José is a carpenter in his late 40s, living in Yuty, a town in rural Paraguay. A number of years ago, he was given a series of tapes on gospel questions. He began to get up early every morning to listen to them. When he had listened to all of them, he asked for more. After some time, his wife started to notice a change in his life. She was so impressed with what she saw that she started to join him in listening to the tapes early each morning.
José has never been to a Bible study, but he has now been listening to the Word of God every morning for years, and his wife still comments on how much he has changed since he began listening all that time ago.
Rural Paraguay is an oral culture. This means that although the majority of people know how to read, they are not used to using written words to communicate. They don’t feel very comfortable with reading and find oral methods easier for learning. This has profound implications for reaching these rural communities effectively with the gospel.
SIM Paraguay has seen many people like José be impacted by the Gospel through audio recordings. Leaders in rural churches now want to see the whole Bible available in audio format, to give the rural population real access to the Word of God.
MP3 players are being developed specifically for this purpose. They are small, durable devices that can be worn around the neck or carried in a pocket. They can be used with earphones for personal use, but they also have a powerful speaker so that a whole family or a Bible study group can all listen together. They will contain the whole Bible recorded in Guarani, the heart language of rural Paraguayans.
With approximately 100,000 families living in the most rural parts of Paraguay, the Audio Bibles for Paraguay project wants to place a Bible in each one of these homes.
"Having worked in rural Paraguay for more than 15 years, I have seen firsthand how much more effective the Word of God is when it is presented in audio form. Why should we wait to bring a written Bible to the people of Paraguay when the technology exists today to bring the Word of God to everyone who does not typically learn from reading?" says Project Manager Tom Stout. "The fact is—we shouldn't."
