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AFRICA Part Four Everyone who goes overseas for missions knows what I am about to say. No matter how advanced communication technology is today, there are some things that you cannot say or know unless you are in a room, present with someone. I think Paul may have had that in mind when he penned…

AFRICA Part Three No. It does not compare with those of David Livingston or Lott Carey, but a journey to Africa is still no small undertaking. What complicated this trip was not the multiple flights, visas, immunizations, and passages through customs/immigration. The knotty parts of this trip were the questions. My friend Nebié Badiou is…

I am writing this on November 1 from the SIM Guesthouse in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. AFRICA Part Two My friend Dieudonné and I sat together for two hours discussing the “petit livre.” Dieudonné has been the catalyst behind the broader translation and distribution of Simple Truths for the New Believer since he first translated the book into…

I write this piece from Burkina Faso on Monday, October 31, after a meeting with a friend.  AFRICA Part One In 2015, during a trip to Burkina Faso, I was part of a Story Development Team with a division of CRU called StoryRunners. As I had only recently left Vietnam to return to Canada, I…

Ahmad Zeividavi is a friend of ours. He serves as the Executive Director of the House of Omeed, a ministry in British Columbia about which we have written in previous articles. I thought you might be interested in watching the progress of the projects we are working on with Ahmad. Here is a piece of…

Our friend Rova has been an enthusiastic advocate of the use of Clear and Simple Media materials in Myanmar since the beginning. By my first visit to Yangon in 2016, Rova had already translated Simple Truths for the New Believer into Burmese and Mizo-Chin and had printed and distributed hundreds of books. Life has been…

Shoaib Ebadi is Afghani, born and educated in Kabul, where he worked as a lawyer. In one of the many times of trouble in that country, Shoaib immigrated to Canada, where he heard the gospel and came to faith in Christ. Shoaib Ebadi now lives in Winnipeg, Canada where he works as Executive Director of…

Lai Ro Thanga is a long time friend and pastor in Yangon, Myanmar. He first took an interest in the “little book”, Simple Truths for the New Believer a half dozen years ago and translated the book into Burmese and Mizo-Chin for the churches there. Since that time, Rova (as he first introduced himself on…

Partnerships. When we think about how the ministry of Clear and Simple Media has grown, that word “partnerships” is foundational. In the early stages of our first project, church planters in Vietnam urged us to put our first “little book” into Vietnamese, then Stieng, Cò Ho, Hrê, Hmong, and Ba Na. Each network communicated a…

Although the genesis of Clear and Simple Media grew from a desire to assist grass-roots church planters in SE Asia, God has seen fit to use the materials around the world. Forty-eight people groups have at least one of the books in use in their language. We are in the middle of expanding that number….

Beth Anne Erickson works in Estonia. With the recent crisis that has resulted from the war in the Ukraine, refugees have moved from Poland, through Latvia and Lithuania, then to Estonia. Beth has used our material in English, Ukrainian, and Russian as the ministry she is a part of encounters larger numbers of people moving…

Pastor Dallas Rempel is on the staff of the Hillsdale Baptist Church in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. The church has been using Clear and Simple Media material for several years in a variety of ministries. The church has used our book, Simple Stories, to teach English and to introduce the story of Jesus to people who…

For several months now, we have been working with translators to put our book, Travel Guide to the Bible, into Burmese and Mizo-Chin for the church in Myanmar. If you have been following world news, Myanmar’s elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested after the country’s military seized power in February 2021. The event…

Website Developments We are now in the process of combing the two CSM delivery sites, Hear A Story and A Simple Word. Although we have experienced several snags which have delayed the project by six months, we are getting close to activating the new site. After three months of field-testing in English, we will begin…

I hope this does not sound strange to my Christian readers. Yes, the Russian leadership today is orchestrating a war in the Ukraine. But we make a serious mistake when we believe that the entire Russian population (146,000,000) favors what is happening. They were not given a vote. Nor will their opinion be sought. Many…

The war in the Ukraine is now in its third week. Since February 24, 2022, more than 2.6 million Ukrainians have crossed a foreign border as refugees or have become internally displaced. The nation needs your prayers. In 2019, during a trip to Canada, we visited a Ukrainian-speaking congregation in Saskatoon. The leaders had seen…

More than 1.45 million people have left Ukraine since Russia invaded the country 10 days ago, the International Organization for Migration said on Saturday, sparking what the United Nations agency described as the fastest and largest displacement of people in Europe since World War II. This ”diaspora” is bringing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to…

If you are having difficulty reading the headline, likely you are not from Afghanistan. Afghan Persian, or Dari, is also commonly referred to as Farsi. There are many historical and political reasons for the naming variants, but Dari is spoken by over 70% of Afghans as a first or second language. Dari can also be…

Over the past few months we have been designing social media posts for Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.  We are hoping that people who see these would be curious about the posts and connect with our websites through the links provided.  What about you? Have you seen any of these posts? We would appreciate it if…

Every endeavor needs a champion. What is a champion? A champion is someone with a deep belief in the value of a project or cause, which generates in them a personal passion, which results in a tenacious commitment to that cause’s success, and whose influence on others puts the wind in the sails necessary to…

Several months ago, we were asked to provide an internship opportunity for a student doing graduate work in Biblical Languages and Translation. Her desire was to craft a graduate project that would apply Controlled English to build Bible lessons for new English readers. Her work would focus on two of the ‘less familiar’ Old Testament…

Myanmar, also known as Burma, is in South East Asia. It neighbors Thailand, Laos, Bangladesh, China, and India. With a population of about 54 million, most of whom are Burmese speakers. Many would also speak traditional, tribal languages like Karen or Chin. The biggest city is Yangon (Rangoon). The main religion is Buddhism. Clear and…

For some months now, Clear and Simple Media (CSM) has been a partnership with the 6° Initiative. The 6° Initiative (6DI) is a ministry of Converge IM and is one of their major initiatives in Africa. 6DI is a church planting movement focusing on the unreached people groups just north of the equator in West Africa. This area…

 Over the past number of years, we have been involved in dozens of projects. God has allowed us to accomplish much, for which we are thankful. We write and edit, translate and design, publish and distribute, develop story sets, conduct training, consult with mission agencies, present seminars. Very few of those projects have followed a…

The country of Estonia is in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. Estonia has a population of 1.3 million people.  The country shares borders with Latvia and Russia and is just across the Baltic Sea from Finland and Sweden. Look back into the country’s history and you will find early influences of Christianity. But today, Estonia…