by Christine Platt, CEO Australia
Having missed my connection I found myself sitting in a hotel restaurant in Johannesburg, South Africa. It was quiet and I struck up a conversation with my waiter. He was a young man from Zimbabwe. I discovered that he spoke the Shona language.
While he was gone I opened up 5fish on my phone and downloaded the Good News in Shona. When he returned, I played the recording. I didn't have to ask him if he understood the language. His smile answered my question. He was so happy to hear his own language while he was so far from home.
I explained to him that the 5fish app was free and available from the Google Playstore. He was really excited and planned to tell all of his family back in Zimbabwe so that they could listen too!
Computers are such an essential tool for us to record the good news and then to share it:
Recording: our modern day recording machines are basically a computer which captures the audio signal from a microphone and stores it on a memory card.
Editing and Programing: our recordist then transfers the audio from the memory card onto a computer where they can edit the audio, make it sound better, remove unwanted noise (like crowing roosters), and put it together in a program.
Transport: until recently, our recordists put their finished program onto a CD or SD card and posted it to the studio in Australia or the USA. But today almost all of them can connect to the internet and send the finished product directly to the studio in a matter of minutes. No more lost packages!
Processing: our studio receives the new program electronically. The studio technicians check the audio quality of the program and send feedback to the recordist to help them improve their skills. They then enter the new program into the database and our audio archive.
Production: automated computer systems then convert the program into a number of audio and video formats so people wanting to use the recording can access it in the format and on the device they desire.
Distribution: the recording in its various formats is made available. It can be downloaded from our websites, 5fish app or loaded onto a media library (a hard disk drive loaded with hundreds or thousands of recordings). We have every hope that the work done and the relationships built by people using these computers have resulted in many thousands of people hearing God's word in the language they understand best. We pray for God's work in their hearts and minds to bring them to faith as GRN recordings are played and audio-visuals watched. Our hope is based on 72,633 hours of audio Gospel messages downloaded from GRN computer systems in 5,563 different languages and dialects last year. Romans 10:17 assures us that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Here are a couple of messages we received from our website:
Feedback from Program C22740 Mende Good News Sierre Leone: It is absolutely wonderful to know there is an audio scripture of The Holy Bible and be able to listen to the preaching of The Holy Bible in different languages in Sierra Leone especially in Kono Language, really astonishing to me. Thank you.
Feedback from Program C81752 Bembe Good News Tanzania: The message/video has been very useful to me and other listeners. Firstly, it impressed me to hear the word of God in my own language. Besides, it has been a good tool in reaching my relatives with good news of Christ. God bless you.
We thank God for our computer systems and the people who look after them and use them. Here in the Australian office we have some aging computer equipment that needs replacing: servers, switches, storage, computers and screens. The total cost of all this is $44,900.
Please pray for God's provision for this equipment and prayerfully consider if you can help.
To find out more about please contact Christine Platt in the Australian office.
Or you can give here designating your gift to "GRN AU Updating of Ministry Tools".