By MELISSA HICKS

Melissa Hicks (MDiv, Princeton Theological Seminary) is the senior editor at William Carey Publishing.

 William Carey Publishing (WCP) publishes resources that edify, equip, and empower disciples of Jesus to make disciples of Jesus. We love hearing how our books make a difference in the kingdom, and we are humbled to be part of what God is doing. Here is a testimony from a reader—this is just one glimpse of the impact our books have. She describes how Stick Figures Save the World: Drawing Simply to Share Jesus Well, has transformed the ACTeens program at her church and encouraged a group of young girls to share Jesus’ stories with newfound courage.

I'm a member of Whitesburg Baptist Church. My husband heard you speak there during his Perspectives course and knew I would love your book, Stick Figures Save the World.

I get to help with the ACTeens program at Whitesburg on Wednesday nights, and we are going to go through Stick Figures this semester. I read it and mentioned it to a friend of mine who directs the ACTeens program, she read it and passed it along to her daughter who is a missionary overseas, and the list keeps going. We have all devoured Stick Figures Save the World like our favorite cookie!

I mostly just wanted to say: THANK YOU for this book! It has taken the “scary” out of telling Jesus stories, and the Lord IS using it. It has given me the courage to tell his stories with unbelievers.

Thank you again for this book. Immense gratitude and love coming from the Rocket city to you and the Lord!

This story is a testament to the power of storytelling (with stick figures) and faith, reminding all of us that even the simplest of tales can have a world-changing effect! Testimonies like this remind us why we do our work, and we continually pray that our books help catalyze kingdom breakthrough.

We do everything possible to get resources into the hands of those who need them, and sometimes we have to be very creative. For example, earlier this year we were contacted by a mission agency in Namibia. They needed 100 copies of New Funding Models for an upcoming conference. Getting print books into Africa affordably is a constant challenge. Thankfully, OM agreed to transport the books on one of their ships headed from the USA to Africa, and a couple of months later, when the ship docked at Walvis Bay, the books were successfully “hand delivered” to the customer. We were very thankful!

We have an incredible history, and each stage of WCP’s history reminds us of God’s faithfulness. In the late 1960s, the faculty at Fuller Seminary’s School of World Mission saw the need to start a publishing function, in order to make the school’s steady stream of theses available to a wider audience. They asked Ralph Winter to figure out how to do that. Dr. Allen Swanson, one of Dr. Winter’s students, recalled:

One day he [Dr. Winter] came into class waving a thesis manuscript in hand (mine) and announced what a tragedy it is to leave such writings to collect dust in library archives, and thus was born “mini-publishing” and William Carey Library.

As a result, William Carey Library (later rebranded as William Carey Publishing) played an important role in getting into the hands of missionaries and missiologists the incredible research and new insights that the school was producing. Before long, the whole Winter family was running a publishing house from their garage, which evolved into a major contributor to the global church growth and frontier mission movements.

After 55 years, WCP still publishes resources to shape and advance the missiological conversation in the world. Our goal is to promote insights and initiatives leading to mission breakthroughs among all peoples. Those breakthroughs or mission frontiers include the evangelization and empowerment of unreached peoples and the discovery of new strategies and methods of ministry and mobilization. We especially seek to assist the work of the mission executive, field missionary, church leader, and the student of world mission.