“Doctors gave up hope on my boy.” Mei laments over her son, Jian, who suffered a tragic accident that left him in critical condition.

Imagining her world robbed of Jian’s love and laughter, Mei almost gave up hope as well. But in the midst of her grief, a Christian friend shared the hope of the Gospel with her. She thought of God’s power over death and began to trust that God had a special purpose for her son. She prayed and pleaded with God to bring Jian back from the brink of death.

He did!

“God miraculously saved my son!” Mei rejoices through tears. She knows it was God’s grace that breathed life into her dying boy.

As she nursed Jian back to health, she told him about God’s love and the good things God desires for his life. Like any Christian mother, Mei wanted her son to experience God’s presence through his Word. However, that felt like an unattainable goal. Mei could not read. Jian never went to school. They didn’t even have a Bible of their own.

One day Mei learned that the Bible Society was holding a literacy course at her 100-year-old church in Henan. She was ecstatic. She pedaled to their first class with vigor, Jian bouncing along in the wagon behind her.

In their literacy class, Jian and Mei each received their own copy of the Bible in their heart language. They learned to read and write the words of the Gospel of John: “In the beginning the Word already existed; the Word was with God, and the Word was God…” They learned to study the Word and to share it with others.

Through Bible based literacy classes, millions of illiterate and rural Chinese believers are learning to read and are discovering God’s life-changing message for themselves. Your prayers and generous gifts mean that families like Jian and Mei in rural China are able to receive God’s Word and grow in its truths through Bible literacy training. Thank you!