News

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…

Just a few weeks after we returned from two years of leading a church planting team in Vietnam, I found myself in Africa. I was asked to travel to Banfora, Burkina Faso to help build a story set with a CRU team from StoryRunners. Twenty-four Jula speakers, two westerners, and four African translators spent 6…

A few months ago, I wrote a blog post entitled, “Why Does it Take So Long?” It discussed the realities of translation and featured a summary of Emily Lupfer’s article: “5 Reasons Why Google Can’t Translate the Bible.” As I was telling someone about our newest translation projects for Afghanistan, those same questions were raised….

Over the past 10 years, some of our projects have been the result of working to build relationships that slowly grow into opportunities for ministry. But a large number of our projects have come to us unexpectedly. The books somehow “escape” and, as a result of things we could not have planned, our books end…

Have you travelled to a far away place? Have you gone on a trip to a place that you had never been before? That kind of trip can be fun. But you can get lost on a journey like that. That is why the best way to travel to a new place is to have…

Clear and Simple Media does a worldwide outreach through our book distribution in 48 languages in more than 40 countries and through our delivery websites. But occasionally, we climb in a vehicle and go on the road. During a recent trip that included Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho, we found ourselves at…

One of the ways to assess one’s progress is to mark milestones. Last year, in August of 2020, we were able to count another one – the completion of the initial Arabic translation of the Travel Guide to the Bible. That, of course, is not the final step in our process. Because we believe that…

We are often asked, in a sentence or two, to summarize the work of Clear and Simple Media. We have developed a few, short sentences to help us do that. One is, “We write books and tell stories in simple English.” The other, and most often used, is; “We help people read the Bible and…

If you have been following our news section for any length of time, you know that our ministry, while focussed on producing tools in simple English, is not limited to one language. Our ultimate goal is to have all of our material, including our websites, in as many languages as possible. In fact, one of…

In 2015, several likeminded leaders met to discuss the need to build unity among leaders involved or interested in Native/First Nations ministry. As a result of those conversations, the United in Christ Conference was born. Co-sponsored by Oak Hills Center for Indian Ministries and CHIEF, Inc., the first conference was held in 2017 at Oak Hills…

Several months ago, Clear and Simple Media announced the completion of a set of 1,500 questions to accompany our Travel Guide to the Bible. The questions are primarily ‘comprehension questions’ to assure that the readers understand the basic content. After those questions were checked for readability, the question set was sent to a set of…

Six weeks ago, I was able to renew an old acquaintance. I was returning from a car trip to the western US and stopped to see Huron Claus. Huron, a Mohawk, is the Executive Director of CHIEF. CHIEF (Christian Hope Indian Eskimo Fellowship) is the focal point of a network of ministries who give focus…

A few days ago, I received an email from my friend, Jimmy Smith. Jimmy lives in Denver, Colorado, where he serves as a Church Mobilization Specialist with Converge. We sent Jimmy a copy of our book, Travel Guide to the Bible, and asked him to give it to his daughter Cara to read as a…

When we received the first order of the print version of Simple Answers to Not So Simple Questions, we began distributing them to some of our longer-term ministry partners. Much of that delivery was via the postal systems (Canada and the US). But some of our ministry partners are a bit closer to home. Less…

In late March, we included a news item (HERE) that spoke of how our materials are being used in creative ways in Seniors Care Facilities in British Columbia, Canada. The man who came up with the idea to use our stories with his Memory Care friends is Dr. Daryl Busby. Dr. Busby is a long-time…

The following is an article featured in the Converge IM ‘Global Link’ publication from April 28, 2021. Ministry Specialist Team // Tom and Lee Castor As part of the organizational structure of IM,teams were created that would supply global support to all the regions. One of those teams is the Ministry Specialist Team. As described…

Since early in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has had significant effect on the church worldwide. Many countries have imposed travel restrictions, lockdowns, and insisted that churches not gather until the virus is under control. Of course, these measures have also had unanticipated negative impact on economies and social structures that have also posed challenges to…

Many times over the past ten years, we have reported how CSM materials are being used in ways that we had not imagined when we created the content. We first wrote our books and recorded our stories primarily for new English readers and to make them highly ‘translatable’. The books are now in 47 languages…

‘Rome was not built in a day.’ We use that cliché when we want to remind someone (or ourselves), that some things just take time. When we first were asked by church leaders in Africa to write a short commentary on the questions from our ‘little book’, Simple Truths for the New Believer, we agreed. We…

The effects of the international response to the Covid-19 virus have been varied. Some countries have approached the pandemic with calculated and mercurial actions. Others have been more reactionary and slapdash. In all of these responses, the world (and the church as part of it) have had to learn things that, while uncomfortable, may have…

In early February, Clear and Simple Media was able to send funds to Burkina Faso to assist in several translation and publication projects. We had reported in an earlier post that, as the books become more widely distributed, new language projects are added as a need becomes known. The translations now in use in West…