By Donna

After His resurrection, Jesus helped his disciples to understand the scriptures by telling them “Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations.. (Luke 24:46,47) Paul states: “For since by  man came death, by  man  came also the resurrection of the dead.  For  as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15: 21-22!)  Job summed it up by stating, “As for me, I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; (19:21)  “The resurrection of Jesus  changes the face of death for all His people. Death is no longer a prison, but a passage into God’s presence.      Easter says you can put truth in a grave, but it won’t stay there” (Clarence W. Hall)

Easter: But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
https://www.wordproject.org/bibles/kj/45/5.htm#8

by Donna

Spring is in the air and we are so happy that the temperatures have risen and the leaves are back on the trees! One can sense the feeling of rebirth in the atmosphere!  Hallelujah!
During the month of March we have been making inroads in establishing new relationships on this side of the border. It does take time and effort as most people are extremely busy and life just gets in the way, added to the fact that we are studying Chinese again. a project that goes to infinity and beyond!!! However, we are meeting new brethren in the area and interacting with the neighbors.  Gloria has begun  using her music talent by teaching piano lessons to a few students from a nearby school.  Jason was able to participate in a friendly football tournament organized by a  missionary friend. In short, we are integrating into the local community.
We have been returning to Macau every other weekend to have sweet fellowship with the family there. It is a great time of elongated discussions over recent issues, fellowship in the Lord and prayer for one another. Ben and dad have been blessed with beautiful new guitars this past month and are making good use of them. Jason is also very keen on improving his skills and helps out with Sunday morning worship songs.  O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. Psalms 95: 1-2 .
In Macau, Joana took her graduating photo shoot with the  class of 2017. She is more determined than ever to finish all the classes, make good on her projects and graduate by the end of the year! Go for it Joana!!
Our very happiest wishes, to Julie Soares who celebrated her birthday this month! Philip and Julie keep us up to date with their life in Seattle as we watch them all grow cuter every day via pics and skype! We love them so much and are looking forward to the time when we can be all together again! God is good- all the time!

Julie with Zac

March: assorted photos

This past month we worked on improving the Portuguese audio on the Verse Selection. Using our improvised home studio – a wardrobe – we managed to re-record and improve the audio quality in the verses section: see sample here https://www.wordproject.org/bibles/verses/portuguese/19_creation_evolution.htm

Our recording ‘studio’ – yes it is a wardrobe.

Also, along other audio recording initiatives, we received Eddy, from Hong Kong, who is now equipped to start the recordings of the Cantonese audio Bible. We have been wrestling with some delays but finally it seems that it is starting to move in the right direction.

Consulting with Eddy and planning for audio recordings

From India, our friend Anil has sent the recordings of 3 books in Punjabi, Matthew, Mark and John. This is a very good effort to update the Punjabi Bible and we are thankful for those who have the vision to use their talents and skills  to help broadcast the Word of God in their own language. Raj is also working on the Tamil audio.

The android and IOS applications are a great blessing to many and we are thankful for the developers, Konstantin,  in Greece, and Hison, in Korea, who continue to give us assistance and invest their talent in improving this wonderful tool for sharing the Word with millions all over the world, through Mobile devices. One of those users, from France, sent this reaction to our Bible App:

Superbe ! Superbe ! Superbe ! Fantastique !!!  Dieu vous bénisse d’avantage !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  J’ai pu enfin télécharger complètement l’application et elle est << Wouhaouu (Incroyable je veux dire)>>.  Le souci que j’avais était du au fait que le réseau auquel mon téléphone était connecté n’était pas fixe (il balançait entre la 3G et la 4G MTN); mais après avoir fixé la connexion de mon portable uniquement en 3G, j’ai pu enfin … Trouver mon bonheur …

Auto-translated from French :

Superb! Superb! Superb! Fantastic !!! God bless you benefit !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was finally able to completely download the application and is Wouhaouu << (Unbelievable I mean) >>. The concern I had was due to the fact that the network was connected my phone was not fixed (it swung between 3G and 4G MTN); but after fixing the connecting my laptop only on 3G, I could finally … Find My happiness …

**

Thank God for enthusiastic users, who spare no words of appreciation for something that, indeed, we should all be very excited about.

Adjusting audio recording at Raj’s

Just at the closing of this month’s activities we received the surprise visit of Ling, a sister now based in Ningbo, who took the time between flights to come and visit with us. It has been many years, but we still remember the time when we first shared the message of Christ with her up on the mountains of Yunan. She is now active with her house church ministry and we were blessed to share a short but meaningful time with her. I Cor 3:6.

Donna with Ling at our home in ZH.

We have been exploring and experiencing on how to make our outreach in China more effective. We have made some adjustments to the reality of the Chinese internet – things do not work here the way they work everywhere else. For example, you cannot download apps from Google App Store because there is no direct access due to the so called greatwall filtering. Thus, we are offering a loophole in our site… you may download te APK file, the file that installs the APP, straight from our servers. Coincidence or not, this month traffic from China has surpassed any other country, with 22%. See below.

Get it (the APP) in China

22 % from China, 12% from India, 10% USA : Wordproject traffic in March.