Have you ever wondered if there is any way for people in remote villages to hear the Word of God in their own language? Well, there is!
Faith Comes By Hearing is a ministry that is dedicated to making God’s Word available for every person through Bible recordings in 959 different languages.
Co-founder Anet Jackson and ministry representative Michelle Seymour shares what God has been doing through their ministry past and present.
Many people groups around the world are strictly oral, meaning they do not communicate with reading and writing. Faith Comes By Hearing helps to deliver the Word of God within the constructs of the oral tradition of that particular culture.
Michelle hears many amazing stories of God touching the hearts of those who for the first time hear the Words of Jesus spoken to them in their own language.
One story in particular, the story of the woman with the discharge of blood struck a chord with those hearing of God’s love for the first time.
“Here we have Jesus a respected teacher and rabbi, walking through this village. We have a woman who shouldn’t even be out of her house. She’s a woman who has no business reaching out to this respected teacher.”
As the story goes, the woman reaches out, touches the garment of Jesus and is immediately healed. This story induced an unusual reaction from the villagers.
“The women that are listening to the story just start weeping.”
It turns out that the people living in the mountains were being persecuted by guerilla warfare and sought refuge at churches at the foot of the mountains. However, the churches turned them away.
“The religious people would say no. You’re filthy, you speak the language of monkeys and dogs, we don’t want you in our buildings.”
When the villagers heard the story of the woman reaching out to the religious leader, they recoiled, expecting the woman to experience the same rejection they had experienced from the religious leader.
“They’re picturing themselves at the bottom of the hill, reaching out to a religious person, and if they touched him, he would turn to them and say, ‘get your filthy hands off me dog,’ and instead, they hear the voice of Jesus saying ‘my daughter.’”
The women now recognize Jesus as someone who loves them and cherishes them, they are His beloved.
