For over 30 years, The Most Important Story has equipped pastors, missionaries, and faith leaders with the most effective and accessible Gospel presentation for children — wherever in the world they serve.
It is our mission to equip you with the most effective and attractive Gospel presentation available so you can share the greatest gift of all: the redeeming love of Jesus.
Ninety-six million copies of God's Word. One hundred and sixty countries. None of it the work of any one person, ministry, or strategy — but the work of God's people across continents and decades, carrying the same simple book into the hands of children who had never heard the Gospel.
The Most Important Story Ever Told began with one secret printing in a country closed to the Gospel. Today, its illustrated pages are read aloud in churches, schools, refugee camps, government libraries, and remote villages on every inhabited continent. The next 100 million copies are already being prayed for — and printed.
The first printing of The Most Important Story Ever Told was produced by the underground church in Vietnam, twenty years after the country fell under communism. The pastor who oversaw the printing had just been released from prison. The paper was newsprint. The ink was black. There were only 6,500 copies.
What happened next would set the pattern for everything that followed.
From the underground church in Vietnam, the work spread through global missions organizations that saw what God was doing and joined in.
Founder George Verwer obtained a copy in 1996 and raised funds for 200,000 copies to be carried on OM's floating libraries. For twenty-five years, MIS has traveled the world aboard OM ships, reaching countless thousands.
After observing the impact in Cuba, Samaritan's Purse partnered to retitle and distribute MIS as "The Greatest Gift of All" through Operation Christmas Child for fifteen consecutive years — joined by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
In the months before Hong Kong's handover to China, the Luis Palau Evangelistic Association provided 100,000 copies — 20,000 for the children's crusade and 80,000 distributed across churches and evangelical organizations citywide.
What follows is only a handful of the places God has carried this book — and the people He has used to carry it.
From 1997, MIS was distributed across all 76 Cuban denominations — and placed in every government library, an unprecedented allowance. Fidel Castro's sister Augustina went door-to-door in Havana with 800 copies.
At the largest book fair in the Arab world — 2 million visitors representing 25 Arabic-speaking nations — MIS in Arabic became the best-selling book at the close of the fair, twice.
Introduced in 1997 and translated into 15 Indian languages by Rev. Premdas Telly. In West Bengal alone, more than 400,000 children were reached in a single year through Bible school ministry.
Following the 1986 nuclear disaster, MIS was distributed in Russian to hospitalized children in Minsk clinics — children carrying the burden of a contamination they did not cause.
The Catholic school system approved MIS in Spanish for use in elementary classrooms across the country — reaching every child in compulsory education, ages six through thirteen.
In the months before Hong Kong's 1997 transition to Chinese rule, churches and evangelical organizations distributed 100,000 copies citywide — a final, urgent flood of the Gospel into a city about to change forever.
Thank you for sending The Most Important Story in Bengali. Last year we reached more than 400,000 children. Through the children we are also able to reach their parents — many children as well as their parents are getting saved.
I liked the booklet because it told us about the life of Jesus. I could understand everything and like the pictures a lot — not like reading the Bible, which I don't understand.
I think that all children should be able to have one of these booklets to learn more about God and believe in him.
All that we have accomplished, you have done for us.
Every gift puts more books on more ships, in more classrooms, into more hands — wherever in the world children are waiting to hear the most important story ever told.
