Cassettes as Missionaries

“We have the cassettes. But how will we get them to the Ata Manobo people? There’s no translator living in the village of Maambago now. And even if we do get them there, how will the people be able to listen to them? There’s no power out there. No one has tape players.”

In June 2006, JAARS Vernacular Media specialists Henry and Rosmarie Knecht in the Philippines recorded Ata Manobo voices for a Global Recordings Network series of eight audio cassettes. Called Look, Listen, and Live, they present Bible stories in dramatized form. Two cassettes in the series were ready to go, along with corresponding picture books.

And God provided a way:

• Thanks to JAARS, free, hand-crank players (TapeTalk) were sent with the cassettes.
• Ata Manobo were able to come to the Nasuli Center for a mini-workshop to learn how to use and care for the players and how to present the picture books along with the cassettes.
• A JAARS pilot based at Nasuli gladly flew the precious cargo into the village once the seldom-used runway was prepared. (Cassettes and players sent overland and upriver might possibly be confiscated en route to Maambago.)

More recordings for this series are planned. One translator said, “These cassettes can go places where we can’t; each of the cassettes is a missionary.”

Recently a young Filipino student joined others from her church on a short mission outreach to another remote Ata Manobo region. The young woman had received audio-recording training from Henry and Rosmarie. Equipped with Ata Manobo cassettes and corresponding pictures books, they set out.

This student’s report proves the power of media in the local language. “We could be effective missionaries even without knowing the local language. The children, especially, were attracted by what they saw and heard. They could understand the gospel in their own language. Having heard the Bible stories contained in the cassettes, people were eager to accept the Ata Manobo New Testaments we were distributing.”

Chris and husband Ken, a pilot, joined Wycliffe in 1988 and have served in the Philippines since 1990.