A couple of years ago I began recording Shawi worship on my
phone. There were new church plants at
the time and they were asking for help. When these new churches would meet they
were unsure what to do. Can you imagine a group of new believers meeting
together? Most do not know how to read or own a Bible and no one knows hymns or
worship songs. So one evening
Lucy and I recorded a Shawi pastor and his wife singing a handful of worship songs
and then the pastor gave a short message encouraging the new believers. We combined
the content with some Spanish songs I had and began distributing it on USBs and
SD cards. Here in the jungle most of the people own battery powered radios and
all the radios play USBs or SD cards so it made it easy to distribute the music.
The new churches could now meet, listen to the pastor’s message and worship
along with the music. And they loved it.
From there it began to pick up steam. I continued recording
music and messages in Shawi and they continued to ask for more. Many of the believers sit around after dark or early in the morning and listen to worship music on their phone. I often have
people give me the SD card out of their phone so I can take it back to
Yurimaguas and load it with worship music from my computer.
Yes the Shawi have phones. That is the world we live in now.
There are more people in the world who have mobile phones than there are people
with access to a flushing toilet. Technology is cheap. Toilets are expensive.
Thanks to Maple City Chapel we were able to purchase an awesome
tool while back in the states, a pocket WIFI device. It is essentially wireless internet but you control the content. Now instead of swapping
SD cards they can log onto the device and stream or download content directly
from it. It is full of worship music, the Jesus Film, messages, and the Bible
both in text and audio. The content is in Shawi and in Spanish. Right now
one of the devices is in a remote village two days up river where new believers
gathered together to celebrate New Year’s. It is cool to think about all these
new believers that are getting access for the first time to the Bible, or sitting
around late at night watching the Jesus Film.
Anyway, I just learned the neatest part of the story this past week. About a year and half ago I was in a village for a church inauguration. A pastor from a remote village who rarely comes to town was there. He
speaks very little Spanish and since my Shawi is not very good, I did not have
much of a relationship with him. But he is faithful to visit other churches for
events such as the inauguration and he always walks. He began to sing that
night and it was really good. I had never heard him sing before so I recorded
the song he was singing. The song was over 20 minutes long but sounded great so
I added it to the content that I distribute. Since that time I have passed the
song on to more than 50 people, have shared it with others, and listened to it in
church gatherings. Hundreds of people have heard the song.
Last week, one of the guys at the discipleship center
was listening to it over and over. I asked him to translate it and he began to
tell me the meaning. Most of the songs are taken from an old Shawi hymn
book and so I now recognize many of them and even understand some of them but
when he began to translate it, I realized it was not from the hymn book. I asked
him where the song came from.
He told me that the pastor singing the song had a dream one night.
In the dream he could see himself in front of the church singing this song. Then
God told him to write down the song and sing it to the churches where he
visits. So the pastor woke up at 4:00am and wrote the song. It is a powerful song
about God’s love for us. It has a message for men, women and children. It talks
about a wide range of things and quotes scripture. It is a 20 minute sermon,
put to song, given by God.
I was floored by the message. It was powerful and moved me. But
then I thought about how God had orchestrated everything. He gave the pastor
the song, he had me record it and now it has gone out and hundreds have heard
it. And thanks to the pocket WIFI devices, hundreds more will hear it.
Only God can orchestrate such a beautiful thing. Only God can
take a pastor of a small church in the middle of the jungle and use his voice
to impact hundreds of people. Only God can give me the tools to distribute His
message without me even knowing! He is sovereign and He has an amazing plan.
As Job said:
I know that you can do all things;
No purpose of yours can be thwarted.
Job 42:2
