September 2013 Prayer Letter
September 2013
Dear Friends,
It is my blessing to share with you what God is doing at Silent Word Ministries. As Paul said, “Not because I desire a gift: but I desire fruit that may abound to your account,” (Philippians 4:17). Your prayers and gifts help us share the Gospel in many ways!
Spreading the Gospel – The SWMI Deaflympics Mission Team recently returned from Bulgaria and Greece. David Bennett reports that the team of 28 distributed over 12,000 tracts and over 8,500 Gospel DVDs among the over 15,000 attendees. Six SWM missionaries were part of the team – Reed and Donna Condra, Nicole Condra, Larry and Diana Galyen, and David Bennett. There were 12 salvation decisions reported. The Gospel was distributed to many people from countries which are closed to missionaries. There are still more reports of people being saved even after the team has arrived home. It is very exciting that SWM can reach out to multitudes of both Deaf and hearing people that may never have an opportunity to know the Gospel any other way!
Good News — In 2009 several missionaries and local Deaf people worked together to create an international Gospel DVD called “Good News for Deaf People.” As of now, 58,755 “Good News” DVDs have been produced. Most have been distributed in large deaf events orforeign events, such as Deaflympics. Wefeel that it is good for our supporters to have a copy of this amazing witnessing tool. Please email me and we will send one to you (jbarr@silentword.org). More good news… So far this year there have been 381 salvation decisions reported through all areas of our ministry.
Video Ministry — It is great to report that we continue to make progress on remastering all SWM DVDsto make them more compatible with home DVD players. Several DVDs are already done. We are hoping to complete this project in the next few weeks so we can again begin producing new preaching, teaching, and training DVDs.
SWM Meetings — SWM just completed our annual ASL Institute and Deaf Bible Conference training. In two meetings, North and South, there was a total of 193 attendees, including 29 Deaf, from 13 states and one foreign country. One person commented, “Thank you for a well-organized, informative, encouraging, and inspiring conference.” Another said that ASLI helped them “greatly improve in areas [of sign language] that before were weak.” An important part of our ministry is to help others in their deaf ministries.
New Volunteer – Recently, Jeremy and Vicki Shiffer moved to Trenton from Pennsylvania, with the purpose of helping SWM for an extended period of time. Vicki is Deaf and they have already made themselves right at home in and around SWM. We are humbled that this couple left family and friends to come be a blessing here. By the way, SWM has a program called “Ministry of Helps,” so people can volunteer to help SWM within their abilities on a short-term basis. God has blessed SWM with several short-term volunteers already this year. Contact us for more information if you are interested in helping.
Thank you again for your prayers and support as we serve God, especially among the Deaf. We hope the enclosed SWM pamphlet is a blessing to you. SWM produces over 80 pamphlets which are available free to our supporters. More information is available on request.
For Deaf Souls,
Jon Barr, President
Ted Camp, Founder