Bread of Life
From SPARK
Brief Summary
Media mix: bread wrappers, Bible story/study sheets, radio and video.
Read how simple wrappers used on bread at the market can help people come to know about the true Bread of Life. This story can encourage creative use of everyday things to draw attention to spiritual matters that will satisfy people’s spiritual hunger.
Reaching Whole Households
“Is today the day?” eight-year-old Ndia of Senegal, West Africa had asked every day for a week.
And finally, “Yes, my son, today we go to market.”
Now an ever-so-impatient little boy peeks around his mother’s skirt while she buys a loaf of French bread at the open-air market. A smile breaks out on his face as he sees the vendor wrap the bread.
“Ndia! When you grabbed the wrapper, our bread almost dropped on the ground,” his mother reprimands. Then, realizing she is about to be left behind, she calls, “Wait for me!” and hurries after him.
Ndia, clutching the wrapper, dashes through the market. He cuts through a vegetable stand, dodges a few stray goats, bumps into several people. But both son and mother arrived at their destination, “the table”, without knocking anyone over. After pushing his way through the crowd hovering over the table, the boy plops the wrapper on the table and proudly announces, “I’ve come for my prize!”
“Prize Number Four,” his mother adds.
The man sitting at the table, a Sereer evangelist, sees the logo on the wrapper. He flips through his record book and finds the family name, then enters the redeemable number. Ndia takes the wrapper held out to him, along with the coveted prize: a Bible story and a study sheet, both written in his Sereer language. The boy’s beaming face is all the “Thank you!” the evangelist wants. He knows that the Bible story will pass through thirty or more hands several times before the next market day. Even the wrapper will be read. It tells on what radio stations a person can hear these Sereer Bible stories read. Many who can’t read the Bible story for themselves, will “read” the pictures, done by a Sereer artist, as they hear the story read by the broadcaster. Next time he comes to market, Ndia knows there will be someone sitting at the table. From these distribution booths Sereer evangelists and pastors talk to people about Jesus as they give out the Bible stories.
In the months to come, Ndia’s family will collect ten more prizes. Once the lessons on the study sheets are completed, the village will have earned the privilege of seeing the JESUS film in their Sereer language. The evangelist would bring Christians for this huge, film-showing celebration. “More than one million people of Senegal and Gambia speak Sereer, Ndia’s heart language,” says Phillip Brown, “The majority have little or no access to the good news of the salvation of Jesus Christ. But today as Senegalese vendors travel from village to village, they not only sell bread but they also spread the Gospel to hundreds of their people. We Southern Baptist missionaries provide them with bread wrappers - one million were printed and distributed to vendors free of charge. On the front is a picture of a loaf of bread with ‘Bread of Life’ underneath it. Inside are directions to the nearest distribution point.” Phillip and his wife Karen came up with this idea after they discovered that papers from their trash were used at the local market to wrap bread in. One day Phillip saw a man reading his wrapper. “Why are you reading that piece of trash?” he asked.
“It has words on it, so it must be read,” he answered.
”’The Bread of Life’ project is a cultural fit for the Sereer,” Phillip says. “Custom dictates that anyone who travels to town must bring home something that’s not available in the village. And the ‘something’ they often bring home is bread,” Phillip explains.
“The first year Karen and I were here, we drove to village after village. Still we didn’t make it to even half of the Sereer villages. Sereer believers, after they’d studied the Old Testament for several months and watched the Jesus film, wrote the Bible stories which people receive in exchange for a wrapper. Having the stories on paper allows people to read the story, think about it, and understand it. These ‘Bread of Life’ wrappers have reached almost every Sereer village in Senegal. This method has reached whole households at a time with the ‘Bread of Life’.”
TO ASK YOURSELF:
“Bread of Life” wrappers is a unique, God-inspired idea. Have I considered asking God to reveal to me creative ways to reach others for Christ? By Aretta Loving
