International (MNN) — The shockwaves of the impact made by Faith Comes By Hearing (FCBH) still rumble through the world.
So much so, that "Return On Investment Ministry" recently listed FCBH in its Top 10 ministries that make the greatest difference with every donor dollar.
Nothing shows FCBH’s impact more than some of the major milestones they crossed this year which reveal how God can use recorders for His purposes.
This past year, FCBH marked the recording of their 600th language in the New Testament. 600 languages is an incredible enough number, but when expanded to potential number of people to reach, there are over 5 billion people who speak one of those 600 languages.
“That’s two-thirds of the world’s population that now have God’s Word in their heart language and in a format that they can use even if they cannot read!” says Bill Lohr, spokesman for FCBH.
Recordings of Scripture are put into playing devices called Proclaimers. Each Proclaimer is loud and clear enough that it can be heard by between 300 to 1,000 people at once.
Since their production, FCBH has distributed 300,000 Proclaimers all over the world. “It’s not just that one Proclaimer will start one listening group,” Lohr states. “They start many listening groups.” Try 630 listening groups receiving the Word of God through these Proclaimers!
Along with FCBH’s Proclaimer ministry, they also have seen amazing results from their Military BibleSticks outreach. 2011 marked the distribution of 150,000 BibleSticks to U.S. Troops.
According to Lohr, “The individual soldiers have them, but they share those while they’re on duty…. There’s an mp3 disc that comes with [the BibleStick], and they’re sharing that. And then their families also can get an mp3 disc that we send to them. So really those numbers are well over the actual number of BibleSticks that have been sent.”
FCBH hopes to get the number of Military BibleSticks distributed up to 200,000 by the middle of next year at the latest. The demand is certainly there. Lohr says military chaplains ask for 2-3,000 more Military BibleSticks per week.
With all of the FCBH ministries, there are people lined up to do the translating or send the Military BibleSticks, but the factor that holds them up too often is funding.
“We just really need those resources,” says Lohr. “We really do look at our donors and everybody else that we work with as partners. We could not do our work without the donors…it’s the body of Christ coming together. It’s His church working for the Kingdom of God.”
