Hope for the Nations

From the beginning of time, people have been on a search for something to hope in and something to strive for. Hope is what keeps us on the move, reaching for the one thing that will help us overcome our disappointments and our emptiness.

Many ask, “Who can provide such hope?” This is the question I will answer when I make my way to Brazil in a few days. We will be holding a Crusade in one of the largest cities in that country, Belo Horizonte. The message we preach will center on man’s longing for hope and where it comes from. The Bible says, “Your word [Lord] is my source of hope” (Psalm 119:114, NLT).

My father has said, “For the Christian, hope does not rest in the affairs of this world. It rests in Christ who is coming again.” This is the message I will be preaching not only in Brazil but later this year in Huai’an City, China, the very city where my mother grew up as the daughter of an American missionary doctor.

It is the “hope held out in the gospel” (Colossians 1:23, NIV) that millions of people in dozens of countries have responded to through My Hope—a unique combination of nationwide evangelistic broadcasts and neighbor-to-neighbor personal outreach. In country after country—50 so far—God has used
My Hope to call lost people to Himself, while training believers to effectively share their faith.

As I write, we are receiving wonderful early reports from My Hope in the Dominican Republic, where we prepared three evangelistic TV specials that featured well-known Dominicans “testifying to the gospel of God’s grace” (Acts 20:24). Two of the specials included evangelistic messages from my father, and a third had my message on the Prodigal Son, all dubbed into Spanish.

In partnership with 4,000 praying churches, we trained more than 45,000 Christian households to serve as My Hope hosts. Each family prayed for unsaved friends and loved ones, then invited them into their homes for a meal and to watch the My Hope telecasts. After the broadcast ended, hosts turned off the TV set, shared their own personal testimony, and invited guests to receive Christ.

Some homes had as many as 25 people watching, and many responded in repentance and faith. The Bible says, “Let them give glory to the Lord and proclaim his praise in the islands” (Isaiah 42:12), and that’s exactly what has happened across this beautiful island nation.

The next My Hope project is just days away, on the island of Puerto Rico. Pray for lost people there, that the Holy Spirit will “open their eyes and turn them … from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith” (Acts 26:18).

As this letter is being mailed, the Billy Graham Library has just reopened following many upgrades and exciting additions. One special addition is an original mural by Thomas Kinkade—a 32-foot painting of a dramatic, light-filled landscape centered on the empty Cross. We’ve also put my father’s personal library on display, thousands of books from his own lifetime collection.

If you will be anywhere near the Carolinas this spring or summer, come see for yourself. Bring friends or family. You might want to plan a vacation trip that includes a stop in Charlotte.

Reaching lost souls is the heartbeat of BGEA, and I know it is the heartbeat of those who support us in the work. We need your prayers as well as your financial support this month so that we can continue to see people of every age receive “new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3).

Your partnership has eternal value. Thank you for all you do.

May God bless you,
Franklin Graham