Dr. Dave Demick spends most days treating patients at the Mary Lanning Memorial Hospital, in Hastings, Neb., where he specializes in pathology. But on Wednesday evenings, he can be found at the Evangelical Free Church of Hastings, performing a very different job: leading the Bible story time for Awana, a Bible program for children in elementary through high school. It is a task close to the heart of Demick, who, together with his wife Karen, has two children and four grandchildren.

“I feel like it’s a charge from God,” Demick explains. “He says, ‘Feed my lambs,’ and many of [the kids] know so little about the Bible. I feel compelled to try and do something to counteract the biblical illiteracy.”

And last spring, Demick, who is a long-time supporter of American Bible Society, didn’t just tell Bible stories to the Awana students. He also challenged them to share the Bible with others by supporting American Bible Society’s Bible provision program in China. Every $1 the children donated would pay for the paper for one Chinese Bible. Demick explained to the children that this program allows churches to make the Bible available to members throughout China.

“[The children] were really working, bringing change wherever they could,” explains Demick. “Their hearts were obviously in it. I just left it open to them either before or after they could have a little donation box.”

By the end of the challenge, the kids had donated enough change to provide the paper for 140 Bibles.

“In those moments when a boy or a girl would come up and give me an offering, something in their faces would really touch my heart and make me know that they’d connected and understood,” Demick says.

“Dr. Demick’s weekly commitment to the Awana class shows his passion for passing the Bible’s life changing message to the next generation—in his town and around the world,” explains ABS Philanthropic Advisor Dan Leeman.

And at the end of the day, Demick showed by example that the Bible is something to share—whether it’s through a weekly Bible story time or a program to make the Bible available to Christians across the globe.

You can support the work of American Bible Society in China too! Visit: China.AmericanBible.org.