Christ The Redeemer Was The Unexpected Star Of The World Cup Final

By Jorge

During this month’s Football Word Cup, besides the excitement and the drama we watched or heard about,  we were also  reminded of some of the parallels we can drawn between soccer, or football, and the spreading of the Gospel… surprised? Well, it was in Mozambique, crossing the bush last year that I thought of this. We stopped the car at a village and we started to play around with a ball. Soon,  many of the children in the village came to play too. That was easy. Well, promoting football is not hard. Just bring the ball. Now, should we not promote our club (say Manchester United or Barcelona)? Well, Club-ism or national-ism, as in the case of a World Cup, is really more a hindrance than a help in promoting a sport. In fact, ultimately it may bring more division and strife than real healthy interaction.  One should promote the sport and the joy that it brings to the people.  To play rather than to watch – the benefits are contrasting. Should we practice Christianity or just sit and watch?  With Wordproject we promote the sport (Christianity) and we bring the ball (the Bible?), and we let people have fun, rather than promoting our club (denomination), and gathering membership. We focus on the ‘practice of the sport’, so to speak…. Practicing Christianity, reading the Word – that is what brings real benefits to the people. This comparison might not apply in all its facets but we did get it when we passed through the bush of Northern Mozambique.

See it here:

“In fact, Mao may have done Christianity in China the greatest possible favor. By cutting it off from foreign mission support and funding, and by removing all material incentive for joining the church, he in effect created an authentic, naturalized faith that is legitimately Chinese. ” W. Russel.

Back in 2004 we were there to experience exactly that: We were amazed to see a student’s Christian meeting  run exclusively by the young students, with no theological credentials but a sincere and heartfelt desire to praise, pray and honor the Lord Jesus. We were impressed with the spontaneous joy and contagious smiles in the faces of these young people who – in spite of the obvious adversities and the physical limitations,  organize and keep this service alive to reach out to other students in their school. An indigenous church appointed by no other but the Holy Spirit of God [Acts 1:8]. Then, reminded by the sight of the cross high on the wall, we came to understand the reason for it all, now as throughout the ages: “And I, (Jesus said) if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me” [John 12:32]

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We are supplying the tools to Christians in all the world to share the Gospel . Thousands of Bibles are being downloaded from our site and shared all across the continents. Here in Africa we are re-evaluating our strategies as most  people have mobile phones but only a few can afford the internet. We are working on file sharing systems and closed wifi hotspots as solution or alternative to downloading the Bible online.  Together with Konstantin, our Android app developer, we have been working on an app that we can use and pass on offline, without access to the Internet. Our main goal this month has been to make the chapters play the audio continuously, that is, one chapter change automatically to the next, so that the app can be used as an audio player. This goal has been accomplished but there are now the adjustment to be made in all the 36 languages offered in the App. Appreciate your prayers for this. [click thumbnail to enlarge image]

This month we were particularly intrigued with the peak of online traffic coming from Hong Kong. All of a sudden, for a few days, up to 30% of our traffic was coming from there. Certainly we were impressed with the interest of Hong Kong people in the Holy Bible, as that is the only thing they can get from our pages. Looking at the end of the month stats we realize that thousand of audio Bibles and text Bibles were downloaded from there. Coincidently the traffic from Macau also increased. Besides those two territories, this month we recorded increases in traffic from almost everywhere in the world, with incidence on Australia, Tanzania, South Africa and India. PTL.

Web site analytics – 150 is the number of users at the moment

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