Plugging the Planet into the Word

Rong Domriex, Cambodia - Tel Im, a barefoot 13-year-old, sat cross-legged on a bamboo bench, eager for her reading lesson.

"Please turn to Lesson 33," said a woman's voice rising from a cassette player powered by two wires clipped to a car battery. The tape was the closest thing to a school in this village shaded by banana trees, where water buffaloes meander in from the lime-green rice paddies.

Im and her classmates flipped to Page 134 for a passage
from the New Testament.

"The title of this story is: 'Jesus Was Crucified,' " said
the teacher on the tape, slowly pronouncing the words in
Khmer, the local language, as the children followed
along with their fingertips.

Six months ago, Im couldn't read a word and had never
heard of Jesus. Now, thanks to a literacy program run by
the local chapter of an international Bible group, she has
a book - the Bible - that she can read, and she says she
wants to become a Christian.

Using technological devices ranging from simple cassette tapes to solar-powered audio players and an ipod-like gadget called the Bible Stick, Christian groups are spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to make one of the world's oldest books accessible in remote corners of the planet.

Complete versions of the Bible can now be downloaded onto cellphones in parts of Africa. To reach those who can't read - nearly one-fifth of the world's population, according to the United Nations - Christian groups are rapidly increasing production of audio and video versions.

Excerpt from an article in the Washington Post