Why Oral Bible Translation Is Changing Global Missions Forever

Oral people cannot separate themselves from a story. Their worldview is circular. And so it's actually very Jewish. So when they hear a story, if it's in their own language, they literally enter the story, and it says, "If it was happening to them." So when they hear the story without thinking, they enter it. And it becomes as if Jesus Christ is speaking them to them directly. The Mission Matters Podcast is a partnership between 1615 and Missio Nexus. We have a shared passion to mobilize the people of God to be a part of His mission. Well, hello, and welcome once again to the Mission Matters Podcast. I am Matthew Ellison, and you all know what I'm going to say. I am joined by my good friend and co-host Ted Esler. How's it going, Ted? It's good. One of these times, I'm going to have to start out and say something different. Shock the audience, Matthew. Yeah, we might have to do that. Hey, Ted, this is the end of May. This will probably air in June, maybe July. But there's something big coming up in September that you probably need to let our audience know about. Can you do that really quickly? I can. In September, we're gathering about 1,000 Mission Leaders in Orlando for the Missio Nexus Annual Mission Leaders Conference. This year, our theme is deep. It's about discipleship. And we're going to have some very interesting speakers this time around. You know, we don't see typically platform, the big and famous. We're actually bringing you frontline workers. And so come and hear from a couple of those workers working in some very difficult spots in the world. Yeah, that's great. I will be there. So if you hear Ted's invitation and come, come visit me as well. So today, we are joined by Morgan Jackson, a longtime friend of mine, senior vice president of faith comes by hearing. And for decades, Morgan has traveled to the world's most remote corners, excuse me, with a singular revolutionary mission to record and provide the Bible in the audio language of every nation, tribe and tongue. So get ready to discover how spoken scripture is breaking barriers, transforming unreached communities and changing history. Morgan, thanks for being with us today. Glad to be here, Matthew. Thanks, Ted. Yeah. Hey, Morgan, I wonder if you could just start. Tell us maybe the vision or mission statement of faith comes by hearing. And just a little bit more about what you do for maybe listeners that don't know a lot about your your organization. All right, faith comes by hearing's purpose is to work with the church and disciple people by recording the Bible and the dramatized form in every language of the world and then engaging people and listening in the United States. We get people to do 40 lay listening programs using apps like Bible is overseas. We start listening groups because oral communities gather in community. And so we use solar panel hand crank devices like proclaimers to do that. We've been around 53 years. We worked in the United States quietly with 137,000 U.S. churches getting some six to seven million people listening scripture through churches doing 40 day listening programs or providing the audio Bible. So we're the least known best known ministry you've not heard of because we do it undercover. We also do the drama recording. So every language that wicklif or a Bible society translates we have 50 national teams around the world that go live with that missionary in the jungles for the six week to two month period. And then they take 25 voices and they do a fully dramatized recording of that word for word that comes back to us. We add music and sound effects. So we have approximately 2,000 languages. So if you're in the translation community there's nobody that doesn't know about faith comes by hearing because when you get done with the translation the vast majority of the people cannot read it. And so the primary way it's going to be used is it's going to be recorded and then it's going to be distributed. People are going to listen and as they listen then they're going to say I want to print a Bible so I can learn how to read it. We also do oral Bible translations. So we work with wicklif, illumination, seed company, pioneer Bible translations, word for the world, all the Bible societies. We spent probably about 15 million so far on a software called Render. So what we do is we take the languages we currently have and all languages would be like this gear. The center part of the language is monolingual. It only speaks 80% only speaks that language. But on the outside it's linked through trade, through education, through intermarriage, to 5, 6, 7, or 8 tribes. So there's people that have our dual or tribe mother tongue speakers. So we have recordings for about 95% of the world in their first or second language. So we put them on that software where illiterate people can be trained. I don't know if any of you have grandkids but I have grandkids. They can't read or write but they go through an iPad or an iPhone like nobody's business. So the same thing, they learn how to do it through image and color and then they hear scripture in one of the languages of understanding, wider understanding and then it's translated using all the same translation principles you would use in print. When instead of taking five years to create an orthography, learn the language and create a dictionary. In about 11 months we have a gospel of loop that's been translated. So we have right now about let's see what was the number I was looking at the other day. We have 586 languages where we have oral Bible translations and process. So in the last six years where it comes bearing has become I think the fifth largest Bible translation agency in the world and one third of all Bible translations that are being done now are being done orally and over half of all new translations started or being translated or started orally. Now we don't do all of them. Half of the translations we do we fully fund the others we support but another partner funds it and then about another half or using a different software. So we do oral Bible translation we also do film. So the Lomo films if you've ever seen them they're full-length films of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts now and then a two-hour covenant film. So because we have 2000 languages and the word for word we then use B-roll and we create word for word films that are every one of those languages. So currently we have 1700 languages where we have at least one gospel film in them. All of those are available online through our website. Faith comes by herring or our app Bible that is. So any missionary anywhere in the world can gain access and watch a film in any language of the world and then we have what we call a Bible brain. And so if you look at Gideon's Bible app you'll see that they have 1800 languages on their app and you'll go how they get 1800 languages. So we take all the intellectual property work with our Bible translation partners and they give us permission to not allow people to download it to their own servers but we have an open API it's on the Amazon cloud and so people write code they request a key we have different tools and then they can load it into their own application. So if you look at Gideon's they have a huge powerful app doesn't say anything about Faith comes by herring but all the languages that they have audio and text come from that open API that we have called the Bible brain. So that's one of the most powerful tools for missionaries if you want to create an application if you want it on your website you don't have to give any credit to us you go out get a key write it you can use one language all the languages do whatever you want with it and so we make that available as a service to the body of Christ. We have about 2,000 key users I think that gives you we start this last year we will start we started 465,000 listening programs using proclaimers on average that will disciple about 40 people per device who will gather to listen about half of those people will be new believers who come to faith in Christ. So those 465,000 40,000 of those would be with the Timothy initiative and they find that if they use an audio Bible in the video that they have 58% more people come to faith in Christ through listening or using the audio tools. Prison fellowship we work with them in 48 different countries around the world so all their prisons they call the the program listeners way so anyways that's why I was saying you're where the the most prolific lease known ministry you may have known about because we work primarily through nationals and through those networks to get scripture but when you're working with the unreached the last they're all illiterate they're all So you need to have an oral Bible or a tool We're gonna seem to me that your fruit is growing on other people's trees Yeah Yeah, well my dad has a we have one of our core values is he says faith comes bearing as a heart He said if you see somebody run a race at the end of the race They don't pull their heart out and say look at my heart. They they say look at what I did in the heart Yeah remains hidden in the body of Christ pumping blood So our objective is to pump blood and we want our partners and partners Ships to get credit for everything and we just stay hidden behind That's good So Morgan for audiences that are reliant on text. I think the concept of Oral cultures can be hard to grasp sometimes and so I wonder if you could take a moment and Bring us inside an oral community that you visited and you could share with us You're a master storyteller. I've heard many of your stories over the years But share with our audience a story of how people relate to scripture differently when they hear it in their heart language and they listen to it Well the first thing is half the world is functionally illiterate 70% live in oral cultures We became aware of the need for our alley from Wickliffe and others Bible societies Talking about when they went out and we're handing out Bibles the Bibles would come back with no pages And they would say we're the pages and people would say well, we can't read or write But you told us that man can't live by bread alone So we just tear a page out every day put it in the soup and we eat it So my first experiences would have been in West Africa, Ghana where when we recorded the first audio Bible Go to a village you meet with the chief and the elders and you say we have the Bible in your language Would you like to listen and they go? No, God only speaks English and That's what they think because all education in Africa though there's 2,500 languages is in English French Portuguese Swahili Arabic and maybe Amharic and so when you learn to read and write you can't read in your language So you just think God speaks English and so we say no no no he's we have your language Combo would you like to listen and they say Yes, so you push the button and out of it comes Comba and it's like shock God speaks our language what so the guy sends a guy with a gong on the young guy calls him It's got a piece of metal and it goes through the village And so pretty soon you come out in the center and under the mango trees is 300 people the whole village and not a single person meeting Missing you take the audio Bible out you put it in front of everybody you push the button and there's just shock as Jesus speaks their language and Initially, there's this you know people are are freaking out and then what happens is It took me about 5 years to understand it oral people cannot separate themselves from the story Their worldview is circular And so it's actually very Jewish so when they hear a story if it's in their own language They literally enter the story and it says if it was happening that to them Because you have to think Buddhist Hindu Animus their tradition is their ancestors co-exist with them So if if you Offend an ancestor to died a thousand years ago. They can bring sickness and death to you today So they don't see history the way we do. We sit in this linear Literate way of today yesterday if somebody died from a hundred years ago They can't impact it is all but for them Somebody died a thousand years ago. They're still co-existing and I find them so when they hear the story without thinking They enter it and it becomes as if Jesus Christ is speaking them to them directly and you'll hear them say things later Like Jesus said this to me. I said this to Jesus then then Jesus said this to me and then I was healed and so when I'm watching I'm all of a sudden I realized nobody's under the tree with me and I didn't understand what was happening, but they were in this story They were literally walking with Jesus and so 45 minutes later you pushed the button and you saw And you watch people coming out of this story and it's like And they're like God speaks to Tacoma. We don't need a translator to talk to God He is from among us And then people start wanting to know how do we follow this Jesus and Half the village makes a decision to come to Christ when only five Missionaries have been there 20 years five or six people to come to faith in Christ Hearing the word of God in their own language for 45 minutes and half the village says I want to follow this Jesus. How do I do that? Now Oral people think very differently We started having so many people come to faith in Christ from the listening our goal was discipleship these pastors The average pastor in in third-world countries has a sixth grade education Has never been to a single week of of any Bible school They're pastoring six seven or eight thirteen different churches. They had a King James Bible with ten-point type that they can't read and They're they're preaching out of two or three memorized scriptures That's it. So our goal was to give them a tool that could disciple the people they had in the church What we didn't realize is that nobody's had anything in their language. So the whole village will come and listen So half of the testimonies we get are about people coming to faith in Christ when they hear the Bible and their own mother tongue So I began to ask the question what story or stories caused you to come to faith in Christ and One out of three they would say oh when I heard the genealogy That's when I came to Christ And I'd be like one people groups that oh there are an unreached people group the cave A and they said more The genealogy was so powerful. We created a song out of it and we'll go to an unreached village We'll sing the genealogy and then we'll invite people to come to faith in Christ and I'm like What so I was in San Jose about 25 years ago speaking to some Christian business guys and I told just those two stories and This white business guy comes up to me mad as a hornet and he is like you I know that you think that's funny But the genealogy has no value and you need to stop that It's one black guy in the room and he was from Zimbabwe and So but he's a business guy now in the US and he jumps in to defend man He says no, no, no, no, no, he said the genealogy is my favorite part of the Bible and that business guy looked at him like he had two hits We're in San Jose so he's he's being really cautious But he's like what and the guy says you don't understand in Africa. We don't care what school you went to We don't care how wealthy you are the only right you have to speak and our community is based on your tribe your plan And who your daddy's daddy is he says I come from an important tribe in Zimbabwe He says I'm from a chiefed in clan and I am the first born of my father who's the first born of his father who's the first born of his father So whenever there's a tribal event we have to go to the tribal area and when we go The aunties of my father will teach all of the women our genealogy and song So they will come out dancing and singing our genealogy back 12 generations So by the time we get to the center of the village everybody knows our credibility and they will listen to us And it was in that moment. I went oh That's what was happening because you pushed the button and out would come Matthew one and Everybody would lean forward This is the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David the son of Abraham Let's the father of Isaac and it goes 14 generations to David and you would watch the village and it would go from Conversation to just dead quiet And so they're listening and then it goes 14 generations from David to the Babylonian exile Now the quiet nobody moves nobody twitches then it goes 14 generations to Jesus Now nobody twitches it the quiet is palpable now a virgin gives birth to a child now everybody Especially in this African context knows about Jesus because Islam it's Isa the divine birth of Christ is told five times in the Quran So when they hear this divine birth it identifies the genealogy We've never heard anybody with the genealogy his authority to speak is absolute So everybody is leaning forward to hear what's going to happen next Virgin gives birth The wise men come he confronts the devil in the wilderness he comes out. He's healing people then he stands up to preach right It can come but make a dollar a day And the first thing Jesus says is blessed are the poor and they're like no Blessed are the merciful no not blessed are the blessed are those and don't have to shut blessed are those who more no Blessed though those happy turn the other cheek love your enemies bless those and so in a 20-minute sermon Jesus literally shreds Everything believe But the problem is he has the greatest genealogy of anybody they have ever heard from and is right to speak is absolute And so And so it's the genealogy that you and I skip over and you're like, oh man, why do you start it with the list of legs? But most in oral cultures, the genealogy is, that's why Matthew was started with it. You go, oh, I come around and go, oh, that's why Matthew was started with the genealogy. Morgan, your talk is actually just bubbling in all sorts of questions in my mind. I have on my in my inbox a report that I would call an academic did on languages in Africa. And this gentleman is making the case that we're focusing too much of mission resource today on indigenous language, whether it's oral or rim. And he would say, and he did his research actually all across Africa, but in one country in particular, he would say that many of these small language groups, the people, the kids that are under, say, 14, 15 years old, are not speaking the mother tongue. Almost at all. They know some words. They've got to get by in those cultures, but that they're almost all speaking English. And he's making the argument in this paper that it's time for a shift in resources where we understand that the younger generation is overwhelmingly English-centric, not mother tongue-centric. And I'm not trying to challenge what you're saying. This is one of the voices I got coming into my museological role. I'd be curious, what's your response to that? When you hear that, what do you just, what comes to your mind? My comes to my mind is last year sitting in Argentina among a people group in the north of Argentina, the Tobacom. And the Tobacom were having the gospel preached. Somebody liked this missionologist, and they were saying, "Listen, you have now become a Christian. You are a new creation in Christ. Old things have passed away. You are no longer Tobacom. You're no longer Indian. You're Christian." And so now Spanish is your language of communication with God, because you're no longer Tobacom. Well, I don't think that's what this report is arguing. No, because part of what they're saying, the kids, as well, are starting to speak Spanish more. So we had recorded the Tobacom five years before. And so I'm sitting with one of their chiefs, and he's saying, "This is the pressure." Was our language, both from the Christianity and from the government, should go away. And we couldn't read our language, because it's tonal, Spanish doesn't have the tones. So when we got the audio Bible, it was pure Tobacom. It was written, recorded, pure Tobacom. And many of us had forgotten many of the words. So we put it on the radio. We broadcast it. We put it in the schools. And so the children who were forgetting Tobacom now listen every day to Tobacom. Read the Bible and Tobacom. And our language and the soul of our people has been restored. We were losing our soul. So the idea that English is where it should go. What we're finding is every time you record it and the mother tongue, and you pray get back to the community, yes, the children have a sense of, especially if you're in minority language, we have no importance. Our language is dirty. It's where the least I don't want to speak our language because it represents a language of poverty and of backwardness. But when they hear it in their own language, there is something about the soul that your own mother tongue has. If you want to reach them in English, it reaches here. You speak it in the mother tongue, and it reaches to the core of the heart. And so yes, if you're talking about print, you're right. You should not waste any of the money spending it on the mother tongue language, just because they can't read. If you look at Nigeria, literacy rates are 64%. But then if you ask AI to say, "But 50% of Americans can't read without glasses," so I don't see Nigerians in most of the rural areas with glasses. What percentage can read but don't have glasses, and it'll run the numbers and say 20% of that. So now you have 44%. Then you say, "But, you know, sixth grade is kind of the level of literacy for Nigeria," and they come in speaking 500 different languages. What's functional literacy? How many can read a paragraph with understanding in English? Goes through all the studies, comes back and says, "Well, 20% can't." So now you have 25%. Then you say, "But Nigerians are oral culture, and if you don't use your literacy in six years, you lose it." So what percentage of those people have lost their literacy? Because we're, oh, goes through all the studies and says, "So you have 15% of people who have lab glasses are functionally literate and have not lost their literacy." Then you ask the question, but if you want, now this guy's thing is different, but you say, "If somebody wants to read in their mother tongue anything, what percentage could do that?" And it comes back and says, "These are tonal English." One word, "La is fire, la is water, la is blood, la is to drink, la is stone." There depends on where the tonal mark is, if you will learn to read in English, impossible for you to read your language. So AI comes back and says, "It's less than 1%. So in this guy's mentality, if you're focused on a written format, absolutely 99% of your money is going to be wasted going into any language other than the language of education. But if you're going to reach people how Jesus did, 11 of his disciples we know were illiterate. So before the Sanhedrin, it's how do these people get such knowledge seeing as they are on school? Then it was all oral. It was all public hearing or scripture. From the time of the Ezra, the Word of God was heard in community publicly after the book of the law was almost lost. That up the synagogues, everybody had a pukura, they gathered, they funded the scroll. Every Sabbath, for 30 minutes, the Torah would be read publicly. You go to a synagogue today, 3500 years later, they're doing the same exact thing or 2500 years later, they're doing the same thing. They have to, and they say the Torah and the Jewish people are eternal because the Torah is eternal because we read it publicly for people to hear. So the public hearing of the scripture has been the sander. So I would just say that God says in the revelation is every tribe, nation, and people are going to be there. And yes, when we do a recording, it holds four languages. So if the kids want to learn English, if they want to hear it in English, they can hear it in English. But then the community can hear it in their own mother tongue. And they can also hear it in the trade language. So we don't say, it's only going to be in your trade language, we say, yeah, the kids are going to want to know English. That's what gives you access to business and education and how to sow your fields and health. So there's no question that that's important, but denying or not helping them retain their language is not a place we should go. Great. So Morgan, let's shift gears here just a little bit and talk about Vision 2033. And if I understand it right, the aim is to provide oral scriptures to every person on earth. That seems like an audacious goal with some significant challenges in logistics, et cetera. So what are those obstacles you're facing geopolitically or otherwise and how do you overcome them? Again, oral scriptures to everyone on earth, big goal. What's going on? Well, the main way you overcome them is partnership. The amazing thing is the church seems to find its way in every country, every place, somehow. And so our first priority is to serve the church and the church planters. The goal to record scripture, first of all, the Bible translation, illuminations, every tribe, every nation, have set it as a goal to see scripture in every language by 2033. And that's why we set our goal with theirs. We were not, we didn't have vision 2033 and they came along, illuminations sent us their objective to see scripture, not translated every language by 2150, by 2033 2000 years after the death of Christ. We reviewed it and said, if you can translate it, we can set up our structure to record it. And then we'll make it digitally available. So you version has all of our audio and text is in their system, all the videos that we do are in their system. So we'll partner with everybody that's doing digital, but then we'll also provide the proclaimers so that in the villages, because about 30% of the world has no electricity. So doesn't matter if you have this, you can't charge it. And so that's where the solar panel self-charging proclaimers have. So that was the first step. The second step was they then invited us to use our audios to help them do oral Bible translation. For the first six years, we were just providing the software, we spent about $15 million creating the software, developing with them, so it's a translation software. But then about seven years ago, they said, you guys have the same network we have. I don't you Because we don't do the translation, we do the training, we do the systems upset, we get the IPs, we give it to them, they do the translation, we do all the back office, the tens of thousands of files, sort of coming back and forth, you know, they're, and the Philippines up on the mountain doing the translation, when they get it done, they put the file on a phone, they put it the phone in the leather pocket, they run it up to the top of a tree, this 75-bit call gets it, goes down to the market village, you know, two weeks away, that has internet comes to us, we added it, comes back to the tree, comes back to the phone, and then they have that on their file. So when we started doing that, that then shifted, because our culture allows us to move fast, we pay, and so now, instead of 20, 30, we're now looking, our 2150, oral, oral has moved it to where the projections is 20, 39, now they're projecting, and because oral is rapidly in our AI, the AI models we're using right now, which some of we're releasing in the next three months are dramatically changing that. So that AI coming in, interestingly enough, Meta helped us about 3 and 1/2 years ago, the borrowed stole took the 1200 of our languages that were on Bible, I will read the website. Somebody said, "Did you know that Meta has gone from being able to do translation text to audio to audio in 100 languages, 1200?" We said no, and they said, "And they credit you guys with their ability to do that." We went, "So what they did is they scraped it off our sites, and because the Bible is the only thing that's verse by verse connected, and we have dramas, we have multiple voices, and you have 24 hours of recording, they were able to use that to create 1200." But now that that basis is out there, the funny thing is, is all the large language models of the majority of them are based on the Bible, so they have to actually apologize to people sometimes, because the large language models answers they give them come from a biblical and a scriptural and a spiritual standpoint. We should be thanking them, not apologizing. And so we went after them, all of our text told us, "What did you do?" We said, "We did do it." But the government is said, "We're not going to legislate until we've allowed the creativity, otherwise, trying to rush out all the other places will sweep everything, and our people can't touch anything because they have to get a agreement on everything." So they've given them the ability to sweep everything. Morgan, can I ask a question on this? So you've got some language out there, small people group, never been written down, etc. How long does it take to train an LLM on that language so that it has enough vocabulary to do a Bible and oral Bible? Well, we're working on that right now. It looks like months, right now we've been doing it over a period of a year or more, but we're trying to say, "We get looped on in 11 months, but if we do portions of acts, the combination of those to give us enough." And so, of course, you understand AI and large language models. So as you're putting it in, what we did before is they would have to do all the translation. Now what we do is we take that audio in, and we then have it, initially, we've been having it translated back into a text. Initially, we didn't care whether it was just zeros and ones, just so that AI could read it. But because of the LLM, the languages that they're using to do translation from, it's already based there. So we just say whatever the Romanized Latin script is, if it's a script, that script used that script. And so it converts it. We give it back to them to say how close is it. They adjust it. And then once we get it in, each time we get it in, we then create what we would call drafts. So when you do the next book, let's say you have Luke and Acts, and now you give them Matthew, it's a draft. But now instead of them having to do all of the translation, they're just reviewing it to say what words were wrong, and we're in grainy AI into the software so that if they make a mistake, before you'd have to re-record the whole thing, now you just identify the word, you re-record the word, and it automatically with AI pulls that word in. So it's speeding up that process. Now it doesn't speed up the total process of translation, totally, because you have to remember, the last language groups are almost all unreach. So just translating something and then delivering it to the people, even if you could in two weeks, would have no value. So part of the translation process of one chapter at a time, bringing out into the community to have community check. So like the Sangha people in Zambia, 120,000 people, 13 chieftains. So when they're doing the translation, every two weeks of translation of translation, a gospel of Luke chapter is done. When it's done, it goes into the market village, the 13 chieftains send a representative, they all listen to the next chapter, they review it, they argue, that's a barred word, you need to change it. I understand that they go back over the text that they've had before, or audio they've had before. And after spending a day, they walk back to their village, sometimes two days, sometimes hours, and when they get there, who's waiting for them? The whole village. Because they want to know what did Jesus do next? What's his genealogy? Who did he heal? What happened? And so as they do that over that year period, the gospel then is seeping in, book by book, chapter by chapter into the community until there's this now we want it all. And so at that point is when now you can start creating the drafts, they can review them and get, but they still have to take it into the community checks, and that still pushes in and pulls in. So I'm thinking right now, the first oral Bible translation we did took us six years. I'm thinking that we're going to be looking at about three years. Where do we translate it? Will we translate it in a year? Year and a half, yes. But should it be done in a year and a half? Probably not. You probably need that three years. But then what happens is instead of having just a new testament, we can create a draft for you of the whole Bible. It's not a translation done, can't be done until the teams have reviewed it. It's been community check, consultant check, all of those things. But we're also creating AI consultant check models, you know, that are going to change all of those dynamics. So everything, but everything is built on the partnerships. The only reason we can do what we're doing right now is because Wickliffe and Bible societies have given their lives, have sold in, had spent 30, 40 years translating Bibles, could never have done what we do today then. But because of what they did in the sacrifices they make, we now have the language mass, their scripture available for 96% of the world's speakers in their mother tongue. Some scriptures available. Now the last, the last 4% represents about 4,000 languages. I just saw one we just released today was 100 speakers of that language. And see, that's the thing that for us, Jesus said, 99 sheet, I had one of my business people and he just said, what you're doing is ridiculous. What represents the languages you have? I said 95% of the people of the world represent the 2700 language. He said, why do you work on the last 4,000? Don't do that. Spend your time, send your money, don't spend it. And I'm like, I agree with you. It's just that Jesus went across the sea to get to the gatherings for one demon possessed and saying naked guy. And then he tells this story about a hundred sheep and one sheep is lost. And he says, and I said, so it doesn't make any economic sense. None. But if there's 10 or 20, and I don't care that they're 50, 60, or 70 year olds, that only speak monolingual their language. And we can translate it for them. Yeah. We're going to do it so that when we get to heaven, that language, that people are represented around the throne. You know, Morgan, reaching the unreach in general is a complicated process. And if we're looking for expediency and instantaneous ROI, all those things, we're not going to be satisfied. You know, we have to have a long vision. We have to have a long view of partnership. And so I appreciate what you're saying there. You know, it's building on this partnership idea. I just want to just share a brief story that represents partnership with faith comes by hearing. So I coached to church years ago. They developed a portfolio of opportunities. One of those focus areas was a Bibleist people group in Guatemala, they had partnered with Wickliffe to complete the translation and from there they partnered with faith comes by hearing they launched a what they called a one-verse campaign I think seed company popularized this idea but they used the concept with faith comes by hearing and they said here's the total cost of the recording of the dramatized new testament in the heart language of this people group and so it was like six dollars to record a verse was the total amount they expected to raise that money in three or four months it came in two weeks the whole church rally they're breaking I mean kids are breaking open piggy banks literally the stories were remarkable and I think they raised three times the amount and I was there on a Sunday and the pastor said stop giving you know it was it was David in the construction of the temple we have more than enough they took the excess they paid for proclaimers but here's what I thought was interesting about the relationship the pastor said you know we're investing a lot of time and resources and in this partnership with faith comes by hearing to bring the word of God into the heart language orally of this people group and he said it would be kind of ironic if we were doing that and we were not feasting on the word of God ourselves and so they used the opportunity of bringing the oral scriptures to their people group that they'd engaged to encourage the congregation to listen you mentioned these 40 days I don't know if that existed at the time but there was this new wave of people in the congregation that were listening the scriptures in English as they were recording the dramatized New Testament you know as you were recording it I'm on their behalf so it would a beautiful picture of partnership and it just elevated the importance of the word in people's lives yeah church is churches the pray and give and join and take a language there what a joy and and we have we need churches to help us with the oral Bible translation we have a donor cost about 70,000 a year and so we have a donor that matches half of that so you get looped on but his main thing is he said I can't pray for everybody but if you have a church that's God of people group of a thousand two thousand ten thousand these these are in the toughest areas are on the seven thousand fifty first island of Indonesia you know they're in in in restricted access countries where you know foreigners are not welcome and so it's national to national but nobody's heard the name of Jesus and so there's the demons that rule those areas that rule them for centuries and they're they're not giving up easy and so you need people that are praying and not just giving but praying and thinking now going almost nobody can go to these areas and that's and sometimes when people say I want to go you go you'll get all the Christians that are there killed the minute you show up your white body or your outside foreign body Hispanic body Asian body whatever it's foreign and it's going to draw attention and so there's a time and place where only the only people that can reach those people are nationals and we have to stand back support them give and pray and and not have the the great joy of actually going and seeing and just sometimes it's not going to be possible well well how could people who learn more if they're listening they want a little bit more what's the best way to find out more the best way is to go to faith comes we're hearing we have huge amounts of video on it we have a program we call edge of the world so we've got about 12 videos where we take you around the world with the group of young guys and you can go into the the bush of Nigeria you can you can actually see a listening group see an oral Bible but if you come to our website you can also get access to the app you can listen you can see the videos of the audio Bible so you can yourself can download an app and start listening to scripture in community with your your family so that would be the best way faith comes by hearing dot com everybody Romans 10 17 right faith comes by hearing hearing by the word of God so if you forget it just look up Romans 10 17 you'll find it there so awesome so our guests today's been Morgan Jackson Morgan thank you so much for sharing your stories in your heart and what's happening this area it's pretty miraculous thank you thank you Ted thank you Matthew explore it in your day now enjoy this morning thank you before you go be sure to like share and subscribe so you don't miss the next episode the mission matters podcast is a partnership of 1615 and missio nexus check out 1615.org and missio nexus.org for more resources on the mission of God and the matters of the mission the mission matters podcast is hosted by Matthew Ellison president of 1615 and Ted Esler president of missio nexus