Recently, my wife Cathy and I visited historic Folsom Prison and heard amazing stories of transformation from the student-inmates. While we were there we chatted with Mao, a young man whose parents emigrated from Cambodia after the Vietnam War. He was hoping that his TUMI training would help him with the parole board this month, but he was also concerned that he may be released and deported to Cambodia, where he doesn't know the language. We assured him that God has a plan for him, whether for Cambodia, in the U.S., or even if he does not get paroled. He said, “Yes, I am free to be used by God no matter what happens, even if I remain in prison.”
A few days later we met with Vasile Pop (pictured far left in the striped shirt), a Romanian national church leader who visited Southern California for a few days to raise funds for his ministry. He said he could expand his TUMI training from 42 to 200 pastors and extend into Ukraine, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Moldova (and go into Romanian prisons), if he could finish the TUMI translation more quickly and add more staff. This will cost $80,000. He was hesitant to ask people because it was so much money, but we encouraged him to go ahead because it is such a modest amount for so much potential fruit. The next week, he was at a meeting in Wichita where he presented the vision we helped him lay out.
Later we got this note from Vasile’s colleague Calin: “I cannot express my gratitude for all your effort and passion for the TUMI program in Romania. I believe with all my heart in the effectiveness of this program in Romania and beyond its borders to the neighboring countries. Your encouragement is that fuel that boots us beyond the limit of our own courage. I don't know if this makes any sense in English. What I wanted to say is that without your personal encouragement the expansion of the TUMI program in Romania would have been confined to the limits of our own resources and possibilities. This way, the DREAM is no longer a dream, it looks more and more like a reality that is about to take shape and form.”
If that was not enough, we opened two new sites in Cuba in the last few days. The hunger and excitement for biblical training cannot be exaggerated. At one of the new site’s commissioning service, the little church was bursting with people as the 40 new students came forward for prayer. Then a family came forward and accepted Christ amidst cheering and clapping. It was a blessing to think about the gospel moving ahead in this very poor community.
Don Allsman is World Impact's Vice President and the TUMI Satellite Director. Click here to give to the TUMI Translation Project.