Radio stations collaborating, playing Scriptures

Isidro had some good news Friday to quiet growing doubts about our audio-Scripture promotion efforts.

Four out of six radio stations above Sololá are now playing the Kaqchikel audio New Testament, and a fifth will begin doing so next week.

Wow! This news was like Rachmaninov’s “Vespers” to my ears. I was so happy with Isidro’s faithful help, following up on a request I had made and forgotten about. He phoned several of the radio stations to check up on them, and his relatives had been listening to the stations to see if they’re playing the Scriptures.

Oral Scriptures are a vital means for Mayans to hear God's word because few can read or write their own language.

When Isidro called one radio station, the owner answered. The owner had not been at the station when we visited it — some 25 minutes from Sololá. When Isidro asked whether the station had been playing the audio Scriptures, the man confessed he didn’t know what they were, but just the day before he had found the MP3 CDs we left and wondered about them. After learning what it was and who we were, he said he plans to begin playing them next week.

Also on Thursday, Isidro’s wife happened to hear the audio Scriptures being played on the first radio station we visited three weeks ago. A neice heard the Scriptures being played on a third station, and another continues to keep its promise as well.

When Isidro phoned a radio station at Los Encuentros, the furthest away, an operator said they have been playing the audio New Testament at 6 p.m. in the evenings. Isidro wasn’t able to contact the sixth station.

This news and Isidro’s faithfulness made my day! Thanks be to God, these radio stations are collaborating with the project and playing the Word as they said they would. Please pray with us that God’s Word would yield fruit, causing people to grow in grace and understanding of Jesus Christ.

“So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it,” Isaiah 55:11.

*****

Just this week, the need for the audio Scriptures in this oral Mayan society was driven home to me. I happened to ask a 21-year-old Mayan young lady — who has attended church services several times a week since childhood — how much of the Bible she has read. She reported she has read from Genesis to Deuteronomy, the first five books out of 66 altogether. None of the New Testament? Nope. Not yet. Later, visiting with her 28-year-old brother, who told me, “I grew up in the church,” I asked him the same question. “I’m just getting started,” he told me. Which book are you in? “Genesis,” he said with a laugh.