(Photo courtesy of FCBH)

“We just completed the recording of a drama New Testament in a thousand languages — which really means 83 percent of the world’s population now has the Bible in text, they have the New Testament in audio, and they have The JESUS Film, and that’s just a huge deal.”

It’s been a milestone 25 years in the making. But really, it all started with seeing the need. Back in 1991, Faith Comes By Hearing began hearing nationals from Ghana to Guatemala say they needed Bibles, but their people couldn’t read. Therein began the work.

A slow start

“We immediately learned we’re working with oral communities, so you can’t just do a straight recording. It needs to be drama, because for oral people if it’s not a story or a drama or has music then for them it’s not important because it has to have memory cues. Of course, the New Testament has everything, it’s a story, it’s a narrative with revelation and drama,” says Jackson.

“We created a 180-voice recording which we get using 25 narrators. We had music and effects, and we started recording other languages.” Jackson goes on, chuckling, “First five years we recorded five languages! Eh…we weren’t doing really well. And I began to think, ‘Lord, I think you chose the wrong ministry.’”

Jackson heard other experts advising maybe it wasn’t necessary to get Bible translations in all 850 Latin American languages. Perhaps it would be easier to just do the top 50 or 100 languages and then everybody else would just go with the dominant Spanish translation.

In every single language?

While still considering the necessity of doing audio Bible translations in every single language, Faith Comes By Hearing was working with a Bolivian community that spoke Quechua.

In the Quechua community, FCBH planned to start a listening program and give an audio Bible called the Proclaimer to the community. The listening program has the local church or school gather weekly to listen to the audio Scriptures and discuss. After three visits ensuring its use, FCBH lets them keep the Proclaimer.

(Photo courtesy of FCBH via Facebook)

Jackson went to Bolivia to start this listening group, and he hoped to discover if just Spanish was good enough for the Quechua people.

There, he had an enlightening conversation with the pastor, who told Jackson that he preaches in Spanish on Sundays because the Scriptures they have are in Spanish. But it’s wasn’t good enough.

“[The pastor] promptly told me, ‘Nobody in my church speaks Spanish. So I preach the same thing six or seven Sundays in a row, and they don’t know it.’”

So what happened when the Quechua Scriptures came? Jackson shares, “He started weeping, telling me how people would weep and cry when they heard the Scriptures because it was in their own language. They thought God only spoke Spanish.

“When I asked him what stories caused them to weep, he said, ‘The story of the woman with the issue of blood.’… What I discovered was people actually enter the story and when they enter the story, they join the woman and they felt like that woman — rejected, unable to touch God, unable to be with Him. And when that woman touched [Jesus], they touched [Jesus], and somehow Jesus’ presence touched them.”

Jackson was moved. “That was it. From that moment, I then knew we had to actually record the Bible in every single language, because people have to hear it in their own language.”

The Great Commission by around 2030

Faith Comes By Hearing’s milestone of 1,000 completed audio Scripture recordings is part of a greater initiative to have Scripture in every language.

“There’s a whole translation movement. There’s a group called Every Tribe Every Nation, a group of business leaders who pulled all the translation community together and everybody’s aimed at starting a new translation in every language of the world by the year 2025, which means somewhere around 2030, we could have a translation in every Scripture language of the world.”

(Photo courtesy of FCBH)

Jackson explains, “In the Great Commission, Jesus said we’re supposed to make disciples of all nations. The word ‘nation’ there is ‘ethnos’, which means ‘language, tribe, people’.

“So there’s 7,100 languages in the world that we have to provide Scripture. It’s impossible to disciple a people without the Word of God. So we’re in the first time in the history of the world where translators will get the job done.”

Why Audio Bibles?

Audio recordings of the Bible are playing a very key role, especially in these last several translations.

“The problem is that in many of these people groups, the last 3,000 language groups to be reached, the people are all illiterate and oral and any education will be in the major language, not theirs. So when you’re done with the Bible, it’s still like putting a Bible on the moon because it’s inaccessible to them. Their poverty and illiteracy keep it from them. So when we can record it, it means the Bible becomes theirs.”

Faith Comes By Hearing is now maintaining a much faster pace of translation while maintaining excellent quality of their work. Jackson says this has exciting implications.

“What it means is the next thousand languages we expect to be able to complete within about six years. That thousand languages will get us to where almost 95 percent of the world will have a text and an audio in their language and be able to hear the Word of God.

“The Great Commission in our lifetime can and will be fulfilled. Every single person can and will hear Scripture in their own native language.”

Pressing on in the mission

Currently, FCBH has 350 languages ready to go for recording. They just need the funding. Jackson says it takes $35,000 to record a language, about $1,200 to record a book of the Bible, and roughly $135 to record a chapter. Click here to sponsor audio recordings of God’s Word!

Meanwhile, there are a few other things you can do to get involved in the Great Commission with these audio Bibles.

First, you can download the Bible.is app and start sharing God’s Word in multiple languages with others you meet.

(Photo courtesy of FCBH)

Second, Jackson offers this opportunity: “If you’re going to go on a trip overseas, you should give Faith Comes By Hearing a call. We’ll usually provide one Proclaimer, which is the solar panel hand-cranked device, that you can take and when you go over there, you leave that behind at the orphanage, or the clinic, or the church, and you allow a whole village to hear Scripture.”

You can get additional Proclaimers after the first one for $75 each. You can also get microSD chips for cell phones that contain the New Testament to give out as gifts.

Click here to contact Faith Comes By Hearing!

(Photo courtesy Faith Comes By Hearing)

International (FCBH/MNN) — Faith Comes By Hearing (FCBH) has most certainly changed from their beginnings as a small, tape-lending library over 40 years ago.

Today, as a leader in digital Bible production and distribution, the ministry now has a collection of Scripture recordings–comprised of both audio and video–in more than 850 languages. FCBH spokesman Bill Lohr says, “That actually represents about 5.7 billion people who either speak or sign one of those languages. It’s just really exciting for us, but of course, there’s still a lot of work to do, and we’re moving forward and continuing those recordings.”

The ministry’s goal is to record and provide access to the Bible in every translated language. Surely they must be close to an end with providing God’s Word in every language? You’d think so, but Lohr says, “Wow! 850 languages! How many are out there? Believe it or not, there are about 7,100 known languages, so there’s still a lot of work to be done.”

Most of the recordings in the ministry’s catalog are their own productions that have been completed over the last 30 years. However, many recordings have been completed by partner organizations who then give permission to Faith Comes By Hearing to place those recordings on their Digital Bible Platform for wider use and global availability.

(Photo courtesy Faith Comes By Hearing)

In an ironic twist for such a prominent Audio Bible ministry, 13 of the languages included in this repository are partner-produced sign language Video Bibles that now power one of the most downloaded Deaf apps in the world. Why? “They [deaf people] are one of the most unreached people groups of the world–potentially the fourth largest, if you were to take them collectively, as a whole, throughout the world. So, many, many people that just don’t have access.” (Click here for a link to the Deaf Bible app)

Why did it take so long to reach the deaf? Necessity was the mother of invention, in this case. Technology had to catch up to the need. Lohr explains, “We really couldn’t have done anything a number of years ago because we did audio for everybody, and audio Bibles were not going to help the deaf. But when we got into the app world and we got into technology, we realized if you can stream audio, you can also stream video. That’s where the Deaf Bible app came from.”

“I have to shake my head and laugh every time I stop to think about what we’ve become since the early days,” says Jerry Jackson, FCBH founder and president. FBCH is “completing Audio Bibles in hundreds of languages for those who cannot read, and now we can also reach the Deaf worldwide with sign language video. It’s almost unfathomable!”

Jackson has witnessed the growth of this once diminutive distributor of Bibles on cassette to what is now the world’s largest resource of digital Bible content. That trajectory is likely to continue, says Lohr. “The written Word is just not impactful for those who can’t read. Half of the world falls into that category. What we’re doing is getting that into a format that people can use all around the world.”

Through the Digital Bible Platform, Faith Comes By Hearing offers free access to this collection of Scripture via downloads, podcasts, Internet radio, satellite TV, and a family of mobile apps that began with Bible.is. Moreover, FCBH provides approved developers and ministry partners with free access to this content to incorporate into their own apps, software, and Web sites.

For those areas that do not yet have regular access to the Internet or mobile devices, Faith Comes By Hearing continues to reach out by providing Audio Bibles on solar-powered Proclaimers for listening groups. More than 380,000 Proclaimers are literally speaking the Gospel around the world.

Deaf Bible 2.0 (Image by Faith Comes by Hearing)

International (MNN) — When you think of unreached people groups, you think third world countries and remote villages, right? Would it surprise you, then, to know one of the largest unreached people groups in the world exists in every country? This group is the deaf community.

Faith Comes by Hearing wants to reach all peoples of all languages with the Gospel in audio. One way they have done this is through their Bible.is app. Upon entering the app world with one of the best audio Bible apps in existence, Faith Comes by Hearing never dreamed of working with a group of people who can’t hear. But God’s calling was sure, and FCBH has released one of the most popular apps for the deaf: Deaf Bible app.

Bill Lohr of FCBH says, “There’s so little for the deaf in the entire world–one of the most unreached people groups in the entire world. About 2% of the deaf, we believe, have ever had access or seen or heard about the Gospel.”

With the success of Deaf Bible, FCBH is working on a new version of the app. Lohr says, “What’s really exciting for us now is that we have actually brought in 10 new sign languages that we are adding to the app, and those will now be available soon.”

Deaf Bible 2.0 will include Bolivian, Burundi, Colombian, Ethiopian, French, Ghanaian, Kenyan, Kerelan (India), Tanzanian, and Ugandan. “All of those will be available on the app so that people in those countries, once they find this and get the availability, can start watching God’s Word in their own heart language,” says Lohr. FCBH estimates that the app has a potential of reaching 7.2 million people with the Gospel.

This work has been in cooperation with DOOR International and many other partners. DOOR (Deaf Opportunity OutReach) is an organization that focuses on deaf evangelism, church planting, and fellowship.

With the new Deaf Bible app, Lohr says that users can now “watch God’s Word rather than listen to God’s Word as we normally do with our audio Bibles. And they can interact and do the same things that our other apps do.”

Maybe you know someone who is deaf or plugged into a deaf community. Maybe your church has an outreach. Could you help spread the word? The Bible.is and Deaf Bible apps are both free, and you can find them through this link.

Regarding people who desire to help, Lohr says: “We appreciate their prayer that we will continue to get more languages recorded both in audio and in sign languages because we are looking to do that in both cases. Please pray for other partners from around the world who may already have video in deaf sign languages in their country to come alongside of us to allow us to use that content and put it up on Deaf Bible app.”

Also, pray that more people will become aware of and have access to the Deaf Bible.

Wikipedia describes mashup as “a web page, or web application, that uses and combines data, presentation, or functionality from two or more sources to create new services…frequently using open application programming interfaces (API) and data sources to produce enriched results.” For Faith Comes By Hearing (FCBH) and Jesus Film Media (the digital expression of The JESUS Film Project, it is the newest way for this longtime partnership to work together. In essence, it is a mashup of FCBH’s Digital Bible Platform and the extensive video inventory of the JESUS film.

Each ministry currently offers access to their own digital content via apps, websites, and other digital expressions. In addition, FCBH’s Bible.is app has included some access to the JESUS film over the last year. However, API technology now allows full sharing of this content between organizations and across digital platforms. Simply stated, this is a collaboration that brings together digital Bible text, audio, and video in hundreds of different languages, on a level never before experienced.

“By sharing content digitally, ministries and Bible organizations effectively broaden their reach and strengthen their ability to bring the Word of God to the world,” states Troy Carl, FCBH vice president and architect of the Digital Bible Platform. “In this digital era, this is very much the church, the Body of Christ, working together as we are commanded to do in Scripture.”

Jesus Film Media adds, “The advanced technology partnership between Jesus Film Media and Faith Comes By Hearing now brings over a thousand language versions of the JESUS Film to millions of Bible.is users. We are excited about this breakthrough in both mobile technology and partnership which will resonate throughout the Kingdom and in every user’s heart.”

In addition to sharing content with Jesus Film Media, Faith Comes By Hearing also offers Digital Bible Platform access to approved developers seeking to join them in bringing the Gospel to the world.

“This is an exciting time to be a Christian and working to fulfill the Great Commission,” explains Carl. “Today’s technology allows unprecedented sharing of content between partnering organizations and across so many different platforms and devices. Most importantly, it provides unmatched access to God’s Word for the end user.”

SAT-7 broadcasts Christian television programming via satellite transmission to transform the Middle East and North Africa through hope in Jesus Christ.

Looking at this volatile region, it's clear that each generation has unique needs. When you add in technical societies and fast-paced lifestyles, access to God's Word takes on a whole new meaning. It also means meeting the cultural and literacy challenges presented.

It seems that if the two ministries came together, they could widen the scope of providing equal access to the Bible. Think of it: the pure Word of God broadcast 24/7 throughout the Middle East and North Africa—capturing hearts and minds as only God's Word can do–on a Bible.is channel through SAT-7.

In the areas where SAT-7 works, the traditional approach to sharing the story of Christ has been met with increasing levels of resistance and hostility. However, SAT-7 has found a way into the homes. Satellite dishes are EVERYWHERE. Despite the region's high level of poverty and illiteracy, 90% of homes in the Arab world have access to television, and half of all households have satellite receivers.

A friend and supporter of Faith Comes By Hearing saw the potential of a cooperative effort and established a "God's Word for Every Middle East Home" Matching Challenge. He'll match every gift given up to the challenge total of $200,000.

Every gift you give will be MATCHED, dollar-for-dollar, DOUBLED IN IMPACT to help reach this region with God's Word! Previously, every $1 you sent would reach one person. With matching funds, every $1 you send means two people in the Middle East will hear God's Word!

Please prayerfully consider what you can do today, and partner with FCBH and SAT-7 to get the pure Audio Bible into potentially every corner of every country in the Middle East and North Africa.

Over the last 40 years, one ministry has been intimately involved in seeing God's Word explode around the world physically and electronically.

Originally known as Hosanna, Faith Comes By Hearing began as a small tape-lending library in the fall of 1972. Prior to establishing the Albuquerque-based ministry, founders Jerry and Annette Jackson had done missionary work across the desert southwest, traveling with their four children in a 1954 GMC school bus.

Always faithful to God's calling to "bring My church together and make disciples," the Jacksons have experienced the highs and lows of a ministry that came from humble beginnings and is now the largest producer of foreign language Audio Bibles in the world.

"We never could have imagined the direction the Lord would take this ministry when we first got started," states Jerry Jackson, founder and president of FCBH. "We simply have done our best to allow Him to work through us — even our weakness and imperfection, and He has been faithful."

This sort of willingness to follow the path God laid out before the ministry is illustrated by their move in the mid-80s to start producing dramatized Bible recordings in what they refer to as "heart languages" — the language you grew up with, speak in the home, and pray in. This decision has led to God's Word being freely available to the more than half of the world that is illiterate or living in a predominately oral culture.

The method of distribution has dramatically changed over 4 decades as well. The ministry originally used cassette tapes as their primary vehicle for providing audio. The move to CDs provided a better sound quality, but like cassettes, multiple CDs (16) were required to provide the entire New Testament.

Next came the Proclaimer, a solar-powered digital unit capable of being heard by groups as large as several hundred. When MP3 technology arrived, the ministry could fit the New Testament on one disc. As digital technology advanced and direct downloads across multiple platforms became a reality, Faith Comes By Hearing was able to realize one of their longtime dreams: to easily provide God's Word free of charge.

During their first 37 years in ministry, FCBH estimates they reached some 50 million people with Audio Scripture. In the last two and half years — through what is now the Digital Bible Platform — FCBH has monitored Bible engagement by more than 93 million people, including connections originating from 92% of the countries on the planet.

In addition to these online platforms, the ministry also provides free access through digital playback devices. More than 320,000 Proclaimers are literally proclaiming the Gospel to the world's poor and illiterate population. More than 230,000 Military BibleSticks–pocket-sized, digital players–have been distributed through chaplains to troops in every branch of America's military. Also, their Bibles.is app for Iphone and Android make accessing Scripture even easier. "One person with a cell phone can demonstrate Bible.is, and there could be hundreds of people suddenly accessing the Scripture because through Bible.is, you can access all 683 languages on your smart-phone or computer." 

As they celebrate their 40th anniversary this month, Faith Comes By Hearing (FCBH) isn't done. "We're adding 100 a year. And we're going to announce something this next weekend at our celebration that is going to accelerate that beyond imagination because of the technology."

So what is in store for the next 40 years?

Jackson says, "I have a dream that in 2016 we'll have all these languages recorded — 97% of the earth will have God's Word in the language they pray in." He hopes that will be the time where Jesus will return for His Church.

Pray that God would give FCBH knowledge to be able to use the new technology to reach even more of the world for Christ. Pray that funding would also be available to help pay for it.

In this day of technology, printing and distributing Bibles for each person who cannot afford one is not the most efficient way of spreading the Word. Not to mention for those who are illiterate, these hard copies would only have so much impact.

About two years ago, Faith Comes By Hearing launched their Bible.is app. The app not only erases the need for hard copies of the Word, but it provides access to the New Testament for millions of people who cannot read it on their own. The app has the New Testament in audio in over 600 languages and written text in almost as many.

When the app first came out, users had to have a basic knowledge of English to use it. The navigation tools were all in English. The app was soon available in Spanish as well, so those who understood Spanish basics could also navigate.

In a matter of months, though, the app has expanded to include navigation abilities for 2.65 billion people. Faith Comes By Hearing just announced that the Bible app is now localized in twelve of the world's largest languages.

The app now operates on the iPhone, iPad, and all mobile Android devices in Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Dutch, English, French, Indonesian, Italian, Javanese, Latin, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Urdu and Vietnamese. Combined, these languages represent a third of the world's population. Of course, every localized version also offers access to Bibles in over 600 languages, which are spoken by over five billion people in more than 185 countries.

The strides Faith Comes By Hearing has made in online Bible technology have the potential to reach the globe fast. Many mostly-illiterate communities already have access to the internet or smart phones.

"In the next few years, there won't be anywhere on earth that doesn't have some level of (Internet) access," says Faith Comes By Hearing's vice president, Troy Carl. "This means they will have access to the life-changing Word of God — and most likely in their own heart language."

As greater worldwide connectivity is being created and more people are gaining access to smartphones and similar mobile devices, the ministry sees this technology as a path to completing the Great Commission, potentially within this generation.

You can be a part of this by advocating and using Bible.is. Head to www.Bible.is to find the app online, or go to FaithComesByHearing.com to access the app on your smartphone.

App subscribers can now watch the "JESUS" film on the app. They can also download audio Bibles in over 600 languages directly to their mobile devices. Thus, once downloaded, they can be accessed even without the internet.

These are fun capabilities for people who already have regular access to the Bible. But for the world of missions, these additions can be game changers for the Gospel.

"For many people in the world, maybe they speak a trade language, maybe a major language, but their heart language is something completely different," points out FCBH Vice President Troy Carl. "Hollywood isn't producing movies in their language. You don't see very many books in their language. And in many cases, the Bible is the only thing that's ever been translated and then recorded in a dramatized format in their native language."

People are able to watch a film in their own language with the "JESUS" film. How fitting that it would be the story of Christ.

The effect the application has had on missions has been astounding already. "We hear about it to the tune of tens of thousands–even hundreds of thousands–of testimonies around the world thus far," says Carl.

Now, the Word of God is even more accessible. The downloadability of audio Bibles through the app allows missionaries to take the Word of God into remote areas of the world which do not have access to the internet. They can show a film of Jesus' life at the click of a button.

Yet, more than all of that, the app is allowing the Bible entry into countries that Christians could never enter.

"Where it would typically be dangerous, or even difficult, to provide Bibles to certain areas of the world, through technology people can easily access it–listen to it in the privacy of their own home or in some other area that is safe," notes Carl. "And it's really been an effective ministry tool for missionaries around the world."

Lives are changing around the world due to this new technology, says Carl. "Because the Bible is available to them freely and quickly, and they can hear it in their own language and engage with it, their lives are being transformed."

Now, even more testimonies are sure to pour in about lives transformed.

FCBH has over 600 languages recorded and available via the Bible.is app. But there are still 1,586 translations of the Scriptures that have yet to be recorded. Recordings of the Bible are especially vital to regions with high illiteracy rates, which are many of the remote areas in which this type of technology could be most useful.

You can help FCBH in their work. It costs just $9.90 to record three verses. $25,500 will cover the recording costs for the entire Bible in one of the hundreds of languages in need. To help with these projects, give through the Bible.is app or click here.

Faith Comes By Hearing is obliterating these obstacles, and all with one quick click.

"Now, for the first time in history, you have one application that can singly distribute the Scriptures in all the languages of the world–spoken by at least five billion people," says Faith Comes By Hearing's national director, Troy Carl. "We're very, very excited about the accessibility of the Word of God to anybody, anywhere, at any time."

In less than a year, Faith Comes By Hearing has introduced the Scriptures in 542 languages onto an application compatible with smart phones, androids, iPads and more. This single app, which is moving so fast that it has more than doubled the languages offered on it in the last month, is hurdling every obstacle and opening the world to the Bible.

The price of the Scriptures is no longer an issue. The app is free. As long as a person owns a compatible device–or they can even use the app on a computer, they can access the Scriptures. There are five billion cell phone subscribers worldwide, making the likelihood that a person owns such a device quite high. The number of smart phones is going up, too.

Carl says another thing they've watched the app do over the past several months is transcend even the strictest of government boundaries. While some countries might reject missionary presence, aid, or Scripture distribution, "One of the things we've found is that there's no resistance to distribution as long as it's coming in through technology," says Carl.

If people can get it for free, unafraid of consequences, a problem still remains if they are unable to read the Word. But the very nature of Faith Comes By Hearing's decades-old ministry is to provide Scriptures for those who cannot read them. All 542 languages are in audio format, so anyone can hear the Word of God.

The accessibility of the app is opening hearts to the Gospel as people are able to hear the words of God's Truth spoken to them.

"We do get people commenting on the fact that this application–by hearing the Bible in an audio form, not just reading it–has actually restored them, brought revival to their soul, and even some have come to Christ as a result," explains Carl. The ministry gets thousands of testimonies a week, many from un-churched listeners who are understanding the Bible for the first time.

The Bible.is app is expanding as quickly as it can, as well as adapting to its subscribers. Right now, the app can be downloaded for navigation in seven languages–including Arabic, which has become the second-most listened-to language on the app. But as the app catches on to more and more users, the navigation languages will increase in number. Faith Comes By Hearing wants to ensure that everyone who wants to access Scripture can do so.

"There will be 5 billion smart phones by 2016 around the world," notes Carl. "Our goal is to make sure the Bible is on every one of them."

You can help make that happen. You can support the completion of a recording of the Bible in a new language, you can share about the app on your social network of choice, or you can simply download the app to spread the Word. Click here to do any or all of those.

Carl calls this app the "amazon" (as in amazon.com) of the Bible: no one has ever put all Scriptures in all languages in one place available for free and for listening. As the Scriptures are accessed by more and more people, the Word of God will take root in places it has never been before. Pray that the Lord would have His hands in this ministry and the spread of His Word.

Most Arabic Muslims, of course, speak Arabic. Even if they know English, Arabic is often the heart language they understand the best.

These are some pretty basic facts, but they are brought to light for an exciting reason.

Faith Comes By Hearing released its Bible.is app a while ago–a downloadable application for computers and cell phones that contains the written and audio versions of the Bible in dozens of languages. The app has already been downloaded over one million times, but a new feature could reach even more with the Word.

The Bible.is app is now available in Arabic. Although the app has always contained the Arabic language, users have had to get to it by using an English or Spanish app. But Faith Comes By Hearing has finished the app completely in Arabic now, so even users without English or Spanish training can download the app if they read Arabic.

The implications of this new feature could be significant. There is now the potential for countless more people to access the Word of God free of charge. Arabic Muslims, along with anyone else who speaks Arabic, could be transformed by the power of the Scriptures through one downloadable application.

For anyone who is an Arabic speaker or ministers to Arabic speakers, this could be an incredibly helpful tool.

The Bible.is app is expanding daily, and Faith Comes By Hearing hopes to provide access to it in several more languages. Keep track of their progress at their Web site.

If you would like to download the Bible.is app in English, simply visit www.bible.is. Downloading in Arabic means actually downloading the app from an android, iPhone, iPad or similar device while the device has "Arabic" as the operating language. Then when the app is downloaded, it will all be in Arabic.

For any further information, contact Faith Comes By Hearing at 1-800-545-6552 or info@fcbhmail.org.