The following encouragement was submitted by Bob Cooper of the Bournemouth of The Gideons a few weeks ago:

My wife Jane and I went to Richmond Park Church in Bournemouth recently to speak about the work of The Gideons. Like most Branches who visit churches we have a display and put out a range of our Bibles.

As we were chatting before the service we were introduced to an overseas student, Akihiro. He had wandered into the church a few weeks before and had been coming ever since. One of the church members came up and asked if it would be possible to have one of the Testaments that were on display as Akihiro didn’t have one of his own. He was Japanese and noticed the Bilingual Japanese/English Testament. We had seen this Testament when we put out the display but had no idea what language it was! Naturally we said yes.

We see the Lord’s hand in this. The timing was just right. A few weeks earlier he wouldn’t even have been there. We were there just at the time he needed a copy of God’s Word. Our Branch has never needed or asked for a Japanese Testament and have no idea where that Testament came from or how it got into our display materials. It just shouldn’t have been there!

We need to pray that as Akihiro reads his New Testament the Holy Spirit will work in his life and bring him to the Lord.

Then just this week, Bob emailed to say:

“Just to let you know that your prayers have been answered. Akihiro came to the Lord a couple of weeks ago and we had the joy of meeting him last week.”

Praise the Lord!