From Impossible to Possible

By Rachel Greco

When all doors seemed closed because of COVID-19, governmental restrictions, or other trials, God opened a way to ensure his work was accomplished in South Asia. Praise God that he is the God of impossibilities! A local translator in South Asia recently experienced God’s faithfulness and power. 

“When the pandemic hit [South Asia] and the lockdown was announced, many activities had to be either suspended or postponed,” said Sepu*, a translator in South Asia. In the midst of these restrictions, many of his teams’ activities seemed impossible. They thought they would have to halt all their Scripture engagement events since they couldn’t travel or gather in large groups. “We saw that the world was [in] a dilemma, and we were confused as to what would happen to our planned activities.” 

But instead of giving in to despair, Sepu and his team sat in the presence of the Lord praying, seeking the Lord’s will and guidance to help them reach the unreached in their community. While they prayed, God gave them the creative idea of using a digital platform to reach their neighbors. 

Sepu with a friend at the online summit

This idea grew into organizing an online summit where they could dedicate and build community awareness of the various audio-visual materials the team had produced. With the help of our media partner* in South Asia, the team had recorded songs, Scripture portions, oral Bible stories, the JESUS film, and the Gospel film in their language. They had also made these materials available on phones as an app—all thanks to people like you giving to JAARS Media Solutions! Many of these materials were recorded at the studio that JAARS supports. Sepu said, “I want to thank JAARS for their valuable contribution [to our recording] studio. [Our] studio has allowed us to record many audio-video materials for our language group.” 

Sepu’s team wanted to put all these materials on the Android platform so people could easily access the materials on their phones. A consultation with the media and IT partners of JAARS provided help in making these apps available. 

Another challenge the team faced was editing different songs and putting them in a multi-language songbook app. Their community is now a multi-language community, so they had decided to include songs in five different languages in the app. “This allowed us to reach many more communities,” Sepu said. 

As the day for the online summit approached, Sepu wondered how to create community interest in the online dedication of their media materials. They contacted the media partner to help them prepare a video to invite people from their community to the summit. According to Sepu, “The team made a powerful short video to invite people to join the summit via Zoom and YouTube.” 

Despite these challenges, God did the impossible: to everyone’s surprise, on the day of the dedication, 220 people along with their families joined the live summit! During the program, a short video prepared beforehand by our media partner described all the materials available and how to access them online. 

They launched the apps that contained songs, stories, films, and more and made them available to anyone who wanted them. A video demonstrated how viewers could download the app and access the materials. 

Although the lockdown had been a big blow for Sepu and his team, God turned a people-less gathering into a mass online Scripture engagement proclamation. People from this language community are now excited to have these products. Many are still making inquiries regarding the Scripture engagement apps. The translation team is currently attempting to meet the demand of the community. 

Praise God for turning the impossible to possible for this community! 

You can help open seemingly closed doors for language teams like Sepu’s by giving to Media Solutions to provide people with easily accessible Scripture and songs in their language. Thank you! 

*Name changed or omitted for security reasons.