Publishing

"Our print shop, Imprimerie Desert Tree Ministry (IDTM), facilitates production, writing, translation, and printing (or importing) of Gospel literature in French and local languages as an unchanging witness to the truth and to encourage personal growth and Bible study."

Introduction

Desert Tree Publishing House began small. We started printing a short study summary on small slips of paper for a weekly neighborhood Bible study group. The more we printed, the more people wanted materials. Soon we began printing small tracts and booklets. Today, our publishing ministry continues to expand and includes writing, translating, editing, printing, and distributing.

Writing

IDTM is producing a growing number of tracts and booklets addressing a variety of topics such as health, spiritual growth, and doctrines. While truth is unchanging, the methods and techniques of sharing truth vary depending on the culture. Some messages written for the American mindset do not make sense to somebody in Africa. Therefore, we are investing a lot of time in writing culturally adapted literature that is still faithful to the truth.

Translating

Chad has two official languages: French and Arabic. Also, around 120 local languages are spoken in the country. Not only are the languages different in each region, but each group has their own sub-culture. The people in our village speak a different language than the people living in a village 30 miles away. Some people know how to read French, but French is a second language which is not as easily understood. It doesn't matter how much literature we produce if the people cannot read it. People can best understand the message of the Gospel when it is presented in their own language. That is why we are organizing translation teams to translate a variety of small tracts into local languages.

One of our special translation projects is the book in French God's Answers to Man's Questions. This book has 60 short chapters containing a wide variety of Bible questions with answers from the Bible. Our goal is to translate this book into the major language groups (perhaps about 20) in Chad.

Editing

Early in our publishing experience, we would write a piece of literature or translate one that was already written into French from English. Several people helped us with this work, but often the final product contained many errors. We are working on re-editing every piece of literature that we produce to assure better quality. This requires people who are patient and who do not get tired of paying attention to details. We praise the Lord that we have people on our team now who know French well and who are helping us improve the quality of our literature.

Printing

Our first printer was a small laser printer that I brought over in my suitcase. We literally wore that one out until it wouldn't print anymore. The next printer was a lot bigger. It was over the weight limit for airplane luggage, but I succeeded in detaching it into pieces between two bags and brought it over to Chad. As printing volume increased, we realized the need for a faster printer that could handle bigger paper. We shipped some larger laser printers over on a pallet via air-freight, as we were afraid that the transport over rough roads would destroy the fragile components in the printers. Most recently, we have started using equipment shipped over on a 20-foot container. We have a Riso ComColor, a full-color ink-based printer. We also have two Riso duplicators: a one-color machine and a two-color machine, also based on ink. These machines are capable of producing literature faster and at a lower cost than our other machines.

One of the challenges of operating a print shop in Chad is finding a good power source. Except for the biggest cities in Chad, there is no electricity available. Our almost 4000W of solar panels on our roof enable us to run most of our equipment on solar power the majority of days in the year. We chose low power-consumption machines with this in mind. We still have our diesel generator in case we get low on power. But the solar panels have saved us a lot of money, especially when the price of Diesel fluctuates around $6/gallon.

Distributing

In addition to printing tracts locally, we have made some larger orders of books from other sources. We have distributed tens of thousands of tracts and thousands of books for free. We are in the process of developing a book sales program to help us recover funds that we can reinvest in the publishing work. Our goal is to organize training seminars for church members all around the country to learn how to sell and distribute books.