40% of Malagasy are illiterate. Many others struggle to read lengthy texts as they have never had access to books.
So how can people read the Bible?
Answer: They don’t have to. Audio bibles can help these people to hear God’s word.
Lili has developed two options for people to hear the New Testament:
- MP3 CD for those who have a TV and DVD player. Cost $0.10
- SD card in a mobile phone. Many people have phones with SD cards. The New Testament audio can be copied onto the phone. Phones are very cheap here, you can buy a new phone and SD card for about £10.
You can download the zip here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13Fs7xasxG_ipM_6XLXdmXo3dGA65pdZZ
To make a MP3 CD
- Download the zip file
- Unzip it onto a pen drive
- Take it to a cyber and ask them to burn it onto CDs for you.
- Check there are 260 files.
To put the bible on SD card
- Download the zip file
- Unzip it onto a pen drive
- Buy a SD card from a cyber or computer shop. You should be able to find a 2GB SD card for well under 10,000Ar (2017 prices)
- Use an SD card reader, most cybers will have one.
- Create a folder ‘Music’ on the SD card.
- Copy all the bible audio folders into the folder ‘Music’.
- Important: Right click on the music folder on the SD card and select ‘properties’. Check that there are 260 files.
Technical details:
The Bible text is the version used in Protestant churches across Madagascar, which is in official Malagasy.
The Bible recording was made by PRM International.
It was downloaded from http://www.bible.is/download/audio and is noisy, it sounds like it was copied of an audio cassette.
Lili cleaned it up using Audacity.
