This article is the result of a story that was shared with Keith Williams during EMDC 2019.
Five years ago, when I attended EMDC for the first time, I grew impassioned for the idea that a media strategy could be used to reach nomads in East Africa. Time and again, I ran into people who pushed back, saying: “Oh, they don’t use media,” “They are in the bush,” and “There is no wifi.” Then they were willing to say, “You can try it, but it needs to be high quality.” Their request would have meant thousands of dollars and long production delays.
Finally, they allowed me to just use my phone for creating a simple video showing local women at work with a recording of Proverbs 31. Then we advertised the video only in areas where these nomads were predominant. 10,000 people have watched the video so far, and 200 have asked us for more videos from God’s Word.
When I took these results to locals and my leadership, they said, “We could never have believed that 10,000 Afar would hear God’s Truth all for $20 and a little time investment.” Now I have the blessing of leaders to move forward on using mobile engagement in digital ministry as broadly as possible.
Mobile ministry can be effective as we are released to try it.