Elsewhere, despite threats of continued religious violence, more than a thousand listeners turned out at a Voice of Friendship Revival Rally in Indonesia. Far East Broadcasting Company reports that at least one hundred people came forward to receive Christ at the revival meeting. The event shows the impact Heartline Radio is having on Indonesia. FEBC officials believe the response is proof that many Indonesians are realizing that Jesus is the stability they need in an uncertain time.
News Archives
Spanish speakers will be able to understand the Bible a little better, as a new Spanish Bible is being released soon. Brian McLemore is the translation Coordinator for the World Bible Translation Center. “This is not the first Spanish translation. This is a Spanish translation we think will be good for everyone to read. Our vision is to produce translations that are easy to understand in good contemporary Spanish.” McLemore says they’re planning to print at least two million copies. He says this version could be especially useful for Spanish speakers in the United States. “They have group up learning two languages and trying to adapt to the American culture. And, often they don’t have the opportunities to maintain a very high literary kind of Spanish. So, our translation for someone who speaks Spanish in their home with their parents and with their friends, this translation will be very good for them.”
Today’s leading news focuses on the latest computer virus, dubbed the ‘Love Bug’. Like Judas’ kiss, the virus unleashes its devastation while hiding behind new identities and worming its way into more and more systems. The virus’ potential impact could be destructive to missions work dependent on Internet communications. Wycliffe’s Chris Sheeran is the e-mail administrator for JAARS. “I don’t think it was really malicious, as far as deleting everything on your hard disk, but it’s something that could really mess the work up. At this point, we don’t have really beefed up virus protection in front, and so we’re looking at a budget item for this next year because I think it’s going to continue.” Sheeran masterminded the group’s response and adds that: “One of the guys here was able to put a block in on the viruses coming into our system and so the block scans the messages for certain things— started ‘parking’ them and not forwarding them to the other people in the system. This one was kind of insidious because it was coming from people that you knew.”
Spanish speakers in the U-S will understand the Gospel more clearly.
Headlining today’s news, civil war is intensifying in Sri Lanka. The government has banned all activities that could harm national security. The government is facing possibly its greatest crisis in its 17-year ethnic war against Tamil Tiger rebels in the north. Back to the Bible’s James Kanaganayagam is in Sri Lanka, producing radio programs for the Sri Lankan people. “Physically we are not threatened by the situation at the moment, but there are co-workers of ours who are in the field who are in the areas that are being affected, so we are very concerned for them.” Kanaganayagam says many pastors and lay leaders need assistance as they struggle with the effects of war. “We have linked up with the Lanka Bible College and we are conducting counseling courses for pastors to equip them to be able to counsel the churches. We find that many pastors themselves need to be counseled because of the stress they have gone through and are going through.” Pray that evangelism can continue despite the violence.
Copies of the Jesus Film are being sent back in large numbers in the United States. A Coalition of evangelical churches coordinated an effort and mail out 400-thousand video tapes on the life of Jesus to people in Florida. Angry Jews responded by sending them back to sender. A Post Office spokeswoman says she’s never before seen such a massive mail-back. The million-dollar project was paid for by area churches hoping to share the Gospel with their community.
Meanwhile, Audio Scriptures International is looking for technically savvy volunteers to help distribute the Bible in audio form. Audio Scripture’s Mark Hoekstra says they’ve been putting scripture in audio form on the internet, but not all of their material is accessible. He says that’s why they need volunteers. “A lot of people have computers and the MP3 encoder programs and they’re playing around with these things. And, so we’re soliciting many volunteers in America to convert the files from cassettes or the material that it’s on right now into format that can be put up on the internet.” Hoekstra says once that’s done scripture can be available to anyone in the world who has a computer. “We have portions of scripture in 85 languages on the web now. We have audio scriptures in over 300 languages. And I’d like to see everyone of them up there and made available.” Audio Scriptures is looking for up to 30 volunteers to help with this project.
