Audio Bibles - India

ASM, in partnership with our national partners WCOI, has worked to distribute thousands of players all around India.   A few years ago, we tried a bold experiment, called "Adopt a Village," where we wanted to place one audio unit in 10,000 villages all over India.  God gave us the grace to reach 11.000.   Following on its heels, we targeted families.  Our goal was to place one audio Bible in the homes of 25,000 families.  As we speak, we have nearing 13,000 families all over India.   

There are many stories that highlight how powerfully God's word speaks into the hearts of families.  I want to share one such story.   

Ramesh* was a man who lived in a remote part in the hills of South India.   He requested an audio Bible from us, and promised to listen to it with his family regularly.   This was during a season in our ministry when we distributed cassette tapes with players.  We always advised our friends in the hills that if there was ever any technical difficulty they experienced, to only have authorized technicians deal with the issue.

Sure enough, one afternoon, Ramesh's cassette tape got tangled in the player.  Remembering our advice, Ramesh turned it off and decided to wait.   Once every month, Ramesh would wander into the neighboring village and do some shopping for his family.  He knew a little cassette repair shop there that could fix his problem.  As soon as he took the player out of his bag, the technician knew what the problem was.   He told Ramesh to leave the player and go finish his shopping while he took care of the technical issue.  As soon as Ramesh left, the technician popped the cassette out of the player, carefully untangled the tape, and rewound the cassette.  He decided to play it for a while to smooth out the creases on the tape.  As he did that, he began to listen to the contents of the tape and was completely fascinated by what he was hearing.   When the tape finished it flipped it over, and listened the other side!

Soon, Ramesh came back and the technician handed him his player and tape.  As he did so, he asked Ramesh if he had more tapes like the one he listened to.  Ramesh told him that he had the entire set.   The technician made Ramesh promise that the next time he came back to the village, to bring him the next cassette in the series.  Thus a pattern was established!   Ramesh brought tapes every time he came shopping, and in doing so, he helped the technician and his family listen to the whole New Testament.   Today, due to Ramesh's work, the technician and his family follow Christ and have a small church meet in their home every Sunday!  

Stories like this abound.   However, we still have a long way to go.   Each audio unit costs us $50 to place in a home.  Would you consider giving to this incredible ministry?   

*Names changed to protect privacy