Randall Murphree
AFA Journal editor
August 2019 – “What better can AFA do than help get the Word of God out to teenagers?” That’s AFA president Tim Wildmon’s question as the American Family Radio networks gear up for their 19th annual partnership with Truth for Youth to accomplish that goal.
“We’re eager to give our listeners this opportunity again,” added AFR general manager Jim Stanley. “And we’ve got some expectations for this year’s Truth for Youth campaign August 12-16. We believe it will bring some exciting milestones. So stay tuned!”
The friendship between TFY and AFA began years before Truth for Youth and AFR first partnered in 2001. Furthermore, the Truth for Youth Bibles program is only one evangelistic track among many for Revival Fires Ministries, its parent ministry.
To get a greater grasp on RFM’s worldwide impact, AFA Journal interviewed RFM evangelist Tim Todd, whose father Cecil Todd founded RFM in 1964.
AFA Journal: Do you recall how your dad and Don Wildmon came to be friends?
Tim Todd: Dad met Don Wildmon in the 1970s at one of Don’s campaigns in Tupelo, Mississippi, to raise awareness to get cleaner programming on TV. I have a picture of my dad handing Don a Bible.
AFAJ: You oversee the ministry now; is Bro. Cecil still active?
TT: He’s in great health. He almost passed away last year with stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but he made a miraculous come back and is still preaching!
AFAJ: Share a story that illustrates Truth for Youth’s impact beyond our U.S. high schools.
TT: In 1994, one of the many times I have preached in Russia’s public schools, a 10-year-old girl in Moldova gave her heart to the Lord, and we gave her a Bible. In 2017 our home church took a team to minister in Moldova. They were ministering to a family in their home and saw one of our Revival Fires Bibles on the coffee table.
“Where did you get this Bible?” they asked. The man of the house said that in 1994, their 10-year-old daughter was in a school assembly where Pastor Tim Todd was speaking. She gave her heart to the Lord and received her very first Bible. She came home and told her family what happened.
As a result, her mom, dad, two brothers, and sister all gave their hearts to the Lord. It all started with her receiving Jesus and her first Bible in a Russian public school.
AFAJ: What is your Bibles for U.S. troops outreach?
TT: At the request of chief chaplains at the Pentagon, Revival Fires Ministry has provided 300,000 Bibles for troops serving our country! These Bibles are air-lifted by military transport.
It is reported that the suicide rate of those in the military dropped drastically among troops where we have provided Bibles. We continue to provide Bibles as soldiers are deployed in and out of the areas where they serve.
AFAJ: Turning to Truth for Youth, how did AFA and TFY become partners?
TT: I approached Tim Wildmon and Buddy Smith in April 2001 with the idea of utilizing the American Family Radio network to enlarge our capability to give the Truth for Youth Bibles to young people across America who would commit to give it to their friends and classmates who are not saved. I expressed to Tim and Buddy that it is my strong desire to reach this generation of young people with the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and that God had given me this powerful and effective tool to do it with – the popular Truth for Youth Bible!
As I travel to churches across America, we receive offerings specifically to help us offset the expense of paying for the Bibles and the postage to ship them. We had no idea what kind of overwhelmingly tremendous response we would receive!
AFAJ: Give us an example or two of those responses.
TT: Gladly! When Sherry was a little girl, her daddy left her mom without explanation. Sherry stood in the yard crying for over an hour, not understanding why her daddy left. As a teen, she got involved in drugs and alcohol and was raped repeatedly at a party. She sank
into a deep hole of depression and attempted suicide.
Then a Christian young lady from her school received a Truth for Youth Bible during the AFR campaign, brought it to Sherry in the hospital, and led her to the Lord. Sherry is receiving the emotional healing she needs and is doing great!
Dave is another great story. He was responsible for the majority of the drugs on his school campus, and a friend gave him a Truth for Youth Bible during the AFR campaign. He read the comic in the front section about drugs and gave his heart to Jesus! Dave started a Bible Club on his school campus with more than 100 students attending every Wednesday morning.
AFAJ: What do you anticipate for our August 12-16 AFR promotion this year?
TT: I have a real high expectation for this year’s project. As I travel and preach, I see a revival fire taking place among our young people as they are standing up for God on their school campuses more than ever in the past. Young people are hungry for truth! Young people want a radical encounter with God! Among our youth I’m seeing less desire for materialistic things and more desire for authenticity. They are desiring a laser beam focus on Jesus, His love, and the truth of His Word.
AFAJ: Do you have any special goals in mind?
TT: In the past 18 campaigns, since we began the National Truth for Youth Bible Week in August 2001, more than 950,000 Bibles have been given away during our partnership with American Family Radio. This year, with God’s help, with the help of courageous young people, parents, and grandparents, we will cross the one million
Bible mark! 
Get and Give a Truth for Youth 2019 Bible
During the week of August 12-16, 2019, call 800-733-4737 to order a free copy of a TFY Bible.
Students and parents are urged to request a free Truth for Youth New Testament and give it to an unsaved student or classmate. The New Testament has an attractive paper cover, and the first 96 pages are filled with cartoons addressing issues teens face daily – sexual purity, drugs, pornography, abortion, and more.
The Ten Commandments fill one of the opening pages, and there are pointers for organizing a TFY Bible Club in a local school. The back-cover list of a “Student’s Legal Rights on Public School Campuses” explains a student’s religious freedoms.
____________________
Truth for Youth leader: amazing story of God’s grace
Case Dismissed is Tim Todd’s autobiography, the story of a young man trapped in a world of drugs and alcohol, struggling to find his purpose in life and teetering on the edge of suicide. God miraculously broke through the haze of sin to bring Todd from a world of darkness and despair into a world of hope and redemption. Available on E-book at online stores and hard copy at revivalfires.org/store or 417-272-3660.
