Learn more about FCM's partner Faith Comes By Hearing

Faith Comes By Hearing is a ministry that aids church planters and pastors around the world by translating Bibles into their mother tongue. Since 2021, the ministry has partnered with Four Corners Ministries, equipping FCM missionaries and teams with Proclaimer Audio Bibles to give to our Acholi brothers and sisters in Uganda. 

In 1972, Jerry and Annette Jackson followed God’s call to proclaim the Lord’s name through Bible listening programs using cassette tapes, and they established a Christian tape-lending library called Hosanna. About ten years later, the organization began recording the Bible in different languages, and in 1995, the ministry changed its name to Faith Comes By Hearing (FCBH).

The first international recording was in Haitian Creole, which took about three years to complete. After that, they recorded five more languages within five years. Today, they’re producing about three new translation recordings a day.

FCBH collaborates with translation partners, like Wycliffe and other Bible societies. When these partners finish a print translation, FCBH goes behind them to make an audio recording in that language.

“I always say we’re standing on the shoulders of giants. These translators have worked their entire life to translate the Scripture into a language,” said Scott Nutter, who’s served in the donor engagement role with FCBH for 17 years. 

Normally, Bible translators are called into ministry, go to school to learn the language of the region they’re going to serve, then they go to the village to start translating. In some cases, these villages have no written word, so the translators build an alphabet and create a dictionary before translating books of the Bible.

About 15 years ago, ten of the largest Bible translation ministries gathered to create a plan for translating the Bible into every language. 

“There are over 7,000 known languages, and it was going to take well over 150 years to complete it. That wasn’t acceptable to anybody at the table, so they started to work together,” Scott said. “Bible translations are working together, including Faith Comes By Hearing, as part of this movement to translate Scripture into every language of the world by the year 2033.”

This movement is called Vision 2033. So far, 2,604 translations have been completed. 

The advancement of technology is aiding this process and shortening the time it takes to translate the Bible. In February 2026, they released 69 new Scripture recordings within the time span of one month.

“Within that, nine of those are what we consider extreme sensitive languages in areas of highest persecution,” Scott said.

In the early days of the ministry, they produced recordings and put the Scripture on cassette tapes. With a boom box and 16 tapes, they’d send them to people groups across the world. As CDs entered the scene, the ministry found them difficult to use because they scratched easily or dirt would prevent it from working.

During this time, an Arizona pastor encouraged Jerry and the ministry to go into a time of prayer and fasting because “God was going to do something big.” After three days of praying and fasting, a chief engineer for FCBH introduced a prototype for a self-contained Audio Bible with a speaker system that could hold up to four languages and a solar panel for charging. It’s made from the same material as a football helmet and the inside components are safe from hot, cold, dusty, or wet environments.

FCBH named this device The Proclaimer and began developing it in 2004. There are four sizes of Proclaimers for different listening group sizes – from a device loud enough for 100 people to hear to a device for two people to hear with ear buds. 

Four Corners distributed 210 Proclaimers in 2025. Every time teams go to Abaana’s Hope, Pastor Benson gives back a box of worn-out audio Bibles and asks the ministry to fix them. The ministry sends new devices to replace these and to distribute to more people in the area.  

Over time, FCBH continued to develop different ways to share Bible audio, including the Military BibleSticks in 2008, the Bible.is App in 2010, the Global Bible Apps in 2017, and Gospel Films in 2018.

In 2016, FCBH developed a process called Oral Bible Translation (OBT) through software called Render. This allows translators to listen in a language they understand, translate orally into their mother tongue, and record their translation. It’s estimated that 70% of people are oral communicators, according to research FCBH shared.

“When you go to these countries, they’ll speak three or four languages fluently. So, we load the Render software up with three or four languages that they understand. They work in a group, listen to the Scripture, come to an understanding of what the Scripture is saying, then they record it directly. So, it’s an oral-to-oral translation,” Scott explained.

FCBH currently has 57 recording teams embedded in villages around the world. (Only one of the teams is from the U.S. The rest are international workers.) These teams stay in a village for up to three months and hire 25 or more native speakers to do the 180 parts of the New Testament. The audio recording can be anywhere between 20 to 40 hours long.

This same process is also being done through Virtual Recording, which allows people to connect online to record the Old and New Testament. They follow the same process as a recording team on the ground with a producer, technician, and proofreaders. This has allowed FCBH to record in areas where it isn’t safe to bring in a recording team. 

While the refugee crisis in areas like Sudan and Uganda is the result of tragic events, the Lord has opened a door for ministries to reach people groups who have never heard the name of Jesus. 

“We’re able to do recordings of languages that we had no access to before because the people groups moved,” Scott said.

Scott’s had the opportunity to travel with teams to various countries to deliver audio Bibles and show how they work. One of Scott’s dearest memories was on his trip to Sierra Leone. One of the children in the Bible school, Alfred, followed the team around wherever they went. Alfred asked for his own Proclaimer, and about 15 minutes after Scott gave him the device, he saw Alfred across the street sharing the gospel with some construction workers from another major religion in that area. 

Today, Alfred pastors a church, and has planted nine others using the audio and video Bibles in his ministry.

“Imagine you’re going to an area where it may be 98% Islamic, Hindu, or any of these other major religions, and these people have been told that God will never hear their prayers until they learn to speak the language of the missionaries. You walk into a village or go to a listening group in the middle of the night, they've been working all day, and you put the Proclaimer down and hit play. Literally, all sound gets sucked out of the village, and the people get focused because they have never heard anything in their mother tongue. Even the children go silent, and the people get lost in the story of Jesus. I wish everybody could experience that at least once in their lifetime,” Scott said. 

He’s seen people’s surprise after hearing the first words that come from Jesus’s mouth, “Blessed are the poor,” and seen many weep after listening to the story of Jesus and the bleeding woman after He calls her daughter, heals her, and forgives her sins. 

One pastor told Scott, “We always thought God was English. The missionaries would come. They’d preach to us in English. They’d read out of their Bible in English. They would close their Bible and they would leave, so we thought God would always go back to England with the missionaries until we finally received the Bible in our language.”

“Jesus continues to break up their world culture. He reveals that He is the Son of God. Then John the Baptist comes on the scene and says, ‘Behold, repent,’ and the people repent,” Scott said.

In 2018, FCBH connected with Bible Media Group a film organization that produced a full-length feature film of the gospel through Lumo Project Films. The film was translated into 20 languages, but their desire was to have it translated into 1,000 languages. Through forming a partnership with FCBH, the two ministries worked together to achieve this goal. Today, the film has been translated into 1,714 languages. In February 2026, they released it in 39 new languages.

FCBH built an Audio Video Studio for this project. As new audio recordings are completed, the video team works to match the audio with the film, adding B-roll footage and extending the background music where needed.

As the Living Stones Pastor Training Center graduates return to Abaana’s Hope in May, Four Corners will give each pastor cards with a QR code to the online Bible audio recording and Gospel Film. Then the pastors can give them to their people who have phones, and they can select to hear and watch the message of the Bible in various African languages. 

Hearing North African and Middle Eastern partners desire for an Old Testament film, FCBH and BMG created a film with Old Testament prophecies, the lineage of Jesus, and major stories called the Covenant Film, which has been translated into 135 languages. In 2025, they also completed a film about the book of Acts, called The Acts of the Apostles, which is in 49 languages.

“The greatest movement of the Bible is happening now in our generation. We might be able to see the fulfillment of Matthew 24:14 - that this gospel shall be proclaimed to all nations,” Scott said. 

To donate towards Acholi Solar Audio Bibles, visit the Abaana’s Hope give link and put “Audio Bibles” in the gift note. Our goal is to send 500 Proclaimers this year. It costs $50 each for the large Proclaimer that 100 people can listen to and $25 each for a medium size Proclaimer that 50 people can listen to.

Visit faithcomesbyhearing.com for more information about FCBH or contact Scott Nutter (505-881-3321) to see how your church can get involved.