Every Church Every Village Testimonies

The Every Church Every Village program – which allows churches and individuals to take a limited number of Proclaimers with them on short-term mission trips – is bearing fruit all over the world. This is a small sampling of the reports we receive.

Father to the Fatherless

This past summer, 23-year-old Kristie Campbell and her fiancée, 24-year-old Trever Duarte, took six Proclaimers to Malawi: One to the children at the Grace of God Orphanage and one to the caretakers who cook for the children; others were distributed throughout the area. Now the children spend much of their free time listening to God’s Word. Kristie says, “When they received the Proclaimer, they were sitting in the hot sun, totally engaged. You can’t get these children to get so engaged in something, but this is great!”

As well as filling their free time, the children can now also hear about God the Father’s love for them. Some have been forsaken and abandoned because their parents’ lives were taken by disease. Others have been abused. God’s Word says, “When my mother and father forsake me, then the Lord will take me up” (Psalm 27:10). God’s Word reveals His great love and concern for the fatherless, and now these children can hear for themselves about their heavenly Father’s love for them—in their own mother tongue of Chichewa.

Kristie says, “We bring them all sorts of gadgets: potato peelers, beautiful frying pans for the open fire, African Bible commentaries, Bibles . . . but the Proclaimers were THE BEST gift we ever brought to our Native friends in Malawi. They are used non-stop. The children not only listen to the Proclaimer in their free time, but also during Bible School and their morning and evening prayer times.”

The caretakers who cook for the children also received a Proclaimer. They cook 12 hours a day for 120 children, leaving not much free time or time to attend church. They set the Proclaimer carefully on the dirt floor beside the open fire and they play it the whole time they are cooking. Even though they cannot read, or attend church, they can now hear God’s Word.

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling - Psalm 68:5

Click here for video of more FCBH work in Malawi.

Asia

In southern India, a single Telugu-language Proclaimer is being shared by 20 villages with more than 1500 people listening each week. As a result, many are coming to the Lord and being baptized. Nearby, one group started playing a Kannada Proclaimer in a village of untouchables, and within five minutes nearly 250 people had gathered to listen.

Meanwhile in a poor, remote area of the Philippines, a local missionary entered a small village where a group of people had been sitting listening to a soap opera on a transistor radio. When the missionary played a Cebuano Proclaimer, a little boy called it “the best radio.”  The missionary goes on to say, “I remain convinced that this is one of the most useful tools available for evangelism and discipleship.”

Africa

From Niger comes the story of a local believer who carries a Proclaimer with him wherever he goes – and often plays it to the 20-25 people packed into a bush taxi.

In other places, illiterate pastors are using the New Testament recording for personal study, and one Togo church made up of non-readers is using it for their Sunday morning services.  A pastor’s wife in Kenya is said to have cried when she heard the dramatized Bible in Maasai. It was the first time ever to hear the Bible without a human translator.

A brand new church was started in October in a very remote and heavily oppressed Maasai area. The people there are so hungry for God’s word that 60 people are meeting four times per week to listen to the Proclaimer. Remarkably, everyone participates: grandmothers, men, children, and mothers. Moreover, a smaller group of men in this fledgling church are also meeting together even more frequently to listen to the message on the Proclaimer – in fact, they have listened through once and have begun again!

The Americas

One ministry used the Proclaimer as part of evangelistic meetings in Mexico where 82 people came to faith in Christ and 55 have since joined listening groups! Meanwhile, in the Matagalpa region of Nicaragua, the Spanish New Testament Proclaimer is being used to share the Gospel with local coffee workers and also to minister to drug addicts at a rehabilitation center.

A Florida church took six Creole Proclaimers to Haiti. At one point, after hiking nearly three hours up a mountain, they found about 50 people sitting in a four-post tin-covered shelter where they had listening to the Audio Bible for two hours! This mountain-top church had no full-time pastor and very limited access to the Word of God.

From Peru comes this eyewitness report: “One older lady in one of the churches just started to cry when her pastor showed the church the Proclaimer. She could not read and wanted to study the Bible but couldn’t.”  Now she can!

The Tzutujil Proclaimer is being used for weekly Bible studies by all grades of a Guatemalan elementary school, and another has been given to a church which has no pastor.  One report reads, “We have come to realize that the majority of people here do not understand Spanish anywhere near enough to comprehend the Bible, and that when the Word of God is preached in anything but their own language, they are not taking it in. One testimony that I can not relay to you is the look in their eyes when I turn on the Proclaimer and the Word of God starts speaking to them in Tzutujil. I can’t put into words the emotional response I see and feel from them.”

In Paraguay, a local pastor is using the Audio Bible as part of his radio broadcast. One observer stated, “When people heard his radio program, they asked ‘who is preaching in Guarani? Whoever it is knows how to preach!’ People are desperate to hear the Word! When they hear the Word, miracles happen and churches are planted. Thank you for joining with us in preaching the Word and planting churches!”

Summary

Thanks to our generous donors, Every Church Every Village equips church members, ministries, and mission groups with Proclaimers to take on short-term mission trips. Since 2008, Faith Comes By Hearing has provided more than 24,000 Proclaimers through this outreach for use in 132 countries!   God’s Word is being received with much joy and comments such as, “Send more Proclaimers and we will send more church planters further out.”