this ministry or if you have any questions please contact Pastor Bob Hall, Director of Word First Bible Publishing. You may also donate financially to this ministry at our website wordfirstpublishing.org to help cover costs of making Bibles.

You may listen to the sermons preached at the conference at this link.