Summer 2024 Mission Update
The Harvest Truly is Great!
It seems that the world is spiraling down in chaos and despair. The media is reporting hatred, harassment, and intolerance everywhere. This is no surprise to Christians as we know that the Bible states in Matthew 24:6, “and ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that ye be not troubled, for all things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.”
The current environment will continue on this path as described in God’s word. This is a rally cry for believers to press on with the great commission that Jesus gave us. Now is not a time to sit back and wait, but it is a critical time to reach as many of the lost as we can. It is important to be as active in your local church in reaching your community so that everyone hears the Good News of salvation. Just as the apostles traveled throughout the known world preaching the Gospel and spreading the word of God’s love and peace, we need to continue what they have started.
At our annual banquet we were honored to have Tim Whitehead, President of GALCOM speak to us in regard to the great need of the Gospel in nations throughout the world. GALCOM is doing tremendous work in distant regions with electronic communications to reach individuals who have never heard the Gospel. At CSM, our mission is “to bring Bibles and evangelical literature to people in need throughout the world.” At our annual banquet we celebrated sending over six (6) million pounds of material to nations around the world over the past 30 years. CSM also aids local ministries that request materials for prison ministries, street ministries, etc.
Our work is more important than ever. Our prayers are that God will continue to meet all our needs. We are thankful to our supporters and volunteers for their work with CSM to share the message of the gospel. Kindly participate with the ministry as a prayer partner, have your church contact us about how they can share in blessing others around the world, contribute material from yourself, church and friends, volunteer in any of the many functions that we need support, and also continue to contribute your financial support. Dennis Cheredar, CSM Board Chairman
What's New at CSM?
We are always amazed at the sheer volume of books that are sent here on any given day. You would be surprised just how many boxes of books you can pack into the back of a minivan. From January—April, 50 pallets of books were delivered to our Hamilton warehouse. In May and June alone, we’re up to 60 pallets delivered in just these two months!
To be totally fair, not all of those books are ones that we can or will use. We won’t send the books that are falling apart or are from the cults (or the cookbooks). That said, we have a warehouse that is absolutely stuffed with books to be sorted. We aren’t quite at the point of needing to eat lunch with boxes of books, but we are close!
Are you located in the Hamilton area and have some time to spare in service to the Lord? We could certainly use people to help pack the books, but sorters are in especially short order at the moment and we sorely could use some Godly men and women with a passing familiarity of Christian authors and sound doctrine. If this is you, and you feel led to help here, please call or email the office to get started on coming in.
Cheerfully in Christ, Valerie in the office
What's New at CSM?
May 2024 —TANZANIA—31,576 lbs.
If you’ve ever wanted to enjoy a vacation in the Bahamas, this would have been the container to ride on as it just spent two weeks in Freeport, Grand Bahama. While this container is certainly taking a slow boat, the fellows who came to load were anything but! They quickly loaded up 556 banana boxes and 101 smaller assorted boxes in near record time. The container will, eventually, make way to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. Once there, the precious Bibles and books will be distributed by the Lake Tanganyika Development and Relief Organization. Shipping costs for this container were $5,874.
June 2024 —GHANA —32,793 lbs.
After a bit of a delay due to difficulty securing a container, we were finally able to load up our third container for the year. This happens to be the heaviest container we’ve loaded in almost four years! We’ll be keeping a close eye on these precious Bibles and books making their way for distribution via Ministry Pastors Network Int’l in Ghana. MPNI has distributed several containers for CSM, and always shares wonderful testimonial stories with us. Shipping costs were $6,544.
An Evening to Remember
We probably say the same thing every year, but we recently celebrated our best banquet ever! A little under 100 of CSM’s supporters and friends gathered together in Hamilton on April 27th for our 30th anniversary banquet (we do realize CSM has been operating for a little longer than that, but we have 30 official years of God’s provision to celebrate now).
As usual, we began our evening with refreshments and a time of fellowship. Punch, coffee, tea, and just plain water were enjoyed, but not nearly as much as catching up with our Christian brothers and sisters who share a passion for spreading God’s word in printed books. After asking God to bless our food and our evening, a meal of most delicious Italian foods was served. You know the dinner was delicious when there is a line for seconds!
We savored the privilege of using Heritage Green Community Church’s sanctuary as we came together in worship as led by Pastor Nick and Betty Murray. The Murrays sang some of our favourite songs, and there were more than a few of us singing along.
The most motivating time of the evening was when Tim Whitehead of GALCOM came up and spoke. Of course we know that the Lord is moving amongst the nations, but it was just wonderful to hear stories of people touched by our work at CSM and GALCOM both. Tim enthusiastically called every one of us to missions—there are surprising ways all of us can support missions using our God-given gifts. At the end of Tim’s presentation, he invited our Board Chairman, Dennis Cheredar up and interviewed Dennis for GALCOM’s podcast, Mission Compass. The interview aired on June 15th, and is available on all major podcast providers as well as GALCOM’s website
Thank you to Board Member Raj Sandhu for closing the evening in encouragement and prayer.
We look forward to seeing everyone again next year—be sure to pencil in April 26, 2025 to attend!
Testimonies from Grateful Recipients:
“Thanks to you for your faithful distribution of the Boxes of Books and Bibles … which we have benefited from greatly, I am proud of you particularly because many ministries have been impacted positively by your generosity, and the over years lives have been transformed by your free distributions of Christian literature shipped to you.” – librarian in Ghana, Africa
As you can see by the grace of God … there is a full load of boxes of Christian Books and Bibles heading to the Eastern part of the country, we have had similar Boxes to the Central, Ashanti, Volta, and Oti Region. It is our prayer that these boxes of Christian Books and Bibles will impact the lives of those living in and around these communities and transform them to also become soul winners. May God richly bless you and thanks a lot for the material you send to support our ministry.” – pastor in Ghana, Africa
