Missionary Mike Dobbins and his family have worked for approximately 15 years in the country of Zambia. In 1998, he started work among the rural villages until he got a grasp of the local Bemba language. In February 2000 he moved to a city of 220,000 located in an area of copper mines.

His focus has been on tract distribution, training local pastors and establishing churches. He logs a total of 449,000 Chick tracts that he and local church teams have seeded into the area. This tally is only of the tracts in the local languages. They also keep a stock of Chinese, Hindi, and Afrikaans tracts for the international workers who come to the area.

"In all of the ministries, Chick tracts have truly been at the hub of our work," he writes.

Out of that effort, several churches are operating with local pastors and on a self-supporting basis. You can see from the pictures that the heart of their ministry is focused on the people and not the elaborate facilities.

Dobbins modestly points out that he has not used the "lone ranger method." He credits much of the growth of the gospel in that area to the diligent and dedicated local Christians. "My only regret is that we`ve not done more," he writes. "But humanly speaking, there have been many African brothers and sisters in Christ who have helped us in this work for Jesus Christ."