by Mark Wilson, MAMO Project Director
9 June 2006
"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" DK's clear voice spoke the Maninka words into the microphone. The recording of the book of Genesis for the Maninka Audio Media Outreach Project was underway. We undertook this task in November 2005, and after months of digital reworking, in June 2006, we now have the finished product and are beginning to reproduce and sell the cassette tapes.

We were assisted by two men from a Ghana Scripture recording ministry, Worlali and Michael. Their first task was to transfer our electronic copy of Genesis into their computers and divide it into 1150 segments based on the various characters. Each segment became a separate computer document (actually an audio waveform). Then, we worked with NC, who, with a borrowed missionary motorcycle, recruited 22 different Maninka people to speak the various parts!

Each character's parts were produced individually in one recording session. DK, who has been working for SIM as an administrative assistant, took on the huge narrator role and spent days recording. Among the other voices the Lord provided, we discovered some good readers of the Maninka language who I hope to be able to use in future projects. Some voices were produced by non-readers who merely repeated short phrases read to them by a literate Maninka person. Then, we digitally edited out the literate person's voice to leave their part as clearly produced as if they had read it.

When we finished the recording, the segments were electronically sorted into chronological order. Then we carefully listened to everything and noted errors. Sometimes we had to send NC to retrieve various speakers—about 10 in all—to re-record certain portions.

Worlali and Michael were in Kankan for 2 weeks. When they departed for Ghana, they took the raw recorded material with them and added sound effects, mastered it, and made the necessary breaks so that the nearly 5 hours of Scripture will fit onto cassettes. Now that it has arrived back in Guinea, we are duplicating the tapes for distribution.

I gave the first of the 4 cassettes to my guard at the studio. He took it to a friend of his who had a cassette player and they listened to it. Soon, a crowd had gathered. Some of them wanted to buy it from our guard but he wouldn't sell it! He kept repeating to me, "It's very, very good!" Praise God for this reception of His Word!

Pray

• that God will use this recording to reveal Himself to the Maninka people.
• for the staff to quickly make sufficient copies of the cassettes.
• thank the Lord for funding and ask Him to send people to continue this project during the Wilsons' 6-month home assignment beginning in July 2006.