Missionary Bill Eubanks has just returned from a major outreach in Zimbabwe and found the country "wide open to the gospel."

Using a multipronged approach, he was able to share the gospel in 40 rural schools and showed the gospel video, Light of the World, 30 times to crowds from 40 to 900.

240,000 Chick tracts were shipped there before his arrival. "There was no problem handing out ten to twenty thousand tracts a day," he reports. "Only two or three people refused to take one the whole time."

Public meetings were difficult to arrange in the larger cities, but everyone would take a tract. Tens of thousands of these "paper missionaries" were planted in the capital and surrounding cities.

A few people even came up to them in public and asked how to be born again. Bill shared the gospel and then knelt with them to pray right on the street.

However, the rural areas were wide open to their ministry. He was welcomed in 40 schools where the entire student body would be assembled to hear the gospel. Hundreds of the students responded to the invitations to accept Christ. At night, whole villages would assemble to view the Chick gospel video, Light of the World, and many would answer the altar call.

In one village, the chief requested a private showing after the regular showing. He and his whole house accepted the Lord.

Eubanks says it is hard to estimate how many came to Christ in the few weeks he was in Zimbabwe but he believes it was ten to fifteen thousand. He believes that this trip laid the groundwork for an ongoing ministry opportunity.

He discovered a large Baptist organization in Zimbabwe that has invited him to join them in providing ministry training to the converts there. Together they plan a Bible institute where young men can be trained and sent out to "strengthen the brethren," which is badly needed.

The people are very open to the gospel but have little Bible background. They are eager to learn more about their new faith. The Chick tracts provided the simple gospel, but more grounding in the word is needed.

Eubanks plans to return again next year to plant more tracts for spiritual seed and assist in establishing the Bible institute to water those seeds into a great harvest. He has been to Africa six times and says that the people of Zimbabwe are more accepting of the gospel than any other country where he has ministered. He believes that it could become a base from which the gospel can be carried even to neighboring countries.

He was surprised to find no Muslim influence in the country and that even foreign missionaries were welcome to minister as long as they did not get involved in government politics.

Bill asks our prayers for the nearly quarter million "paper missionaries" seeded into Zimbabwe as well as the converts and native leaders who will disciple those who came to faith in Christ. Only a revival in Africa can stop the corruption that devastates the economies. And only revival can stop Islam's vicious advance.

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