International (MNN) ― Faith Comes By Hearing's Morgan Jackson describes a typical reaction in a village the moment the dramatized Audio Bible begins playing. "All sound will disappear from the area. Nobody moves for 45 minutes, and when they stop the recording, everybody is in shock. 'God speaks Komkomba (Tanzania)! He can address us directly! We don't need a translator to talk to God! Did you hear that geneology?! Rewind it! Rewind it!' They'll listen two or three times and they'll grab a piece of metal, a gonggong --bambambambam!-- and pretty soon, you'll have the whole village under a tree."
Half of the world's population is illiterate. That's why FCBH focuses on reaching and discipling the poor and illiterate peoples of the world with God's Word in audio. They now have recordings in more than 278 heart languages.
However, having the audio resource available doesn't help if there is no way to play it. In many of the remote places where the FCBH workers go, electricity and batteries are hard power sources to come by. The only reliable source from village to village is the sun.
That's where the "Proclaimer" comes in. It's a solar-paneled digital player (with rechargeable batteries), pre-loaded with the audio Scriptures, designed by FCBH engineers to help disciple groups of 300 using the audio New Testament.
For oral communicators, their learning style has many strengths. Orality emphasizes connections, is based on community, and focuses on the big picture.
Jackson says it's evangelistic because of discipleship and the church community. "Those churches then start a weekly listening program where all of the church listens, and then the people make decisions as they do in communal societies on what they're going to do. So transformation, or discipleship, takes place. So then what happens in that village is, these people, now full of the Scriptures, take that same tool to nearby villages."
The following languages are now available for download: Bench, Bengali CLV, Bura, Embu, Gogo, Gumuz, Iraqw, Kaqchiquel Santa Maria de Jesus, Koonzime, Quechua Ayacucho South, Tupuri and Welsh. These ten languages are spoken in several countries, including Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Guatemala, Peru, Cameroon and Wales.
Faith Comes By Hearing's goal is to record Audio Bibles in 2,000 different languages by the year 2016, reaching 97% of the world's population. Funding for more projects is needed. If you can help, click here.
