What does VBS Mean to You?

VBS to many American churches means Vacation Bible School = a 1 or 2 week church event in the summer for teaching the Bible to children. But for us VBS means Video Bible School = recorded teaching for use in other countries. Not every Christian Worker in the world has the possibility of attending a real, live, Bible School. It is reported that less than 10% of the estimated 2 million church leaders in the developing nations have had any formal ministry training! The workers need training. VBS is, “the Bible School that comes to you.” Any church can have it’s own Bible School when it has these DVD’s. And we want to make these teachings available in the languages of tribal people that perhaps don’t read or write any major world language, like English or French, because they are the ones to take the gospel into the unreached villages.

The VBS at the church in Accra, Ghana was suppose to start a few years ago, but it just never got going. Pastor Geoff Bretches and I have been teaching there and wanted to see this Video Bible School get going. After I taught there the first of April, we dedicated the VBS. After I traveled on, they continued the school with the videos. At this point this school in Accra, Ghana has been going for a month, and we have received a good report of how they are doing.

Here is a picture of me teaching them how to print, copy and assemble the booklets that accompany the videos. I had to buy that printer there in Ghana for them and it is a used, refurbished notebook computer that my brother Bob Davis supplied for them. In many cases we supply computers and printers as well as DVD players to accompany the video discs.

Please pray for this VBS in Ghana and the others. We have just sent the 8th set of discs to Ivory Coast. We have placed 17 in Benin, 3 in Senegal, 2 in Togo, 3 in Mali and 1 in Burkina Faso. We have sent 1 to Nigeria, 1 to Central Africa Republic and 3 to Congo. Visit our website dedicated to the Video Bible School at http://spiritandwordvbs.com/ or go to our regular website http://www.davismission.com/ and click on the Spirit and Word Video Bible School button under our picture.

One of the Sundays we were in Accra, I (Fred) preached about forgiveness and reconciliation and I shared a story from my own life. At the end of the service I prayed for those who responded to the message. Tuesday after that, when I was teaching Bible School, Pastor Aldous, (he is the first person on the left in the above picture) who interprets English into Ga for the students who don’t hear American English very well, didn’t make it to class. He showed up as we ended the class - 3 ½ hours late. As I took him aside and began to speak to him, he shared why he was late. Early that morning his dad called him and his brother and asked them to come immediately to meet him. (Of course when a person suddenly calls all the children around, this usually means the person is about to die and you have to go right then.) Aldous went on to share with me that his father was not dying, but wanted to ask forgiveness and make reconciliation with his sons. This was an incredible miracle and an answer to the prayer I prayed for Aldous and the others on Sunday morning. Praise the Lord!

Thank you for your prayers and support for this tremendous ministry.