Burned Tracts

Written by Jonathan DietrichSeptember 10, 2025

Dear friends and family,

Today's update brings a few interesting tidbits and an encouraging story of how God is using literature to accomplish His work in Chad.

The Dietrich family has been in the States for almost three months now. Jonathan has nearly finished his two summer courses and has already begun the fall semester Online. The children have begun their homeschool. We are waiting for our baby boy to be born soon, probably within a month. Melody is definitely great with child!

 Jonathan continues to work on a variety of ministry tasks, and has more than enough to keep him busy to the end of the year. Back in Chad, the team continues to work and progress on a variety of activities including literature production and distribution, chaplain work, prison ministries, translation, and agriculture. We appreciate your prayers and ask you to continue to pray for each member of our team. They are often attacked by illness that hinders the work.

Here is a story that illustrates how God can use a few pieces of literature to accomplish a mighty work.

One day a man from a village about 90 miles away, came to the Bere Adventist Hospital. In Chad, when you go to the hospital, you need to have a family member come with you to fix your food, do your laundry, care for you. So this man’s son came with him. The son had nothing to do most of the time he was there–for 1-2 weeks.

So Beni, a lay chaplain at the hospital, gave him a Bible, a book on the Sabbath, and a book on God’s Answers to Man’s Questions. The son began studying these books and carefully looked up every verse in his Bible. He discovered the Sabbath truth in his Bible as if it was a hidden truth hidden from him before!

When the father regained his health, he and his son were able to return home to Rong, and the son shared what he had learned with his neighbors. Soon he had about 60 people meeting every Sabbath, under a tree, studying the Bible.

He called Beni almost every week asking for someone to come teach them, but there were no extra Pastors or Bible Workers available. They had only literature, but they shared what they knew.

Eventually, DTM sent our team to visit and encourage the new study group and deliver boxes of literature. Later, they sent two Literature Evangelists. Amos and Jeremy worked there almost a year, giving Bible Studies, distributing literature, and visiting the people in their homes., flooding the area with thousands of tracts. (Only $3.00 for 100 tracts or one small book!)

Next, DTM requested a pastor to conduct 2 weeks of meetings to teach the people more.

A pastor of another church became unhappy with what was happening. If the people actually read these tracts, they would realize that what he was teaching was not in harmony with the Bible. So he asked for some tracts himself. He collected all the literature he could from his church members.

Then he burned it all.

Yet we were not to be discouraged. God is an expert at turning perceived defeat into victory. As it turned out, burning the tracts had the opposite effect on the community than was intended. Now, people were more interested than ever. People wondered, "Why did he burn the tracts?" and requested more copies to study for themselves. As they carefully compared the additional copies the Bible, realize that everything was Biblical.

Returning to their pastor they challenged him, “Why did you burn these? Are you against the Bible? What’s wrong with these tracts? Where in the Bible does it say otherwise? If you can’t show us from the Bible where there are errors in these tracts, then we are going to leave your church and go to the other church.”

About 38 people have accepted the truths of the Bible and have committed their lives to the Lord in baptism! This is all as a result of Beni sharing literature with one person. In this work, we are privileged to team with the angels and with the Holy Spirit in the work of seeking and saving that which is lost.

DTM is hiring a full-time Bible worker to move to Rong to continue nurturing this young company of believers. Please remember to pray for God to bless each piece of literature for His honor.

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In His service,
Jonathan, Melody, Gideon, Liliana, and Eliora Dietrich