Many would be surprised if they discovered their pastor had very little knowledge or understanding of the Bible and didn’t even own a concordance or Bible dictionary - yet that is the situation in many parts of Asia. ‘They don’t have the tools we take for granted,’ says Jim Davis, founder and international director of Pastoral Training of Asia (PTA). Davis was a Calvary Chapel pastor in California for 13 years before he went overseas in 1987. Recognising a tremendous pastoral training need, he started PTA, which has a special burden for the Karen people along the Myanmar-Thailand border. ‘Many of them are Anglican priests without much theology other than the catechism and their prayer book,’ he says. ‘They don’t have Bible dictionaries, commentaries or computers with Bible software. They’re already pastors, so they can’t drop everything and attend Bible school. The answer is to take training materials to them. Asia has the largest population in the world and the smallest percentage of pastors, missionaries and Christian workers’.