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Despite increasing persecution in India, Audio Scriptures International is moving ahead with the “Adopt-A- Village” program-in fact, the project is in its next phase. The “Talking Bible” is in production now, and aimed at 10-thousand non-reading villages who have never heard the Gospel. ASI’s Mark Hoekstra. “There are plans to move on with putting together small teams of American short term missionaries or volunteers. These teams could go out with a small recording device, 50 or 100 Talking Bibles; spend six weeks to produce Talking Bibles that they can actually leave behind for the pastors, missionaries and evangelists.” Hoekstra says that despite growing security concerns, the believers in India have a burning desire to share the hope of the Gospel with others. “Continue to pray for the evangelists and pastors. What is happening in India is we are finding pastors and evangelists have already targeted villages that they’re trying to reach, but they do not have the tools to do that.”

Next, Evangelist Sammy Tippit is in Ukraine with a team of 70 people from throughout the United States. The team is ministering in churches throughout the Zaporozhye (ZAH-po-ROZH-yeh) region. They are working in over 90 churches there. Ministry officials say in the early days of this effort, many have already come to Christ. Tippit is slated to begin combined evangelistic meetings in three of the cities from now through Sunday. Please pray for the Gospel to penetrate hearts.

Thousands of Scripture portions have been donated to persecuted believers through Open Doors’ special project, “The Bible Site”. The website has a unique purpose-Open Doors’ Mike Yoder. “We launched “The Bible Site” about a month ago, and we’ve had 20-thousand people come to the site and click on a button, which enabled a Scripture portion to be donated to a persecuted believer who has never had the Bible before. This is a unique partnership that we’ve formed with a foundation that wants to use the Internet to educate people about Christian persecution.” Yoder adds that they felt this was a more complete way of addressing the issue, because of a certain mindset in the United States. “Sadly, the church in the Free World is unaware of the price that the body of Christ has to pay to follow Christ; and somehow, the body of Christ in the West…for some reason, we’ve allowed ourselves to become disconnected from that suffering part of the body.”

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Christians from many nations will be joining to pray and fast for the country of France in the coming months. It’s being called Frace 2001, an International Movement of Prayer for France. Last year 500 churches from many different denominations participated. The event is scheduled for March 7th through April 15th, 2001. Believers from many nations are being asked to stand with French Christians in prayer that God would bring a significant change to that nation.

While World by Radio celebrates 15 years of making the Gospel available in every language, the group is excited about reaching their goal. The group consists of Trans World Radio, Far East Broadcasting Company, SIM and HCJB World Radio. HCJB reports for their part in the project, there are six languages left that they’re working with; Chechen, Kikongo San Salvador, Kituba, Luri, Southern Uzbek and Turkmen. Please pray for their work, which is dependent on security, finances and time.