August 2023

VBS - Very Bountiful Scripture

Laurel Community Church, a small congregation of about 100 in Hillsboro, Oregon, has an outsized impact on neighborhood children through their VBS program.

They've also found a unique way to engage these children in global missions.

Last year, for their VBS mission project, in cooperation with Firm Foundation In Christ Ministries, the children raised funds for 238 audio Bible SeedPlayers (~$10/each) for the Hausa and Fulfulde languages of Nigeria.

This year, with the help of a Wycliffe Bible Translators worker, they identified a people group in Indonesia that needs audio Bible players (with 17,000 islands, Indonesia has 700 language groups -- one tenth of the world's total).

This people group had been impacted by the Jesus Film some years ago, but recently has seen a heightened response to the Gospel -- 30-40 families came to Christ in one village alone. Access to Scripture content at this time seems particularly important.

Although the original translator of the New Testament recently died, the local Church has now picked up the baton, and is making good progress in translating the Old Testament. They also have quite a bit of indigenous worship music that has been recorded. A nearby radio station broadcasts some Gospel content, but is restricted by broadcast hours, signal coverage, and available receivers. SeedPlayers can provide complementary access -- they work anywhere, and can hold all available Gospel content in an easily-searchable format.

After the incredible response last year, Laurel's goal this year was 240 SeedPlayers -- a modest, two player increase. However, when the dust settled a couple of weeks ago, they had actually raised enough for 317 SeedPlayers, which we are now preparing with the full indigenous New Testament, just-translated Old Testament portions, and worship music.

And, as an unexpected and wonderful by-product of this collaboration, we think we may have found a way to carry a number of SeedPlayers in various languages to the Philippines -- something we have struggled with for several years because of mailing restrictions and import costs. These will be used by our blind disciplemakers as they reach out to the blind around them.

Blessings in Christ,

Joel

P.S. How might it impact your church and its children to use your next VBS mission project to provide audio Bibles for the blind, the dyslexic, an ESL program, the elderly or nursing home residents, the homeless, or less-reached people groups? The summer VBS season is over for this year; but now is probably an ideal time to reach out to your VBS director to begin putting the pieces in place for a project next summer. We can work with them to identify a local or overseas target group. Would you consider forwarding this email to them and putting us in touch?

ResourcesfortheBlind.org

SeedPlayer.org

GospelAccessPartners.org

865-403-9006

joel@ResourcesfortheBlind.org



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