This month it was back to school we went! Jason began his full time curriculum, ranging from geometry to health to Portuguese. Jason also  sat the HSK Chinese exam and we are awaiting the results. Joana, Ben and Gloria are off to uni to study their respective curriculum.

The great news was delivered this month that Emanuel and Mandy are expecting their second child!  We are so excited about this and are praying for the health of both mommy and baby! (And daddy too, of course!)

We are now in preparation mode for the upcoming wedding in October of Gui and Joana. It actually takes quite a bit of planning, we realize, and still have a lot of work to do. Time flies, and all will be done in His perfect time.  He is never too early and never too late. All is well.

Expired Image!

Jason trimming up next door tree badly hit by typhoon.

2 more Audio Bible packages for Africa

This month of September we sent two more packages of Audio Bibles to Africa. These were sent to Isaac, Mwiti in Nairobi and Pamela in Mombasa, who were given 25 Swahili/English Audio Bibles, each. Another package is being prepared with French, destined for Congo.

This is a limited outreach aimed to bless some of our friends in Africa, as the devices are costy both to produce and to ship. Our broader outreach to Africa is now through the website, which is accessed by thousands everywhere, at negligible cost. Tanzania, for example, is one of the countries where we have more traffic, but Kenya and Ethiopia are noticible in our stats

Live stats for wordproject. Morning readings.

Live stats. Afternoon ready

Our apps for Android and Apple are also a very economic way of supplying the Word to the world. Here is the installs count for oiy main App:

Total English WP APP installs as of September 2017

We love to hear what people have to say concerning our work. It is very rewarding to hear suggestions, questions and propositions,  and even reports about errors we receive from the different fields around the world. This past month of September, the following were the most relevant emails we received:

This is M. From Addis Ababa-Ethiopia. We have. Outreach program to refugees in Tierkidi camp of Gambella-Ethiopian to reach those who came from sour Sudan because of the  war in their country. So can you send us Bibles? I just Would like to hear from you. May God bless you. M.

**

I am in Tanzania Dar es salaam. I was asking if there is ambassador in my country so as to make easy to contact with. SG

**

Dear Word Project,    We are involving in translation of a language called Jaunsari! Some of the NT books had consultant checked and ready for publication. We would like to add Jaunsari language also into the Word Project online files. How can we involve with you? In Him. For the J. Translation team. M.J.

**

Thank you for your work.  I have downloaded the English KJV Bible and have started listening to the New Testament. There is a problem with Matthew 28; it is missing the first four verses. RL (solved)

**

Hello, i want to ask about the Audio Bible in Spanish, i have been listening to that, and i like it, i want to ask, the version of that bible, and who is the storyteller, what is his name, i was trying to find the same audiobible in other Christian portals and i cant find it, i need to know the name of the storyteller, bible version and, if it was made by a biblical society if you can tell me the name of that society too, thanks, God Bless you.- IR

**

Thank ye for the setting of this page because it helps us to read and know what bible says in every place in which we are. DS – India

**

I hope this message finds you in good health and busy in your great work.  ELMI is an interdenominational Christian congregation and works in Malaysia, Pakistan, and Nepal and with Urdu speaking communities in the cyber space. There are about 3.4 million internet users in Pakistan only Everlasting Life Mission Pakistan felt dire need of reaching the people and launched an online project to reach the Muslims and other Urdu speaking communities for Evangelism to win them for Christ. We have started our project entitled” http://www.talashehaq.com (Seek the Truth) and it talks about Jesus Christ, His miracles, Life on earth, doctrine and second coming. We have developed it very simple and attractive way and started prayer ministry for our suffering neighbors to bring them to Christ…  AM

**

Hello there. Just wanted to thank you for your work, especially about Audio Bible. I listen the Holy Gospel thanks to thee every morning whilst going to work. God bless you. – G. R. from France.

**

Hi, Sir/Madam.
I want to include Telugu Bible in an application. The link to the application is as follows: https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9p1gg0j70xrs Please send me the text file of Telugu version so that I can include it in the Application. And the application is still a beta version and contain bugs or limitations. But those are probably going to get fixed. Please message me telling me your decision or to contact more. Thank you. ARK

**

Hello, I’m interested in offline versions of both the Hindi Bibles available on your site (Devanagari and Romanized).  I realize that the audio is the same for both, and that I can download the text files and audio files separately.  But I don’t know how to make the text and audio function together offline (the same way they function online)…whenever i use the offline bible, it calls for audio files from the WordProject website…instead of the local audio files I have downloaded.  Is there a way to force the downloaded text Bible (html based) to call on local audio files so it can be fully utilized offline? Thanks! MB.

**
Hello Jorge, I called you on the phone the other day while you were in China and am justing getting in touch via email. I found your website searching for a Punjabi Bible translation. Could you tell me which translation you have on your website and who it was translated by? Is the audio version the same as the printed version? I’m also interested in knowing the same about your Arabic version.  I’m starting a project to make tracts of the Sermon on the Mount in various languages as an introduction to the Kingdom of God to those who are not familiar with Jesus’ message. I’ll be having someone translate a bit of introductory material but I will pull the text of Matthew 5-7 from an existing Bible translation. Because I can’t read any of the languages that I will be producing other than English, I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about the digitization process for the Punjabi and Arabic versions of the NT that you have on your site. Should I expect them to be pretty much error free or do you think they contain much in the way of scanning or typing errors? Thanks for making these resources available online. JM

**

Hi, First of all, I would like to thank you for setting up this website. It is so useful, I use it almost everyday. This page (https://www.wordproject.org/bibles/big5/58/13.htm#0) is for Hebrews 13, but the Cantonese reading is for Hebrews 12. Please look into it. Again, thank you so much. May the Lord bless this wonderful work. In Christ. CA

**

Greetings, I am A. A. from Ethiopia, Africa. I am a born again Christian. I am married and a father of baby girl named ZOE-God Given Life. I live in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,  and worship God in Impact Christian Church. I always open and read God’s word from World Project website on my laptop. I understood that you have Audio Devices( I am not sure whether you have it in Amharic or not)  to hear the word of God.   https://www.wordproject.org/bibles/resources/audio_devices/index.htm

Two three months before I was looking for such devices to give to my maid who is a new born again Christian after she received Jesus Christ as her Lord, after coming to my home and who is illiterate. She can’t write and read; hindering her to read the word of God. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the device. This situation forced me to think of those Ethiopian’s who are born again but illiterate and can’t read the living word of God.

I just looked at the literacy rate in Ethiopia and I found that in Ethiopia Adult(15+) literacy rate is 49% in 2015,according to the World Data Atlas Ethiopia Literacy Adult literacy rate, 1970-2017 – knoema.com. This means that 51% of the population can’t read with understanding and write a short statement. This is really a striking figure hindering a number of Ethiopian population from reading the word of GOD. For such population is the option is to avail Audio Devices in Amharic like yours to listen the word of God.  In the future I have a vision to establish an organization which distributes Audio Devices with minimal payment or for free. For now I want to serve God through buying (from my own pocket) and distributing such devices to some people in my area.  How could you help me on this issue? How could I get these devices to buy?  AA –

**

Dear Brother, PRAISE THE LORD. In Tamil version of 2nd letter to Paul to Timothy from 2nd chapter first verses missing. 2 nd chapter first verses add on 1st chapter as last verse. pl correct the 2,3 and 4th chapter.  Every new testaments having any one of the missing or omission in bible . Details report I will sent to you. If able pl call morning season before 8.30am or after 7.30pm on INDIAN STANDARDED TIME WITH Prior information by email. THANKS. RR

**

I am pastor in Mwanza city  i have six church under me. My request is i want to join with your ministry.  Ni my church i have started vile study but my vision is to start bible college at this area. Let connect together. To save our lord Jesus.  … Thank you. JM

Wordproject friend in Africa

With Gloria’s help with copying the raw text into pages code, which means she head to copy and paste 1189 pages per language, times 8 languages, namely Myanmar, Mongol, Nepali, Kazakh, Aceh, Fijian, Cebuano and Turkmen, we are now able to offer free digital Bibles in those languages. Besides, she also helped to put together the Selected Bible Verses section for each one of those languages. After some optimization of the html code, which took a couple more weeks, we finally uploaded all material and is now available here

https://www.wordproject.org/bibles/index.htm

and here:

https://www.wordproject.org/bibles/verses/index.htm

We are blessed with the privilege of  working in the Word of Life and being able to an increasing number of people of different nations around the world.

Nepali online Bible

Myanmar Bible

We sent two packages of SR600, the Audio Bible device, to Africa and we just received the news that they arrived safe. These two packages are destined to the Mozambique work, for a total of 100 audio Bibles (PT and EN in one device). We are in the process of preparing anoher 100 destined to the work in Kenya (Swahili and EN). We are thankful to those who support us and make it possible to offer these audio Bibles totally free of charge to those in need.

Each small box contains the SR600 audio device plus charger and headphones.

Second package also ready

First Package ready to go.

By Donna

August was definitely a month of celebration! A month in which to celebrate the goodness and mercy of God in keeping His promise to never leave us nor forsake us!

The month started us off celebrating Joana’s 23 birthday! Through the years we have watched Joana blossom into a beautiful and talented young lady. She is on the threshold of graduation from university, finishing her degree in Communications within the next few months. We also celebrated Jason’s birthday on the 23rd, who received a nice gift sponsored by his brothers and sisters *(see picture), and Jorge’s birthday on the last day of the month. All  filled with happy moments with lots of heartfelt wishes and emotions.

Gloria attended the Orientation Week at Macau University where she begain studying Biomedicine. She is now enrolled at the Uni together with Ben and Joana, each in their own respective faculties.

The month of August was definitely marked by the appearance of Typhoon Hato. One of the strongest typhoons on record, Hato hit Macau full force on August 23^rd, Jason’s birthday. In fact, as we sat in our living room listening to the wind howl at app. 12:30 pm, we were commenting that it was the actual time of Jason’s birth! We were in calm discussion with our neighbors, who by the way had to flee their home as the roof blew off above their heads, until we heard the glass shattering in the upstairs area. The gale winds had found a way in and had lifted the glass doors off their railings, smashing the glass and hurling debris inside and outside the house.  Thank God no one was upstairs when the glass broke…

Hato devastated Macau, killing 12 people, injuring at least 244 and left the city without water and power for days. Winds over 220kmp were recorded and an enormous serge level which caught the territory by surprise and flooded many areas of downtown and outer islands, including the village of Coloane. The city faced a severe challenge in removing huge piles of waste from the streets, with 2,600 tones of debris collected on one day alone. There was an amazing volunteer spirit in cleaning the city, from students to expats to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army!

Thanks to Jorge, Gabriel, Joana, Ben and Jason we were able to clean up our home and the neighborhood in a few days. Jorge repaired the broken door and boarded up the windows upstairs. The boys went to Eman and Mandy”s flat to cover the 5 broken windows there. It was all out teamwork!

Four days later, tropical storm Pakhar brought heavy rain and light winds on Sunday the 27^th. Thankfully, not much damaged was caused. The city of Zhuhai was relatively calm, after Hato had left its path of destruction a few days earlier. We continue to pray as there is another tropical storm in the area, ready to hit landfall somewhere in the next few days……

For He commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof….He makes the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Psalm 107:25,29

The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous runneth into it and is safe. Pr 18:10

In August a new audio downloads high of 12.6 million GB, or approximately 12. 56 million chapters was reached. With a daily average of over 35000 users we can say that the world is interested in the Word of God, the main service or product we have to offer. In India we rank 13,979 in Alexa’s website ranking. According to their definition:  “The rank by country is calculated using a combination of average daily visitors to this site and pageviews on this site from users from that country over the past month. The site with the highest combination of visitors and pageviews is ranked #1 in that country.” In Brazil we rank 18,746.

Although these stats are not precise, there is no way they could be, even as because some countries have filters in their internet systems that do not allow foreign access to their stats – in China, for example,  we have a strong presence, however we seldom see much stats coming from there. Google analytics does not supply stats from China, just because it cannot.

Besides our direct outreach, our indirect outreach is very encouraging. We receive constant requests for permission to use our materials, and scores of others just use it without permission as they are encoureged to do in our disclaimers. Others just report problems or suggest improvements. Thus, our site is very much alive with constant interaction from users and developers. Here are some of the latest comments from our mailbox:

“I am desperate for English – Farsi Old and New Testament Bibles for the ICC – International Christian Consulate based in Athens helping the Christian refugees. Your Wordproject is wonderful but I can’t see a way of downloading or printing out everything together. I look forward to your help.” T.O.

Hello,  I would like to join the group and want to help God in Afghanistan. Also I wanted to know more about your organization.  May God bless you. D.A – Afganistan

I have wanted to use your audios for an evangelizing service on radio if it were possible to unload and to place them without any inconvenience with you? It would be a great help. Thanks. G.R. / Colombia

Greetings to you all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. May God  bless you so much for the work you have done for us to get a Luganda Bible translated from the preserved Word of God (KJV). I have been translating Bible study lessons from English into Luganda for 13 years now. I would love join your team if I can help in any way. I feel so blessed after reading today your Stetment of Faith. I’m a Pastor of Equator Baptist Church in Uganda. Bless you! J.  Uganda

What a wonderful site, may God bless what you do! I would like to know precisely which written version of the bible I should get, to match  the German audio bible and the Latin Vulgate NT. What particular year, version, edition of each will match precisely the German Deutsch audio bible and the Latin Vulgate NT….? Thanks / S.S.

 I noticed your message that copying text and placing links is alright to do without permission.  My question is may I copy audio (from English Bible books) onto CDs and give these CDs to people in my church. Also may I give these CDs to the general public.  These CDs will be given away freely with no cost. The CDs will only contain audio from your site, nothing will be added.
Lastly I cannot express how wonderful your resources ares for those trying to reach out toward Christ around the world.  How do I donate to your site ?  Thanks in advance for your response.  G.B.

I am Ayche Samuel from Ethiopia. I am very happy to find this website on the Holy Bible. Amharic is mother language and English is my second language. Now I am studying Deutsch. I want to read the Word of God in these there languages. Hence I found you website extremely good. Please can you please help me how to download the whole Bible or any possibility to get a hard copy.
Thanks! May the Lord bless you more abundantly as you continue spreading his precious word. A.S. Ethiopia.

Hi Wordproject Team, may God bless you for this wonderful work that you have the grace to put at the disposal of his people. PLEASE, CORRECT THIS ERROR:
In Exodus chapter 23 in German, we listen to chapter 3 instead of 23. Please correct this error. Thank you S.P. Germany

Thanks for the Malayalam translation in Bible version. I am from India.
Can i get one Malayalam Bible , Kindly pray for me , ST

I am going on a Mission Trip to South India. We would like to give people SD cards with the Telugu Bible on them so they can read the Bible offline. Please can I ask if you have a PDF or Text file of your version of the Telugu Bible that you can send me please ? God Bless You and Your Organisation . M

Web Stats: monitoring users of our main site.

Our online App has reached the 200000 downloads mark (for PT and EN, together). Athough a far less number of people actually uses the APP, as not everyone that downloads an App ends up keeping it, we are still pleased and feel blessed to be able to offer to so many people around the world such an easy and simple way of reading and listening to the Bible . We receive daily short and encouraging words from users. Here are just a couple of comments we selected this month:

“This application is Fantastic just what I wanted, but I have a question what changes between audio download and listen to them directly from the application? That is if your listening directly without downloading Internet use my data? Or I can listen without downloading audio without thinking of the Internet data consumption?” L.C. – Italy

“This is great,  I love this app cause it has our own language,  Hope you create more features and thank you…….. God Bless you” – S.R. –  India

“Hi. God bless you for your project. The app is good, has no distracting ads and it’s free. I’d like to encourage you to add more audio features, like audio speed control, playback buttons to skip forward /backward one verse, playback controls on the lockscreen; basically features available for podcasts apps.  Keep up!” – UK.

Our APP for Android

By Donna.

July has been a hot one, with temperatures in the 30 degrees plus and humidity in the 90’s all month. We are extremely thankful for air conditioning, swimming pools and occasional rain, without which we would be of all men most miserable! Through it all we have stayed strong, all except for Jorge that is, who was attacked with a powerful virus. This put him out of action for about a week with fever, cough, sleeplesness and nervousness to top it off. Thank God he is pulling out of it now! This illness has pushed us to take steps to be more diligent in preventing dehydration, as it is easy to forget to drink enough water in this hot climate. Also, tweaking our meal plans in order to maintain a healthy diet has been a priority.  We thank the Lord for His abundant mercy and power to heal! We thank  everyone who has helped us to fight this battle with prayer and practical health tips! Teamwork!!

At last we were able to celebrate Gloria’s High School Graduation! The commencement ceremony was held at home and we were blessed to have the entire family together, many of whom are distinguished alumni of the Soares’ Gateway Homeschools endeavor! Gloria has worked tirelessly the past four years, and in particular her senior year in order to fulfill all her high school requirements, take college entrance exams and make college applications. She has also been a tremendous blessing to the ministry, not only Wordproject but various other projects over the years in Africa. On top of that, she is a critical element of our home’s inspiration, continually contributing with her culinary skills, piano music, artistic and inspirational ideas! It has been  an amazing four years and we wish her a blessed and fruitful future in her pursuit of medical studies wherever that may lead her!

Sweet little Isabel, aka Bel Bel has turned two ! How the years have flown!  She is already singing up a storm! Some of her favorites are “Yes, Jesus Loves Me” , “Incy Wincy Spider”,  “Rain, Rain Go Away”, and of course “Happy Birthday To You”! She is so enthusiastic about life, it is contagious! It is a pleasure to hold a conversation with her and she has no qualms in stating whether or not she likes something!  We pray that she has a blessed year and a safe trip to Portugal with mom and dad this month!

All at Gloria’s Graduation

Bel Bel’s Birthday

Emanuel and Mandy and sweet Bel Bel (2)

New Languages:

We have worked on several new Asian languages this month: Nepali, Burmese (Myanmar), Turkmen, Cebuano, Fiji, Aceh and Mongol. The full Bible text for these languages is now available in our pages, and the verse selection, with essential verses on different topics, such as Prayer, Faith, Fighting Fear, Healing, Peace, etc., is being prepared right now and is soon to be available too. Preparing these languages to fit our format takes long hours and we spent great part of our month working on them. We are blessed to be able to reach out to people in far-out lands like these.

Aceh page

Burmese page

Mongol Index page

Nepali Index page

Cantonese Recordings

Received first files of the Cantonese New Testament. We have a long ways to go but this is encouraging. After struggling for several months, Eddy is now making progress. It is not easy to keep the vision thus  we keep praying for progress with this project

Recording equipment being used by Eddy

Mozambique

From Mozambique we received news from Patrick and his wife and they are doing a great work with the School of Missions. Our desire is to get some of our Audio Bibles there for their use and we hope we can find a channel to be able to send some soon. Here is a testimony from their Newsletter:

“I have a spiritual husband. He comes once in awhile; say once a week and sleeps with me just like a physical husband. After he has done this, I always feel very low and spiritually broken. I have struggled with this issue for many years and it seems there is no help and I do not know what to do at all. I have talked to some people and I have not been helped at all. This makes me feel low always and disturbs my walk with the Lord”

“This is when counseling began. The main problems were identified during the course of Spiritual warfare.  Each student narrated their journey of life, looking for loopholes in the past where the enemy might have taken advantage, looking for wounds and courses of bitterness,  un-confessed sin, people they had not forgiven…and it was during this time when it was noted how she had gotten into this spiritual marriage. Through confession, inner healing, and ministry of deliverance, she was set free from this bondage. The spiritual man left completely and never came back again. She felt a freedom she had never felt before in her life. It was clear that this is part of the reason the Lord sent her to this training.”

Typical Mozambique village

Audio Bibles we left in Mozambique.

As soon as I arrived back in China I was blessed to supervise the delivery of 300 Audio Bibles we had ordered. This model, although outwardly the same as a previous one, is in fact quite different, as it contains:

– Brand new improved circuitry, designed by our technician, Mr. Hao;

–  New and larger 8GB memory, which allows us to place better, therefore bigger, audio files. This first edition contains the Portuguese and English Bible all in one machine, but we are able to change the languages as necessary.

– New container box and label;

– European charger adaptor, also used in most Portuguese speaking countries.

The plastic cases had to be manufactured  and because of minimum order requirements we had to pay for larger amount. The design of the circuitry was also paid for and a one time expense, which means our next order will be less costly.

These audio Bible devices are a true blessing in many parts of the world and in Africa they seem to have the greatest impact: from our friend in Mozambique we received the news that “these Bibles were used in the Island of Zanzibar, where it is not allowed to preach the Gospel, but through these Bibles several people have been converted to the Lord… for us these Bibles have been a tremendous blessing, especially outside the city, in the villages.”

PG.!

by Donna

Prayer is such a powerful weapon and it is absolutely crucial to our survival and productivity in the world we live in. I thank God for it every day! While Jorge was away in Portugal, we had the awesome privilege of upholding him in prayer. God did wonderful things on his behalf, all glory to His Name!!  While back in China, Jason and I have been developing a closer relationship with the Chinese teachers at his language school and have been able to witness more to them. We participated in many cultural activities organized by the school. Accompanying us were a group of exchange students who had just arrived for the first time to China, eager to learn of the fascinating culture and people of China.  One of the activities was about Chinese musical instruments. We were able to not only listen to the er hu, zither and other interesting classic instruments, but we were allowed to try our hand at them as well! Of all, I definitely think the zither would be the easiest to master, time permitting. Most people thought that Jason definitely has a knack for the er hu, but I think he will probably stick to the guitar!

Other activities included Chinese calligraphy, Chinese knots, tea ceremonies, games and tai chi chuan. Even after living in China for so long, we still learned something new and were happy to have had participated in these events.

Zither testing

with music teacher in Xiang Zhou

June was birthday month again and weekend birthday celebrations were in the mode! First off was Mandy, on the 4th of June, and she celebrated with nothing less than an enormous pizza! Then Gui also joined the ranks of the 28ers’ and was celebrated with a delicious feast hosted by none other than Su chef Gabriel! It was delicious! On the 25th Gloria arrived at the 18 landmark!  She is such a blessing to many! Her life is getting even more exciting, as she has many new challenges to look forward to in the coming years!

Mandy’s Birthday

Gui’s Birthday

Gloria’s Birthday

Our good friend Anna Chan got married this June! We met Anna 23 years ago when she was still a young student, and through the years we have developed a close friendship.  Although life hasn’t always been easy for Anna, she has put her trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and is now a very active Christian. We are glad to have had the opportunity to share this happy moment in her life! May the Lord bless this young couple with joy and faith and  a fruitful life together!

With Ana and her husband: Joana, Donna and Benjamim

Other family pictures:

Emanuel and Mandy

Joana and Gui

Jason and Chinese tutor

Philip with Zac

The last week I spent in Portugal the weather was at the hottest I have experienced for a long time. You must have heard the news of the catastrophic forest fire that caused the death of over 60 people in just one area. A sort of dramatic ending to my trip which left many memories: I visited my home town of Penacova, a beautiful village which you may find if you care to Google it, and spent time with my old friend in the Douro region, yes, where the famous Port wine is produced. Beautiful place, just too bad I was there for only two days. Most of my friends remember me for singing and playing in a band back in the late 60s, in Mozambique. From now on,  they will have a different memory of me, as I left every single one of them, a sample of our Portuguese audio Bible, where, of course, I am the narrator. Of the 20 Portuguese Audio Bibles I brought with me I shared 16 with a personal touch. I also was able to share some very touching and deep conversations with my sister, who all of a sudden had a week or so of improved health. Her situation overall remains critical, but we shared about the Lord, sin, forgiveness and overall she seems to be at peace with God. I was very busy back and forth between visiting with friends and relatives and taking care of important family business. I did feel blessed and supported by your prayers. Besides, I carried with me everywhere I drove, an audio Bible that constantly played the Word – beautiful!

Corn bread hoven in Penacova main square on Sunday morning.

Famous Penacova water comes from somewhere around here

Old school friends at dinner reunion.

More good friends

With the help of Amharic speaker Yonas Hailemeskel, we were able to complete the updated version of Amharic Selected Bible Verses, which are now available here:

https://www.wordproject.org/bibles/verses/amharic/index.htm

We want to thank Yonas for his dedicated work in recording the audio in this section of the website. Sure he is a blessing to many in Ethiopia and other places where that language is spoken.

In spite of slightly lower outreach to Western countries, this month was particularly notorious that our outreach has increased to traditionally Arabic/Muslim countries:             Emirates, South Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait and others are increasingly well ranked in our stats.

by Donna
Benjamim entered the Best Original Song Contest in Macau this month and the family was present at the final. Ben sang a heart warming rendition of his own “Flower of the Field”. Among other strong contestants and talented arrtists, Ben emerged victorious with the prize for Best Performance of the night, an award based on audience voting. Our votes went to Ben whose performance was first place in our book!
Jason continues to play soccer with the Black Panthers soccer team. With Brazilian coaches and Chinese teammates, it is a great intercultural activity and good exercise at the same time. His Chinese is improving rapidly as he continues his lessons and has increased opportunity to use his language skills.
Gloria has been finishing up her high school requirements and is dealing with uni opportunities. It is a time of waiting and decision, a time of trial and testing, but we are sure that the Lord will show her the right path on which to proceed and give her the grace to follow!
Mom enjoyed a very Happy Mother’s Day, with almost all her children in tow to share fellowship, food and creative games with! She is an extremely blessed and happy mom! Congratulations to all mom’s who celebrate mother’s day every day as they serve and love their families! May the Lord endue them with the power to embrace motherhood, embrace their femininity to be the women in Proverbs 31. Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.

Ben at concert interview

Jason with football academy

Mandy at mothers day celebration

Bel Bel happy at mothers day fun time.

Mre mothers day fun

On another front, during the month of May, I was able to meet with Hison Khang and his family, who came to visit Macau. It was a blessing for me to get to know him, his wife and his two children. As you know, Hison has developed and delivered to us Wordproject  IOS App now available at Apple store. In spite of being a doctor by profession he has found the time to dedicate himself to developing tools for God’s Work. Praying for him and his family there in Korea.

The Khang family in Macau.

I also met several times with Raj, in Zhuhai, as we had to make several corrections to the Tamil Bible text. Subsequently he recorded the new verse section of our online Tamil Bible, now available here.

Raj, Julie and Rishanda are right now in India visiting with relatives. They are a great blessing and encouragement to Wordproject . Pray for them.

The New updated text and audio of the Punjabi New Testament has been finished and Anil, who has been recording it for several months, sent us the last batch just before I travelled. Those audio files and text are to be processed and uploaded as soon as I get back. Bless you, Anil.

Anil editig Punjabi audio Bible (New Testament)

Our English app for Android is reaching the 100,000 downloads soon and at the moment we have over 20,000 active users of that app. The comment sections continues to accumulate good reviews, some short and sweet like this one:  ‘To learn to walk in the presence of God is very good, and the Bible is the way on earth to lead us to God through Jesus. This app is very good! ‘

Wordproject Android App stats.

Wordproject Android App –

I am writing on the road, as my visit to Portugal continues, for now I do not have a permanent address so I keep moving.  After one week back in this beautiful sunny country, I have slept in 4 different places. This is the first time I write a newsletter in a Hotel room.
To give you a brief summary of what happened so far, I visited with my sister, who is very ill and due to the gravity of her state could hardly recognize me. I hope I have brought some encouragement to her husband who works tirelessly to take care of her along with some helpers. That has been the most heart wrenching part of this visit, as I claim God’s grace and watch and pray for this distressful situation.
Mostly I have stayed with Cristiana, who has been gracious to put up with her father for most of this time. Together we have enjoyed several walks around downtown Lisbon, full of tourists at this time of the year, and the company of some of her young friends whom I found to be very idealistic and in different stages of life – during the yummy dinner served by Cristy, we had some amazing conversations about changing the world and making it better and the different methods of reaching that goal… we have not reached the final conclusion but we sure will let you know if and when we do.

Jorge and Cristiana in Lisbon

I visited Dr. Alvarenga, who is an old friend from Macau, and lives now with his wife 100 km North of Lisbon. We had a fantastic talk about life and death and how the Word of God is the key to strength and  guide us through troubled times.  Religion and the up and downs of different denominations were one of the topics as we agreed that Jesus Christ is what we need not any particular denomination.  John 12:32.

I also attended a meeting of my old high school colleagues from Mozambique, held at a restaurant in the nearby city of Evora. I only recognized a few of my old colleagues but the meeting was inspiring with about 150 people talking for several hours  about old memories. I was blessed to leave several Audio Bible samples with my old friend. They seem to appreciate it and I am sure I will hear more from them from now on.

With old friends: Abilio and Regado

On the other hand, and at a different venue, I met with a Pastor friend from Mozambique, who has been visiting his family here also, and we discussed the in and outs of our possible supply of audio Bibles to his region. Pending a contact with a Chinese company, which he hopes will let us include some packages of bibles in their containers from China. We agreed to pursue that or other possibilities to get the Bibles there.  Along the same line, right before I left for this voyage, still in Zhuhai, we paid half the price on an order of 300 Portuguese Audio Bibles, which are now being manufactured . These are to be sent to Mozambique and Portugal. The shipping and the subsequent delivery through customs are part of the challenge we face, which is yet another reason for me visiting here. This next week I have other meetings scheduled related to this matter.

These went to Mozambique.

Ready for Portugal the audio Bibles I manage to bring with me.

by Donna

On April 25th we celebrated Benjamim’s 21 years on the planet! Ben is a tremendous blessing, a fact that can be verified by all who are touched by his unique music, witty humor and contagious smile! He is an artistic soul who continues to write new songs and improve his photography skills while finishing up his second year at uni. We pray he be blessed this coming year, with wisdom to see him through all the challenges that will come his way!
Cristy continues to be the indefatigable globe trotter, flying to varied corners of the earth when necessary! She has a new hobby-surfing- in the waters of Carcavelos! Great to see all her exciting pics and keep in touch with her on line! Over in Seattle, little Zach is enjoying all things in spring and is becoming quite the agile gymnast! He is incredibly social, even on Skype! Isabel is an enthusiastic little beach bunny ! She enjoys countless moments in the sand, retrieving and delivering her precious cargo in bucketfuls! At 21 months her verbal skills are increasing rapidly as she engages in conversation, naturally inventing new words whenever necessary! She is also very keen to read…God is good-all the time! Life is beautiful, and we thank Jesus for the gift of life!

Benjamim 21st birthday

Cristy on the 25th of April, in Portugal

Zac – joys of Spring

Bel Bel: word time

During our visit to Sanya, we met with Wei Hong, our friend who had received Jesus as her savior a few years back. She shared with us the difficulties in finding Christian fellowship and the struggles with Buddhist doctrine which is widely believed in that area. She mentioned about an old friend of hers (and ours) who died last year and just recently the local Lama has been spreading the news that she (the friend that died last year) has already reincarnated (?). We have no idea how that is possible, because reincarnation is not an option provided in the Bible. We shared with her that this Lama is definitely deceiving them, giving them hope that they will reincarnate after they die when actually, without Jesus they may find themselves in Hell – she understands now that the huge difference with Christianity is that you do not have to work on your good karma to get a good reincarnation… but rather: Jesus did the work for us, dying on the cross so that we may live by His grace: Eternal Life, not reincarnation. We told her another reason why she should tell people about Jesus: ‘if one is going down the road and finds two roads and does not know which way to go, and there are two persons lying there: – one is dead and the other is alive – which one should one ask for directions?’ Jesus is Alive. Anyway, we had a very illuminating talk that one evening – Gloria was a  great blessing in translating and also sharing her own convictions on different matters. Wei Hong was happy to receive one of our Audio Bibles to help her to have more Word time and enabling her to share with others the Truth about the afterlife.
Closer to home here, we shared an audio Bible with Raj’s friend from India who came to visit him this past month.

Gloria and Wei Hong

Gloria and Wei Hong

Jorge sharing wordproject app with Beena R.

This month we made progress in the audio recording department. Raj delivered 10 sections of the Tamil selected audio verses. Yonas Hailemeskel, from Ethiopia, sent the recordings of 20 sections of Amharic selected audio verses. All these will be uploaded soon while we wait for the next batch hopefully coming soon. Anil, in India, recorded several books of the Punjabi Bible and he is near to finish the New Testament. He has been making a tremendous effort and he shared this testimony:

Thank you brother, let me tell you fact behind this commitment. You might be remember three years before, we had a talk on the same matter changing text and on better audio. And I was silent because you had no budget for this kind of job. And you gave me challenge that being a Punjabi you should do something for your Punjabi community. Still I was silent. That time I had a good job in Punjabi Bible translation Project. Then also I was silent. Suddenly that project close down and I become jobless (still I am job less). I get few translation job and run my family. In the beginning of this year 2017, I saw my senior Pastor got sick and not able to speak and move. After seeing this I thought I should  break my silent and help Word Project in Punjabi Language God has given me already recording equipment So here I am at His service with you. This is fact behind this recording and doing keying in Punjabi Bible. Thank you for your prayers.

Anil recording the Punjabi New Testament

Anil recording the Punjabi New Testament

On the other hand, our Cantonese recordings did not take off yet. Pray for brother Eddy who is finding it difficult to find a quite location to record. We hope to receive good news from him soon.