Heralds of Hope has been working on new language broadcasts over the past several months. Some of these broadcasts have been taking quite a bit of time to develop. I thought it would be good to give a short update on our next languages.
Bemba
Bemba is a tribal language in Zambia. There are about 6 million speakers. Two of our staff members will be visiting a radio station in Zambia next week to learn more about the possibility of airing our program. We currently have a price quote to translate and produce three programs per week in this language. The price quote is a little over $3,800/month or $45,000 per year.
Dari
We have been working on the Dari language for several months. While I don’t have an exact date when we first inquired about broadcasting in this language, it certainly feels like a long time ago. Dari is the common language in Afghanistan. It is a dialect of the Persian language and has approximately 14 million speakers.
Recently, we were able to find a network of translators and producers in Sweden who are interested in taking on our project. This week, I requested samples of their work to evaluate to see if it meets our requirements.
Bengali
Bengali is one of the top 10 spoken languages in the world, with more than 200 million speakers. This one seemed to reach a dead end a few months ago until God provided some contacts. We have reached out to an organization who has some interest in working with us to produce content for social media distribution. They would publish the content on Facebook and elsewhere and then communicate with people who reach out through social media. They would attempt to find the seekers and direct them to a local church. This can be a time-consuming process and is somewhat dangerous.
Currently, we are waiting for them to evaluate our content and decide how to proceed.
Portuguese Creole
This language is in conjunction with a shipment of Bibles currently making their way from Senegal to Guinea-Bissau in West Africa. There is a radio station there that is interested in translating and broadcasting our Hope for Today program. In early December, a small team from Heralds of Hope plans to visit the station and the area around it to learn more about the church in this small country.
Please pray for these opportunities, that God would continue to open the doors He wants us to walk through.
-Anthony High