People in more than 6,700 languages and dialects are now being reached with the story of Jesus by an evangelism group with humble origins.
Global Recordings Network has been recording and distributing Christ’s message on audio since 1939.
GRN’s work was started by an American woman, Joy Ridderhof, who had been a missionary in Honduras for many years before ill health forced her to return home.
Kenny McKee (pictured making a recording, above, and, inset, with wife Joan), who heads up GRN’s UK centre in Paisley, Scotland, explains: “Many of the people she met couldn’t read or write, so she had the idea to ask someone back home in Los Angeles to record a few three-minute messages for them in their own language.
“As she visited the tribal groups, she played the recordings with a cardboard hand-wind record player. Soon, missionaries started asking if she had recordings in other languages for Peru, Paraguay, Brazil and other South American countries.
“Things grew from there and today we have around 6,700 languages and dialects available and more than 30 GRN centres and bases around the world.”
From its UK office, GRN distributes recordings to many countries; to pastors, evangelists and missionaries who use and distribute them to communities where the people are mostly illiterate.
“They love to hear their own language being played on our MP3 players,” says Kenny.
“In Europe and in many countries, there are communities of Roma people and we have made recordings with various Roma groups in Kosovo, Albania, Serbia and Belarus.”
Kenny’s own relationship with GRN began in 1999. He and wife Joan had just finished three years at the Elim Bible college in Nantwich.
In 2001, Kenny’s UK director asked if he would move to Papua New Guinea to help train a new recordist.
“Immediately I said, ‘Yes, that would be brilliant … but where is Papua New Guinea?’”
Based at a Bible college in the Highlands region of the country, Kenny and the team made recordings with many students from different language groups for the next three years and were thrilled at how they were received.
“Papua New Guinea has around 670 language groups in a population of three to four million, and we recorded in 45 of them while we were there. We also helped to train our new recordist.”
When their time there came to a close, Kenny and Joan travelled to many other countries, including Thailand, Ecuador, Togo, Pakistan, Spain and Georgia.
Technology moved on as they travelled, with the hand-wind tape players making way for CDs, DVDs and then MP3 players. Today, recordings are available to download free from GRN’s website and app, 5fish, which offers many audio Bibles and New Testaments, and even the Jesus film in many languages.
“Last year there were 4.3 million hits on the GRN website, especially from Asian countries including China, Pakistan and Bangladesh,” says Kenny.
If you or someone you know might benefit from GRN’s recordings, please contact Kenny on 07940 284491, by email at office@grnuk.org.uk or visit the website globalrecordings.net/enuk. GRN’s app, www.5fish.mobi is also available to download.
From New Life Newspaper issue 340
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