God increases (to God be the glory)
Back in the summer of 1994, Jonathan Bennett from England (aged 16) was invited to go to a camping weekend to distribute literature in a nearby town. Once all was organised for this weekend and all packed, Jonathan's friend dropped him and 2 other friends at the camp organiser's house for the weekend to begin. The camp organiser drove the three boys to the camp site with the car packed with all the essentials. Upon arriving at the camp site ground, the tents were erected, the other people greeted and all was set. That evening Jonathan and his friends, old and new had Friday night vespers and then it was time for bed - it was going to be a busy tiring day the next day.
The next morning, after being awoken for morning worship and breakfast, the plan for the day was outlined. There would be a couple of meetings in the morning then lunch and in the afternoon start to distribute literature. At the beginning of the meeting the idea was to pray first and then go around the camp site giving books to people and inviting them to the meeting. But oh no Jonathan and his friends did not like the idea of this; it was one thing delivering literature to someone's house but another thing actually speaking to someone face to face.
Fortunately there were other people attending this weekend who had more courage and did invite the other campers (non-Adventists) to the meeting. And as a result one lady and her daughter did come along to the meeting and sang, prayed, listened and talked with the people there.
Once this meeting was over and lunch was finished, it was time to travel to the nearby town and start distributing literature to peoples homes. On one occasion when distributing literature in the town, Jonathan and everyone else came across a carnival. One of the people in the group had a great idea of passing the literature to the people as they walked by. Again this was too much for Jonathan, so Jonathan walked away and hid around a corner. After a while, Jonathan decided to come out from hiding and reluctantly at first, began to hand out the literature. As time went on Jonathan really began to enjoy this and gave out a lot of literature.
From this weekend forwards, with the Lord’s help, things began to change. Jonathan went to a couple more weekends like this one and really got interested in the Lord’s work.
To earn some money in Jonathan’s spare time (after school) he did a weekly paper route. Because this involved going to individual houses, the opportunity was taken to deliver a leaflet advertising The Great Controversy to each house.
By now the Holy Spirit was impressing Jonathan to start a ministry himself and this he called “ADVENT BOOKS”. Because Jonathan was only 16 years old, still at school and doing paper routes and odd jobs for his income, it was a big decision to rent the P.O. box and get started but he did and God blessed. From small beginnings God can bless and little by little the work can move forwards.
The first leaflet advertising The Great Controversy was designed and printed in 100’s and distributed on foot to peoples houses; then the leaflet was re-designed and about 10,000 were printed on a friend’s printer. When the first response came in from these leaflets, Jonathan was so pleased and praised God for them realising the hard efforts were worth it.
As the months went by more leaflets were printed and distributed and more responses were received. By now the different types of leaflets included a combination of advertisements for The Great Controversy (free) and The Ministry of Healing and free postal Bible Studies (a nearby ministry take care of the Bible studies responses). Jonathan saw an idea in another Adventist magazine of using the postal system to deliver in bulk, many of the leaflets for the ministry. The most northern point of Scotland was chosen - the islands called the “Shetland Islands”, this consisted of 3518 homes and the flyers were delivered in June of 1996. A number of responses did come in from this and the Lord blessed.
From this mailing further mailings have been delivered consisting of 20,330; 100,980; 125,351 and another mailing is in the pipeline for 275,844 which will be another part of Scotland and this will be distributed in January/February of 1999. The aim for 1999 is over 1 million leaflets to be delivered including the 275,844.
After Jonathan had organised the first mailing and several of the consecutive ones, the volume of leaflets distributed increased and warranted Advent Books having its own printing equipment to do this work at home. Jonathan had wanted his own printer previously but because the work load wasn’t large enough, he could not justify buying one until now. After much saving and providential help there was money to purchase the printing equipment. Some of the ways Jonathan got this money was by selling second-hand things, including a fridge, mowers and his Dad sold an electric blade grinder to help raise finances. Before people came to buy, Jonathan and his parents said a prayer, that the Lord would guide and help sell the different things. After purchasing the new printer Jonathan was able to purchase an electric guillotine capable of cutting 500 plus sheets of paper a time. Jonathan is also grateful for the use of a booklet maker and folder which have been provided from a good friend. From small beginnings God increases and the work moves forwards.
Because the volume of leaflets being printed had increased so much, Jonathan decided to buy a very large stock of paper for the printing. To get the best price for this Jonathan phoned around and got several prices. By God’s grace Jonathan called one company and asked them to beat the best price he had and they were able to give him about 1/3 off, so 500 reams of paper was ordered. This truly showed Jonathan that the Lord blesses.
The Lord answered several other prayers for Jonathan and the work. Each time a response comes in from the literature given out Jonathan and his family thank God for this and pray that the people receiving the books will gain a blessing and come to know Jesus and be saved in His Kingdom.
By now other people had heard of this ministry and are distributing leaflets in their own home areas. So every Bible Fellowship camp meeting Jonathan brings boxes of literature for people to take home with them. Some take a few leaflets and some take boxes and some ask that a box of many leaflets be mailed to them because they have either run out of leaflets or they won’t be able to be at the camp meeting. One couple deliver the leaflets in the 2 or 3 mile area around their home and then when a response comes in, the reply is mailed to them with a letter and they parcel up The Great Controversy and deliver the book by hand thus saving the postage costs. Jonathan reports at the Bible Fellowship camp meeting how the work is progressing and encourages people to try different ways of getting the leaflets out. One young man took a box of leaflets and stood outside some of the London underground stations etc and managed to give out 1200 pieces of literature in 3 hours.
One aspect of the ministry Jonathan has seen grow is the development of a web page to which one of Jonathan’s friends has done a lot of work. Jonathan is pleased because quite a few people have viewed this page (www.adventbooks.org).
Recently Jonathan was asked to help another ministry at a Health Exhibition. The purpose was to talk and pray with the people coming to the stand at the exhibition and to give them literature, one item of literature was The Great Controversy. So Jonathan went to Sheffield, Wakefield, Birmingham, Warwick University and Manchester, sometimes by himself and sometimes with a friend. Many pieces of literature were given out at these exhibitions and now there have been responses from these.
The replies have come in from all over the country and each one is marked on the map on the kitchen wall with a little yellow sticker. It is exciting seeing the map fill up with the little yellow dots. Replies have also come in from around the world, Ghana, Pakistan, California, Holland, Germany, Kenya, Zimbabwe etc. Sometimes the replies have come in because the person has read one of the booklets which Jonathan has printed called Can Our Dead Speak to Us (which seems to be the most popular) and Why was Sin Permitted. These are chapters from Spirit of Prophecy books.
