Dear PAMI friends,

Romans 10:17 says that “faith comes by hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.”

I am excited to share with you about my February 17-19 trip to Faith Comes By Hearing’s headquarters in Albuquerque, and the partnership between them and PAMI to do a pilot End to End (E2E) program in our area of the Philippines.  I really appreciated how FCBH invited me and paid my way to visit, so I could learn more about them and the E2E equipment that they will be supplying.

I was very impressed with the organization and the people of FCBH.  The organization was initially called Hosanna and started in the early 1970s by Jerry and Annette Jackson to produce audio cassettes of the Bible.  As technology advanced, they moved into the digital media of CDs, microchips, MP3s, and the internet.  Jerry and Annette are still leading the organization, along with three of their sons.  What a pleasant surprise it was to be hosted by the Jacksons in a guestroom at their humble home called Beulah, which means “married to God.”  Jerry even cooked breakfast for me himself.

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The headquarters of FCBH has about 120 workers, and it was great to see them all roll their chairs into the main lobby for a half hour morning meeting each day.  That’s where I got to hear email testimonies, new employee introductions, trip reports, and updates about how they’re providing audio New Testaments with Haiti relief and to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.   Through a tour and talking with people, I learned how FCBH takes written Bible translations provided by Wycliffe and Bible Societies, and converts them to scripts, sends these scripts to the field to be recorded by native speakers, then brings them back for editing and mixing with sound effects and background music, and then downloads the recordings onto microchips in Proclaimers, mini-Proclaimers, and MP3 player Bible Sticks.  They also post all these recordings on their website, where they can be downloaded for free.  They’ve made over 400 recordings of the New Testament to date.  They recorded about 90 languages last year, have plans to record about 200 languages this year, and hope to have more than 2000 languages recorded by 2016.

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FCBH explained how they concentrate first on recording languages spoken by larger people groups.  For instance, there are 8 major languages spoken in the Philippines.  Of these 8, six are now recorded now that Bicolano was just completed.  Samerino (also called Waray-Waray, which means “nothing-nothing”) is scheduled to be recorded this year.  Bicolano and Samerino both represent people groups of about 2.5 million each.  Bicolano is the dialect spoken in the Bicol region of southern Luzon Island, which is where our mission is located.  And Samerino is right to the south of us, where we hope to spread into.  Although Tagalog is the Filipino national language, not everyone speaks it (especially older people or those in remote areas).  It’s always more effective to reach out to people with their local dialect (mother tongue).

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Note that some PAMI people were involved in the recording of the FCBH Bicolano New Testament last May and June.  Our field director, Pastor Chito, was the narrator for Luke and Acts.  Now that this Bicolano New Testament has been edited and mixed, it is ready to be released, and our people are excited to start using it.  They are also excited that it will be part of the pilot E2E program.

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We praise God that FCBH chose PAMI to be the first place to try E2E in all of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands.  With E2E, FCBH will supply PAMI with a portable Acclaimer system for doing “Jesus” film showings, a Proclaimer audio New Testament device for each film showing, and 15 Bibles for each Proclaimer.  Jim Gleason, FCBH manager for Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, plans to bring this Acclaimer and the first 25 Proclaimers to Emmaus Bible Institute on the second week in May, and provide our people with training.

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The goal is to do 150 “Jesus” film showings in 3 years (i.e. about one per week).  After each one, a Proclaimer will be left with the local pastor or lay leader to do weekly follow-up listening groups (i.e. Bible studies) with those who respond to the film showing.  It is hoped that each film showing will result in about 4 follow-up listening groups that meet at least once per week in homes on an on-going basis.  Eventually Bibles will be provided to members of these listening groups.  So after 3 years, it’s hoped that 150 Proclaimers and 2250 Bibles will be distributed, which will be used in 600 weekly listening group Bible studies.  Hopefully this will also lead to new churches starting up.

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Conducting this many film showings and listening group Bible studies is a very ambitious goal that will not only involve all PAMI workers, but other Christian missions and churches as well.  The point is not to just grow PAMI, but the whole Body of Christ.  A program like this can have a big unifying influence in the community of local churches.  PAMI is well suited to facilitate this because so many of our Bible school graduates go to work for other Christian missions and churches.  I’m sure we’ll be involving many of these EBI alumni.

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While FCBH provides the equipment and the Philippine Bible Society provides the Bibles, PAMI is to provide manpower, coordination, and feedback.  We’ll need to have a couple designated workers to administer the E2E program.  They’ll need to contact various pastors or lay leaders to set up a schedule of film showings, transport the Acclaimer and conduct film showings with it, distribute Proclaimers and Bibles, and report the results.  In turn, it was mentioned in the Jan. 2010 PAMI Bulletin (attached to a Feb 5th PAMI email) that we desire to add two workers (Lorenzo Fugen and Isomel Espinar) that will be graduating from EBI on March 23.  Although no one has yet offered to cover the $65-100 per month allowance needed for each of these young men, the PAMI board took a step of faith to accept their applications and trust that enough funds will come in to cover this budget increase.  It’s an opportunity too good to pass up, especially since we’ll end up with about $20,000 of resources that can lead to thousands of people coming to the Lord.  Please consider helping with the modest $65-100 per month needed to sponsor a fulltime single Filipino pastor.

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Looking forward to the expansion of God’s kingdom through people hearing God’s Word,

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Mike Thorud 3-5-10

volunteer PAMI president