Sharing God’s Word in Spanish
The mission of Jesus Cares Ministries is to share God’s love with people with special needs. We love finding new opportunities to share God’s Word with more people.
Many Jesus Cares Ministries (JCM) programs use the ‘Dear Christian Friend’ curriculum to share Bible stories in their Jesus Cares Bible Class. These lessons are designed for an individual with special needs to easily understand by featuring Rebus picture symbols to help the student more easily understand the key Bible truths being taught.
In 2007, WELS Multi-Language Productions began translating the ‘Dear Christian Friend’ lessons into Spanish. The idea was for churches with Spanish speaking families who could teach young children the lessons during Sunday School classes at church.
Recently, JCM leaders had an idea to translate ALL the Bible stories included in ‘Dear Christian Friend’ into Spanish. We are hearing more stories about individuals who could benefit from God’s Word in translated into Spanish.
Rev. Joel Gaertner, National Director of JCM, reached out to Divine Savior Academy, a WELS Christian high school in Doral, Fla. He became connected to the Spanish teacher who suggested having students translate lessons could be an excellent and enriching project. The students can apply what they have learned in Spanish class while helping JCM expand the ministry to people who speak Spanish.
“We love seeing the lessons our team designed for individuals with special needs being used for another group of God’s children,” said Rev. Joel Gaertner, National Director of JCM. “We are blessed to find new and diverse ways to share God’s Word.”
Over the last year or so, the school has been sharing translated lessons with our ministry. We are just beginning to share the completed Spanish lessons for use in congregations. If you are interested in copies of the Spanish version of ‘Dear Christian Friend’ lessons, contact Rev. Joel Gaertner at jcm@tlha.org or (920) 517-0381.