GFA Audio Book

During a recent 4 hour return car trip from camp to a wedding and back again, we listened to the audio version of the free Gospel for Asia book 'Revolution in World Missions'.

Written by Dr KP Yohannan, it chronicles his journey from a remote Indian village where he grew up, to be convicted of native missionary work and thus establish what is now known as the 'Gospel for Asia' missionary organisation. (or GFA).

The world generally knows about World Vision sponsorship. The Christian network knows about Compassion and TEAR sponsorships and community projects. There is nothing wrong with supporting these, but GFA offers something uniquely different.

Rather than sending people from developed countries into developing countries to do social and community projects or even evangelism amongst the local people, GFA's focus is on training people from within those countries to preach and teach Scripture,. They are then sent back to their homeland to undertake this ministry, as they have the unique advantage of already understanding the culture, the language and the people they serve.

One chapter in the free book described how when KP was visiting many churches in the US to generate support to establish this organisation and to support missionary work in general, one quote he wrote stood out for me:

(paraphrased)

"I'd be drumming up financial support for missionary work amongst the churches and their leadership team. They would happily offer donations of various amounts, but when I was invited afterwards to a dinner function with them, the amount of money they spent on the dinner alone was so much more than what they gave financially towards the missionary cause. This made me sick and wonder "are we as a society so materialistically-driven that we act as if we give generously, but in reality only give a small portion of what we think is generous and keep the rest for ourselves?"