Pascaria Listens

Sometimes printed Scripture isn’t quite enough. What do you do when someone has never been taught to read?

Audio Scripture! “That by any means necessary we might save some.”

A few weeks ago Sarah and I gave our friend Pascaria* a MegaVoice player that had the audio of the Swahili** New Testament. After showing her how to use it, she put in the headphones and listened…and listened…and listened. During the HOUR that she listened to the book of Matthew (The Sermon on the Mount) we made her some tea and bread, I worked on a puzzle, Sarah did some work around the house, and we also just sat on the couch and waited. She didn’t touch the tea or bread. She just listened, nodding her head, repeating the portions that were familiar to her.

In lieu of a photograph, Sarah painted this picture of Pascaria listening to Scripture.

At one point she said, “he preaches really well” and asked if he was an Anglican pastor. We explained that indeed he is a really good preacher, but his words are for all people of all denominations, because these are the words of Jesus.

I had several questions that day, here are just a few of them:

How often do those without their own Bible or the ability to read it know that there is a difference between the Word of God and the words of church tradition (like sermons, catechisms, liturgies and other traditional church readings)?

How often do we, who have a wealth of translations and Bibles at our fingertips, listen with utter rapture to the Word of God, to the point of ignoring our daily bread?

This is a truly ASTOUNDING book. How often does our familiarity with the words breed contempt, or more likely, boredom?

Oh, how we need ears to hear, not ears dulled by familiarity and boredom.

*You may remember Pascaria from when she taught us how to cook a duck, and from our Christmas luncheon in December.

**We have some work going on in recording Scripture in the local languages as well, but the complete audio New Testament in those languages will have to wait until the completion of translation.