Contact: Lori Whaley,
703-625-2581

WARRENTON, Mo., Feb. 24, 2015 /Christian Newswire/ -- Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF), the largest Christian mission agency to children in the world, announced their 2014 literature outreach totals this week – shipping 11,904,545 books and teaching materials to 190 countries last year alone. This is a 33% increase over 2013 and the need continues to grow every year.

For 75 years, CEF has been reaching children with the good news of Jesus Christ – and quality literature and teaching materials are essential to this outreach. CEF's Vice President for International Missions, Harry Robinson explains that the book shipments "began in 1999 as a way to help teachers who did not have any visuals reach and engage with the children in their community." To support this mission, CEF began to produce, translate, box and ship all kinds of literature for teachers worldwide -- completely free of charge. Ninety-three percent of CEF's workers are local believers serving in their home country. Many do not have access to books and materials – even if they could afford them – and before CEF books became available to them, the teachers told CEF they were hand-drawing visual aids to help children engage with their lessons.

According to Robinson, this outreach effort has increased since 2006 with the production of new materials such as the "Wonder Book" created just for children to read on their own. Robinson said, "Our goal is to increase shipments of literature for children and teachers each year in response to the growing requests from our missionary workers. Our ultimate goal right now is to reach - 100,000,000 children with the Gospel message in 2027 -- just in time to celebrate CEF's 90th Anniversary!"

The book distribution starts with a request from one of CEF's 2,900 workers around the globe and is eventually reviewed and fulfilled by the team serving in CEF's International Headquarters in Warrenton, Missouri. These shipments are funded entirely by donations from friends of the ministry and the books and teaching materials, such as flash cards and lesson texts, are put to many, many uses worldwide. In the Philippines for example, they requested and received nearly 2 million books per year for the last few years – both for distribution after natural disasters like earthquakes and typhoons but also for use in the schools and churches. Even now CEF is preparing a new box of materials to ship to workers in the Philippines. And Bogdan Bassara, CEF's International Literature Director, adds, "Interest in CEF materials is great. In Cambodia, Latvia and Armenia, entire church denominations now use CEF materials in their Sunday school classes. And many other countries have similar plans underway."

In addition, the ministry estimates that each box of materials it ships reaches 650 children with the Gospel message because these materials are used again and again to talk to children about the good news of Jesus Christ. One worker in Malawi wrote to thank CEF for the materials stating, "Teachers in Malawi used the Bible lessons received from CEF to teach over 109,000 children last year! Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world – there was no way our workers could afford to buy our own materials. Thank you!"

Child Evangelism Fellowship is a Bible-centered organization composed of born-again believers whose purpose is to evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and to establish (disciple) them in the Word of God and in a local church for Christian living.

For more information, please contact Lori Whaley at 703.625.2581 or visit www.cefonline.com.