Jeff Nichols 0:09
Welcome to Fellowship One:Seven, a podcast from Child Evangelism Fellowship for the Christian community. On this podcast, we conduct interviews discuss various biblical topics, passages and truths, and how those truths have impacted the lives of people around the world. I’m your host. Jeff Nichols, Vice President of USA Ministries for CEF. Today we’ll be sitting down with the Executive Director of Global Literature for CEF, Dean Hunsucker. We’ll learn what it’s like to print literature for children’s ministry to leaders and kids literally around the world. Welcome, Dean.

Dean Hunsucker 0:44
Hey, how’s it going, Jeff?

Jeff Nichols 0:45
It’s good. Hey, it’s great to have you here today on Fellowship One:Seven. You have had a long history with CEF, varied history with CEF. Now let’s start with where you are right now your role as Executive Director of Global Literature. Walk backwards a little bit and just tell us some of those varied roles that you’ve had in the past.

Dean Hunsucker 1:06
Yeah. So I came to Child Evangelism Fellowship‘s International Headquarters here in Warrenton, Missouri, about six and a half years ago. Before that, I worked with an organization out of Indianapolis, working with inner city kids, and we had a connection with CEF in the fact that CEF’s global president at the time happened to be the chairman of the board for my organization.

Jeff Nichols 1:30
Gotcha.

Dean Hunsucker 1:31
And so there was like this combination there. When I decided that it was time for me to hand off that ministry to a younger group of guys. Reese Kaufman, at the time, said, Come to Warrenton, Missouri, I want to tell you about Child Evangelism Fellowship, and I remember sitting on his couch the night that he asked me to take the position here at headquarters as part of the executive leadership team. And we had been praying about it, and I said, you know, Reese, I’m going to accept the position. And the phrase he said to me was, welcome to the greatest children’s ministry in the world. And when he said, the world, I’m seeing the globe that’s here at international headquarters, with the words, every child, every nation, every day. And I thought, what a responsibility to have this impact, not just to one city or one state or one country, but literally to every country in the entire world and millions and millions of children. I’m floored that I even get to be part of this. I really am. That’s amazing every time.

Jeff Nichols 2:32
So let’s, let’s, let’s cut to the chase here, because you had various roles after you came here, but now you landed in the role of, you know, Executive Director of Global Literature at the request of Jeremiah Cho the president, because, and this is a brand new department for CEF we’ve never had in our 87 year history a Global Literature Department, right?

Dean Hunsucker 2:53
Right. We’ve had the literature been managed, of course, here at headquarters, but after it left headquarters, the management was up to the regions, which in those specific regions did quite well. Certain regions have really expanded their literature ministry, but what we missed was using the strengths of the different regions to benefit each other. And so Jeremiah came in with a global vision, and he said, We need one touch point, one point of contact for all of our materials around the world. So in the past, if something was designed and created and written in Korea or Africa, or if it was written in Latin America or Europe, it could not leave that region, because there was no path. There was no way to, like, take this really good product and let other people use it because they had no way to distribute. So what can happen now with global literature is a material can be written in another region of the world, sent to global literature, we can then repackage it, make sure it works for our translators, make sure it works for cultures and send it out so that the best literature from around the world now goes to the entire world. This, this has made it possible for us to take Portuguese from Brazil and benefit the Portuguese speaking in Africa, in like the country of Angola or Mozambique, whereas before, these smaller countries had no way to get these translations. Even though they existed in Latin America, they were not able to make it to Africa. And Jeremiah says no no more. So he asked me to come in and be the executive director of Global literature, kind of spearhead the logistics and the process of taking the best idea from the workers all across the world and making sure everybody gets best practices, best literature, and really amplifying what the teachers have when it comes to materials.

Jeff Nichols 4:52
I love it. Dean, you are the right man for the job. Bro, yeah, I love you. Dean, I love your passion for the ministry. I love the way that you do ministry, I love the way you love on people of your your the way you handle details and these huge projects like this, I just love you are the absolute right person. Take a huge step back or step up. Sure, like when we’re talking about printing for the entire world, just for people who may be a little bit unfamiliar with the reach of CEF, like we’re talking about a ministry that last year reached almost 25 million kids in one year in over 200 countries around the world. The printing load to be able to do that, and obviously we can’t do every language. But how many languages are we printing in right now, how many languages does our current literature appear in right now?

Dean Hunsucker 5:44
Our current literature is in up to 93 languages. Not every piece is in that many languages, but we do have pieces that are in 93 languages. We strive that every product is in at least the top eight languages. And then, of course, we then aim for the next 30 trade languages. But the cool part about our translation process is most of our translators, the vast majority, 95 plus percent, are all volunteers.

Jeff Nichols 6:12
Wow.

Dean Hunsucker 6:12
And so we’ve got this giant network of people who are willing to give up their time to make sure the lesson is in their specific language. And it’s a huge, huge process that involves hundreds and hundreds of people all around the world. Last year we were able to to print, here at headquarters, of course, we’ve got a large CEF press is right here in Warrenton, Missouri, and then we’ve got a large printing partner in Northern Ireland, just last year alone, that printing partner was able to produce over four and a half million products and ship them around the world, four and a half million, four and a half million products. And those are, those are full teacher kits going out to teachers all around the world. And we’re talking every region of the world. We’re talking over 100 different countries just from that one print shop. So they’re they’re literally filling cargo containers. So think of like a freight ship with the giant cargo container, and then they’re delivering those containers to those countries, and then that country now has a warehouse in the shape of a container, and that material goes throughout that entire country, and the logistics behind that is crazy, but I every single time we run into a problem with our shipping, God comes through, and it’s just amazing. Everything we touch is impossible. Whether it’s getting across the border, going into a war torn country, or recently, we saw with certain countries being attacked by entire gangs taking over the government. In all those situations, we’ve been able to get literature across the border and into those countries, to those children. We’ve got countries that I can’t even tell you about, countries where we can get across the borders because we have connections with either humanitarian aid or we’ve got connections with other ministries who have government permissions to be in where where nobody else can get in but them. And they will say, we will help you get across and it without those God ordained phone calls that say, “Look, we want to help you get your literature into our country to help our country.” We couldn’t do what we do. It’s absolutely amazing the global reach that CEF has because of this network that’s been built over the last, you know, 80 plus years.

Jeff Nichols 8:31
Right? And like you said, reaching kids in some very, very hard to reach places around the world. Tell us quickly that story that you told me one day about the worker who was at a conference standing at the table, weeping.

Dean Hunsucker 8:48
Yeah, we were, I had the privilege to go to the conference for all of our workers in the Middle East. And at that conference, we thought it would be very beneficial to take a bunch of our materials, specifically our wordless book, it’s our Gospel tool that has the different colors in it and no words. We took, like thousands, tens of thousands, of these books, and we’re just giving them away to the workers. Well, we were giving them away, and I had walked out of the room when I came back in, I saw this worker clutching two giant bags of wordless books, you know, maybe, maybe the size of a small duffel bag. And he was on the floor just weeping and wailing, and he said, “No, it’s fine. I can take them. I can take them. I can take them.” And other workers were telling him, “No, you can’t have this. You can’t have this.” Well, I thought I’m going to come in and and say, No, he can have them. It’s okay. So I went in there, and I thought, just like that, I said, No, no, it’s fine. He can have him. He can have him. And the workers, the supervisors, pulled me away, and they said, You don’t understand, he has a 100% chance that when he enters his country, he will be taken aside and and detained. They will search every ounce of his stuff if they can prove in any way that he’s a Christian, he will go to jail.And when they said that, the worker said, but maybe they won’t check me this time.

Jeff Nichols 10:13
Unbelievable.

Dean Hunsucker 10:15
And I was like…

Jeff Nichols 10:15
Unbelievable.

Dean Hunsucker 10:16
What? And they said, No, it’s 100% as soon as they see your passport, they will detain. And he goes, “Yes, but maybe they won’t.” He was willing to go to jail for some wordless books, for some little gospel tool that here in the in the states we would, we would just have in a bookstore or or use, and have one in our pocket and not think anything about it. And to him, he’s willing to put his life and his family and everything on the line just for the opportunity to get these gospel tools into the country. And so we are trying to find other ways to get it to him, but it’s a heavily persecuted country and and it’s so difficult to get across the borders there, but we have some options that I won’t share on this podcast.

Jeff Nichols 10:58
Sure, sure, and that scripture comes, probably comes to your mind, God is not willing that anyone.

Dean Hunsucker 11:04
Oh, no, yeah. God is not willing that any should perish, all should come to repentance. It’s, It’s amazing God, God opens doors in the most unbelievable ways, even when the war in Ukraine broke out and we were worried we couldn’t get materials across the border. One of our workers in Poland, Bogdan Basara, who’s actually the associate director of this Department of Global literature here at CEF, he’s in Poland, and he said he filled all these Sprinter vans, or Amazon vans, if you want to call them that these big vans. He filled them to the tippy top with bags of gospel literature and candy and toys for the kids. And he thought, as soon as I get to the border, they’re just going to turn me around. But when he got to the border, he jumped out, started grabbing bags and saying, “Do you have kids here? You can have some for your kids. Have this bag for your kid. Take this materials. There’s sweets, there’s toys, there’s gospel stuff for your kids. You can have it.” And they said, Oh, thank you so much. Go on in. And he was able to drive a caravan of vehicles across the border in the first days of the war. I mean, this was the first few months of this war, and he has been able to just, millions of these things across the border. It’s been amazing.

Jeff Nichols 12:21
With man, this is impossible, but with God, this is, this is all things are possible, right? Those are some challenges, reaching, hard to reach places. There’s all kinds of challenges all around the world, getting the print literature there. Thankfully, we are not just printing literature. We’re dealing with digital distribution of literature too, which I know you’re very, very interested in and we’ve, we’ve interviewed our digital marketing and our digital department leaders in that way too. We are really trying to reach every kid, any way we possibly can. Right. Some of the challenges that are there, as far as getting them into places that, like we just said, that are hard to reach places. What are some other of the challenges, some other challenges you have right now of getting them and translated, or get them imprinted, getting them distributed. What are those challenges look like? Remembering most of our most of our listeners probably areChristians that they’re going to hear these challenges. They’re going to be praying for these challenges and lifting these up before the Lord, that God will help us meet these challenges so kids can hear about Jesus.

Dean Hunsucker 13:20
So the first challenge we have is translation. Translation takes a lot of time, and so we don’t just rely on one translator either. Once it’s translated, we ask that it be checked and then theologically checked. And so we want to make sure our material maintains strong doctrinal integrity, but the translation is literally 25% of the process of translation. You say, How can the translation be 25% of translation? Once a product is translated, that’s the text, that’s the actual content. We have to then take that text or those words and place it into a software file, an InDesign file from Adobe. We can take that software file and then place it in the text boxes and in the pictures and in the different places that it goes on the page that requires like graphic design, that requires more of a publisher style software, and while our translators are good at language, not all of them, actually, the majority of them don’t possess the skill to then put it in the graphic layout. And right now, I can tell you, I just met with our Portuguese major language coordinator yesterday, and he said I have like, 20 to 30 different products. That’s like an entire series of devotional books. I’ve got series of of teachers lessons and flashcards for kids. All of them are done being translated, but they’re just sitting on the shelf waiting for somebody who can come and do graphic design. So, those would be my two big things in global literature, and then we actually have some projects in specific countries where they have no ability to print or produce anything, and so we’re trying to get like, just like black and white copiers or color copiers into these offices so that they can, so they can produce even just what they need on a very small scale, and not attract attention of an entire container coming into the country.

Jeff Nichols 15:22
Right, right. You mentioned products real quickly. For people that are not familiar with our CEF literature. What are some of the products that we’re talking about? Talking about all of this translation, all of these materials, all this literature. What are just a few of those things?

Dean Hunsucker 15:35
Sure. So our main products, we we teach Bible lessons to children, both preschool children, elementary children, and we even have some curriculum now for your middle school children. We have materials that go from Genesis all the way to Revelation. It kind of can work through different Bible characters and narratives in the Bible, but each one of the Bible lessons teaches, teaches the gospel. So it presents a problem and a solution. It goes into why a young person needs to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior, and then if the child has already been saved, we even have applications baked into the curriculum for the teacher to then help the child grow in discipleship. So those are what we call our Good News Club® lessons, but they could be great for Sunday Schools and and anytime you’re dealing with children, we have 5-Day Club® kits, and those are like your backyard Bible school, where you have the same kids for five days in a row, and they kind of build on each other. But those could be used for a VBS. They could be used for camps, as the foundation for your Bible lessons that week. Another key component of our materials is we actually have devotional books for younger children. We have six devotional books that walk the children through several years of one devotion a day. There’s a devotional there’s a Bible passage, and then there’s a guided prayer that they can read, and then it kind of gives prayer prompts to the child. And then we have 18 devotionals for elementary school children amazing, and that will give the child three and a half years of devotions. And I often tell people, use them for three and a half years and then repeat them, because the message that the child received in third grade is different than the one he’s going to be receiving in sixth grade, reading the same thing.

Jeff Nichols 17:24
Yeah, yeah.

Dean Hunsucker 17:24
And with all those devotional materials, our goal is to grow the child in discipleship, and then ultimately, we want to tie them into a local church. That’s why most of our clubs, what we want is we want a church to sponsor those clubs. And you say, Well, what’s a club? CEF has permission from the Supreme Court to literally go into schools all across America, like into the school as an after school program and hold a club. So we can hold a club for 60 to 90 minutes teaching Bible lessons and memory verses and songs and games and snacks and crafts, which is all a part of our curriculum, and we can do it right in the public school, where the kids are already comfortable, they’re already at. And so we ask churches, just partner with us. We have the material. You have the people. Let’s join together. You grow the kids up in the school, and then we will, we will hope that those children then are drawn into your church, and then you have a foothold, not only in the school with the children, but you now have an ability to reach all the way through your community by reaching out to the parents and getting them involved in the Gospel efforts of your church. This is a huge inroad that I think many people not only don’t know about, but if they don’t take advantage of because they don’t understand the power of it.

Jeff Nichols 18:44
That’s right.

Dean Hunsucker 18:45
But we’re reaching hundreds of thousands of children across the United States in public schools.

Jeff Nichols 18:50
That’s right. That’s right, yeah, I know when I’ve been a part of a Good News Club in a school, and literally, when I’m standing there in the school gym and we’re sharing Christ with kids, and that’s the beautiful thing about our literature, is the gospel is shared in every single lesson, and we’re sharing Christ with kids there in that public school gym. I just think, I can’t believe we get to do this. I can’t believe we get to do this. Dean, to wrap up, dream for a minute. Just, just dream real quick, for a minute. What do you see as your dream for what Gospel Literature Department can do in the future. I mean, what’s, what’s that ultimate dream out there that only God can do.

Dean Hunsucker 19:27
Absolutely, well, our mission is that every teacher across the globe will receive literature in their language, that mother tongue is so important. I see other ministries around the world accomplishing translation at such a fast rate, I would love to be able to find the best practices in those places, bring them to Child Evangelism Fellowship, and to have a network, both online and in print, where anybody can go find any language of their materials and and have it right there at the ready. I’d love to have it be available through cargo container ships full of material. I’d love to have it on your cell phone. I’d love to have it in an app. I know I’m dreaming big here.

Jeff Nichols 20:17
This is good.

Dean Hunsucker 20:18
This isn’t six months from now.

Jeff Nichols 20:19
This is God sized.

Dean Hunsucker 20:20
This is like foundation laid today and built out over time. But I see no reason that if somebody wants to give the gospel they shouldn’t be able to have the world’s best Gospel literature for children, CEF, on their phone at the ready, right there.

Jeff Nichols 20:37
Awesome.

Dean Hunsucker 20:37
And then, ultimately, our goal is to reach 100 million children by 2032, and that’s four times what we’re doing now. We can do this with God’s help.

Jeff Nichols 20:53
God can do it.

Dean Hunsucker 20:53
I’m telling you we are seeing exponential growth in certain areas, and it’s, it’s amazing. I’m excited about it.

Jeff Nichols 20:53
Hey, God can do it to him who can do it measurably more than all can ask or imagine, right? Thank you, Dean for being with us. If you’d like to learn more about who CEF is and what we believe, you can visit CEFonline.com/about this will be also be linked in the show notes. Be sure to check out U-Nite Kids Radio, where we unite kids with the gospel through adventures and foundational biblical truths. Give us a like and subscribe to keep up to date on both this podcast and our kids programs. Thanks for listening today.