FAITH COMES BY HEARING FAMILY
Thank you for faithfully praying for the health, safety, and protection of our ministry’s leadership, employees and their families, and hundreds of partners in the field worldwide.
Praise God for providing the qualified people at the right time. We have hired 27 new employees so far this year, which included 5 temporary staff. Please continue to pray for all of the new and transitional employees as they learn their responsibilities and gain knowledge of the ministry. We currently have 4 open positions. Please pray that the Lord provides the right people to join us in these roles.
MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICA/EURASIA
- Please continue to pray for breakthroughs in importing Audio Bibles.
- Gospel Films are still very popular, and the next few months may prove to be critical in getting them used. Please pray for skillful and wise implementation.
- Pray for a major meeting in December in Central Asia to discuss opportunities for Audio Bibles.
- Pray for interviews with candidates within the next few weeks for the position of partnership facilitator for the Middle East.
- Praise God for positive meetings in Moldova and the first-ever Bible listening programs being established.
AMERICAS
Brazil: Pray for an upcoming indigenous pastors and leaders conference—that our partners would see clearly how to work together. Pray for new teams.
Haiti:
- Praise God! New partnerships are forming, and creative programs are in the works.
- The situation is dire, and people continue to flee Haiti seeking a better life elsewhere. Pray for the refugees to find a place and community to call home.
- Pray for the listening groups and watching groups being formed in different countries to give Haitians hope and meaning to their lives.
- Pray for Bible engagement to bring people to Jesus.
Ecuador:
- Recent instability in the government has led the current administration to move out of the capital, Quito. Pray for more listening groups to be formed not only in the rural areas but also in the cities.
- Pray for the transforming power of the Gospel through Bible engagement to bring unity to the Church and hope to the people.
Mexico:
- Pray for the many remaining languages of Mexico that still need a translation.
- Pray for the work of the Oral Bible Translation team among the Pame language group in San Luis Potosi. Pray for the project to progress in a timely manner. Pray for the biblical portions already finished, that they would be well-used in listening programs.
PACIFIC/OCEANIA
Indonesia:
- Pray for ethnic tensions that are flaring up in the Papuan province to calm and for peace to prevail.
- Pray for listening programs to increase and lives to be changed in the 80 languages that have Scripture recordings.
- Praise God! New people have transitioned into leadership in Faith Comes By Hearing Indonesia and the vision for seeing lives impacted by the audio Scriptures is increasing. Pray for God’s clear guidance as the managers interview candidates for a new recording team.
- Praise God! Faith Comes By Hearing is on track to complete 12 New Testament recordings in Indonesia this year.
Papua New Guinea:
- Pray for God to give Faith Comes By Hearing like-minded partners who will receive Audio Bible shipments and process them through Customs so we don’t need to depend upon hand-carrying devices.
- Pray for new partnerships that will increase our capacity for listening programs.
- Praise God! We’ve received multiple testimonies from people who have listened to the audio Scriptures and seen the Gospel Film in various communities. Lives are being changed by God’s grace.
Pacific:
- Pray for the success of a partnership forming between YWAM Perth and two major translation organizations in Australia targeting Aboriginal languages for oral Bible translation work.
- Praise God! The Kwara’ae community in Solomon Islands recently dedicated their audio Scriptures, and they will be implementing listening groups in the coming days.
AFRICA
Pray for clarity of mind throughout the department, wisdom to complete the tasks before them, and discernment for the recording teams and partners currently working in the field right now.
Mozambique/Angola/Guinea Bissau/Cape Verde: Pray for more partners and leaders in Scripture engagement in Portuguese-speaking Africa.
ASIA
Malaysia: Pray for God’s protection and good health for our national and regional coordinators who are training and starting new listening programs.
Vietnam: Pray for the new partnerships we will be starting with some of the largest church organizations there.
Cambodia: Pray that the pastors/church planters we will be training in listening groups will catch the vision and run with it.
Taiwan:
- Praise God for good partnerships with major translation agencies. We will be recording another language this year, with a few more the next couple of years. There is also interest in oral Bible translation.
- Pray for the new partner recording teams being set up and also for the distribution of programs as we will be approaching churches and organizations there through introduction by friends.
Thailand: Pray for a church/organization who will be willing to partner with us to receive and temporarily store our shipments for Thailand and a neighboring country.
Myanmar: Work is plentiful in renewing old partnerships and starting new ones. Please pray for God’s direction and mighty movement here.
Pray for those who are beginning new listening programs in South Asia—that they will be able to follow the established criteria and see growth. Pray for the seekers to see Jesus not just as a social reformer but as their Savior.
Pray for the meetings planned between Faith Comes By Hearing and various Nepalese leaders this quarter.
India:
- Pray for new partnerships that are forming with Scripture Union.
- Praise God for Grace Ministries’ Telugu mobile app. We hope to launch the Telugu audio Scripture this quarter in the app.
- Praise God for the launch of the full Bengali Bible and the New Testament mobile app (text and audio). Now pastors across Kolkata can engage with the Bible on their phones.
- Pray that Gospel Films would be able to be produced and provided in many different languages here.
Nepal:
- There are many restrictions on Christians; pray for the country as a whole.
- Pray for the translation of 10 small tribal languages that our partners are working on. These languages are mainly spoken in the remote eastern districts of Nepal where there are very few Christians.
Sri Lanka:
- Pray for a breakthrough in text agreements in the coming year as we build a relationship with Tamil church leaders.
- Praise God for a wonderful opening with a new ministry partner, National Christian Evangelical Alliance.
CHURCH DEVELOPMENT
Praise God! Recently, churches have been given the opportunity to provide Military BibleSticks to veterans and military personnel in their own congregations. The church has embraced this with great enthusiasm!
Praise God! A chaplain at a Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital in Mississippi ordered 1,500 Military BibleSticks to implement in various programs for recovery in the VA. Some of the programs include a blind rehabilitation program, mental health program, and a post-traumatic stress program. Pray that unreached veterans and active-duty service members would hear and receive the Word of God and that God would draw them to Himself.
ORAL BIBLE TRANSLATION (OBT)
- Pray for the continued development of the Render software.
- Pray for more translation consultants to be available to serve on OBT projects.
- Pray for God to sustain the OBT teams and for the oral Scripture translations that are being used in communities.
- Pray for unity in partnerships to work together to get God’s Word everywhere.
LANGUAGE RECORDING
- Thank you for your prayers for the new recording partnerships formed in Southeast Asia and South Asia. A total of four teams were trained and equipped; continue to pray for these new teams as they put into practice the new skills they have learned. Pray also for their spiritual, emotional and physical strength to overcome challenges of all kinds as they continue in this ministry with Faith Comes By Hearing.
- Praise God for the sensitive project successfully completed in southern Africa for a language community in the Middle East. Despite numerous obstacles, including the difficulty in obtaining travel visas, a small, dedicated group of readers and technicians managed to record the full New Testament, which is currently being distributed together with the newly published print Bible. Pray for this “K” community to respond positively to the Gospel message, and for protection of the readers who willingly put themselves at risk of discovery by participating in this project.
- Please continue to pray for the diligent work of our translation partners, recording teams (now numbering 50), and studio workers who make Scripture available for those who need to know that God speaks their language.
