Asia-Pacific Region: Story…whether that be around the camp fire, bedtime, the bamboo community hut, or the downtown coffee shop, oral stories have a unique way of capturing the attention of an audience.
Turning the written Word into Audio for the 60% of the world who are oral learners!
As a Church, we are given the mandate of taking the Good News to ‘every tribe and nation.’ Do you realize that in the 21st century, over 2,100 languages have yet to have any part of the scripture available to them in written form?¹ Additionally, there is an estimated 4 billion people who are ‘oral learners,’ those who either can’t or won’t learn through reading.² Together this makes up at least 60% of the world’s population. How do we reach these ‘tribes and nations?’
Just this past month, we were in a creative access nation training a pastor from a remote area of his country. The majority of the people from that area are oral learners. We trained this pastor how to record the Bible in the local dialect, edit his recordings, and then get them saved to a memory card that could be replicated, and placed into specific audio players. The excitement and joy expressed by this pastor was contagious as he diligently worked at making his recordings.
One of the locals in Blackstone Aboriginal Community and his Papyrus Audio Bible.
What do we do with the audio recordings after they have been created? We get them onto Papyrus Solar-Powered Audio Players.
These units which are powered by the sun and small enough to fit in your hand with a powerful enough speaker to be heard by up to 200 listeners at a time… are bringing us the capability of delivering the Good News in places where it was never before possible.
Will you be part of this ministry?
Earlier this year we ran a story about the Papyrus units and the orality ministry, and the need for $7,000 to deploy these units to nations across the Asia-Pacific Region. Donors have currently contributed around $4,000 USD, which leaves $3,000 more to be raised toward this vital ministry.
Papyrus Solar-Powered Audio Bibles / Players. Loud enough for an audience of 200 people.
While fulfilling the Great Commission can be challenging, it is not impossible. Your partnership in fulfilling this mission is crucial! The Papyrus units are allowing us to go beyond, borders and barriers, both physical and cultural, taking the good news of Christ to every tribe and nation.
Will you be part of this Great Commission Ministry – You Can Contribute Here?
1 Figures from http://www.wycliffe.org/About/Statistics.aspx [accessed March 2011] 2 G Lovejoy, That All May Hear, Lausanne Movement Global Conversation, Cape Town 2010 Advance Paper, http://conversation.lausanne.org/en/conversations/detail/10363, [Accessed March 2011]
