Digital Resources

The Open Library for Local Learning Communities (OL3C) is a large project that MAFLT has been asked to take a major role in by Wycliffe / SIL (Gary Simons, Chief Research Officer), Shell books (Mike Trainum, CEO), and ARCA Associates (Peter Clark, CEO). The purpose of the project is to facilitate the development and distribution of SALT, LIGHT, and Multilingual Learning Resources for limited literate education needs around the world. Several documents and audio sessions are attached to explain the project by the key initiators from Wycliffe and ARCA and Shellbooks.

The first attached document #1 gives an introduction to the OL3C project with an early initial proposal. By the end of the three year project the following four outcomes are expected:

Zambian pastor, Michael Mutale, writes to MAF-LT's Mike Holman,

Mike,

Am fine. I have been doing trainings. I had a group of pastors who had interest in Digital library and we had a good time together.

Please do pray for me as I go next week out to meet 60 pastors from the North western part of Zambia.

Please do check some of the testimonies from the brothers here. I will send more testimonies.

Thank you for everything.

Michael

(click 'Read more' for pictures and testimonies)

Did you know that you can get access to seminary level courses from your home for free! There are now many different resources available online to aid you in growing in your knowledge of  the Bible and how it applies to your Christian life. As MAF-Learning Technologies looks for resources to share with ministries overseas, we also want to let you know about those available to you. Here is a list of resources that will aid anyone from a new believer to a seasoned Christian. Enjoy!
http://doc.maflt.org/Reviews-Comparisons/Free_Bible_Courses
 
(If you find more, share them with us.)

Christians all around the world need access Bibles in order to learn and study God's Word. These Bibles may be in print, digital, or audio formats. Bible study software that enables one to search the Bible, to find relevant commentaries, to look up the meaning of words, and to compare various versions, allows users of such software to better understand what they are reading. MAF-Learning Technologies has been actively developing and distributing digital Bibles and Bible study software since before 2001. One of our first projects was a software CD that included Russian Bibles and Bible study tools that we freely gave away.
 
Since that time many free and open-source Bible study programs have been created and MAF-LT no longer needs to develop our own product. We reviewed most of the free programs and are making this information available at
http://doc.maflt.org/Reviews-Comparisons/Comparison_of_Bible_Study_Software.
 
This website contains

• a review of free Bible Study software,
• Bibles for Mobile phones,
• links to many Bibles and Bible resources in multiple languages,
• and finally a draft plan for how MAF-LT will continue to be involved in digital Bibles.

MAF-LT will focus on aiding the development of others' efforts, on helping to obtain digital Bibles in many languages, on encouraging the local Christian leaders to develop commentaries, notes, and dictionaries for their own languages, and in distributing the resulting products to Christian leaders around the world.

Mike Holman, Manager of our Digital Resource Team, received this message from ministry partner, Michael M., in Zambia, Africa. It reveals how far simple technology's impact reaches when accurately applied.

Mike,

Thank you very much. I received what you sent to me ...

These things are helping our pastors very well. Our digital library has 320 regular ministers who do use the teachings. We have burnt 410 CD's to give to pastors.

Please do pray for me.

I do have four planned activities to get into new places to establish digital facilities.

In March I will go to the Eastern part of Zambia to meet 150 pastors for three days. We shall be talking about how to use MP3's and CD's. They believe that these materials are important for them.

In May I will go to the western part of Zambia for three days to meet 90 pastors. We shall spend time talking about digital library and also I will take moments to burn them CD's and DVD's. I hope to start a library here and so we are also looking for an external disc like you provided to me. One pastor has agreed to donate a laptop computer. We pray that we can also install 4 desk top computers...

In July I have an invitation to go to the Northern side of Zambia to meet 230 pastors and we shall expose them to the digital library. They will be using computers from a church. So we pray that we shall leave them with enough teachings on videos and audio CD's. The distance is far and I will travel with 4 other pastors.