‘…Because they have no changes therefore they fear not God’. Psalms 55:19
The month of September was marked by our move across the border. It was not a long distance move, however it is significant to our work. As far as being practical, in terms of producing, ordering, shipping Audio Bibles, and many other aspects, it works great! All our production contacts are located here. The companies are extremely efficient and get things done without much hassle and bureaucracy. Also, it is a better place for us to focus on language study: we continue with our home study but refocus again on Chinese language. We thank God for this open door, that is, the opportunity to live and work here once again.
As to be expected, many things are different here, mostly for better. There are setbacks though: the internet being one of them. Google, Youtube and other international online services do not work here, although there are ways to get around that filter. Thankfully, all our sites are visible and access to all our servers, including Amazon, is not filtered, thus we have no major problems along that line.
No matter where we are, there is a great calling for every Christian in this world – besides our personal battles, our family, our work, we have the world around us: the conflicts that pop up everywhere, the natural and sometimes not natural disasters, the trends and fads that change minds and behavior – seldom for better and, now-a-days, the changes and concerns about the environment. For all this and much more we have to keep in prayer!
In local news, in recent days we have been having surrounded by the great celebrations of the 70 years of the PRC, that is, modern China, and we watched some amazing displays on TV.
https://www.koreus.com/embed/20000-choregraphes-nouvel-an-chinois-2019
It is amazing to us how disciplined and uniformed the Chinese people can become in occasions like this.
Not least, we also celebrated the Chinese Mid Autumn Festival a. k. a. Moon Festival, on the 15th moon day of the 8th Chinese Lunar month, based on the Chinese lunar calendar. This festival has a long story, but in summary, people are usually happy and celebrate it enthusiastically. We were able to go outside on Sept. 13, near the seaside, and enjoy the children, the lanterns, the moon and the moon-cakes!
We worked hard on several WP fronts: 1. We have been contacted by a person in the Middle East, more precisely Cyprus, who offer us the use of the Hebrew Audio Bible. She has contacted and obtain permission from regional Bible Societies for us to use it on our site for non-profit, mission purposes. Also, she supplied us with a public domain version of the New Testament audio in Hungarian. Both of these are now available on our site.
2. Gloria, and Jason have worked on the Chinese text and audio synchronization aiming to prepare the upcoming APP, while Anit and his brother Ajay, from India, have been working on the Hindi. We are getting there.
3. We made a breakthrough contact with a Pastor in Pakistan, who requested to supply him with Urdu audio Bibles for his congregation, which includes several people who cannot read. We have prepared a special home-made edition of our SR600 in Urdu (we changed the audio language through our own computers) and sent a package of 50 audio Bibles that should be arriving there as we write this. Praying for these to go through customs of this majority Muslim country without any problems for the brothers there.
We always receive many emails and comments on our site and Apps every month. This month we chose this as our favorite:
‘Went through other audio Bible apps.. Came back to this with a much healthier appreciation of this app! Thanks for providing the audio word of God, without distractions, and easy presentation.’ RT
The home front is mainly back to school. Besides the home-schooling here, we have Gloria reporting very interesting and sometimes gory details of her course at medical school in Lisbon. The grandchildren are now starting to attend their first kindergarten and it is a new day. One more thing to pray for.
A little thing is a little thing but sometimes they mean a lot. Raj, our faithful brother in Christ, is a specialist in preparing Indian tea, which we love very much. Here he is serving us his specialty.
