Mission 66, the teaching programme created by Brazilian theologian Luiz Sayão, became available to more than 400 million additional listeners on a single day in October.
28th October 2024 was the English and Indonesian language debuts of the 613-episode Bible survey (the total numbers of people who speak these two languages are 1.6 billion.) It also marked the first time that a full-length English language TWR programme was heard on US radio stations.
“To me, that’s ground-breaking,” said Scott Hollinger, Media Content Creation team leader for the Global Content department in Cary, North Carolina. “This is a teaching programme that is meant to educate and encourage listeners spiritually through daily teaching in the Word and we’ve never done that before in English, in the US.”
Sayão, a scholar and Bible translator, first developed the programme in collaboration with RTM Brazil in his native Portuguese as Rota 66. It has been distributed for more than a decade on various RTM* outlets. It’s also heard in Spanish, Mandarin and Japanese.
“If all pastors can explain the Bible the way the pastor has been explaining Mark Chapter 9, I could have long abandoned my sinful way of living,” a listener to the English-language version in South Africa wrote. “From today I must listen to this pastor via Trans World Radio.”
The agreement
In March 2023, Sayão signed an agreement giving TWR the authority to develop the programme in additional languages, with the world’s ten most-spoken languages being the first priority.
The English language version can now be heard on TWR stations in Africa, Asia and Europe, as well as on several stations in the US. Online access is also available at www.mission66.org, www.twr360.org and on major podcast apps. A free, downloadable study guide is also available to listeners at www.mission66.org.
Veteran TWR missionary Bill Early is creating an adaptation of the English translation from the original Portuguese.
Bill Early has been writing scripts for a variety of programmes since he began working for TWR on the island of Bonaire in 1986. Although now based in the US, he continues to voice the announcements that air between programmes for the Bonaire AM station, and also writes and voices the local news for the Bonaire FM station.
“I’ve been in a number of different projects where someone needed a scriptwriter and Bill Early was the person they called on,” said Ted Siemens, who has coordinated the Mission 66 project for more than a year. “He’s used to being on air. He understands that you have to capture people’s attention.”
TWR already broadcasts on Spanish-language stations in the US and US radio carries short programmes in English, such as the inspirational stories retold by Andy Napier in Footsteps. But Mission 66 marks a new venture for English language TWR programming in the US, broadcasting full-length 25 minute episodes.
Indonesia
In Indonesia, the world’s fourth-largest country by population and the country with the largest Muslim population, the programme is distributed in the Indonesian language online, on shortwave from KTWR on the island of Guam and on affiliate station BE 107 FM.
It goes beyond that, said Daniel Saputra** TWR’s international director for Southeast Asia. YTWR, TWR’s Indonesian national partner also sends the programme to 15 commercial radio stations across Indonesia, including some Christian stations and some that are secular.
“Our relationships with those local stations have been built for many years,” Saputra said. “So the stations are actually very open to broadcast almost any programme YTWR asks them.”
In regions not reached by radio, TWR already has partnerships with churches, to provide MP3 players for the churches to set up listening groups.
Before the end of September, the Indonesia team had already recorded 133 episodes out of a total of 613 – enough to reach well into this year.
“Our team … is very excited,” Saputra said. “I asked them about any problem in producing the programme, and they said, oh, we just enjoy it.”
About 10% of Indonesia’s population are Christians that is roughly 26 million people, but Jesus followers still need the sort of discipleship that Mission 66 provides.
“In some places the church grows quite fast,” Saputra said. “So we don’t have enough trained church leaders. Having this kind of programme will help them grow spiritually.”
One year in Spanish
The 28th October also marked the one-year anniversary of the programme’s new Spanish-language broadcast, which has a potential listening audience of 200 million across Latin America, said Annabel Torrealba, TWR international director for Latin American and Caribbean-Hispanic ministries. It’s also available online at www.mision66.org.
A Spanish-language version had been heard for six years, Torrealba said. That version was recorded in Spanish as it’s spoken in Spain, which sounds foreign to people in Latin American countries.
But perhaps the bigger difference is stylistic. Although Sayão’s teaching is the same, in the newer version it is presented less as an exposition and more as a dialogue among three voices.
The presenters – Kimberly Yepes of Colombia and Jonny Perez and David Silva of Uruguay – have clicked, Torrealba said.
“It’s beyond expectation,” she said. “This is the first time I’ve seen a project have so much feedback in just one year.”
Also beyond expectation: the youthful age of listeners. The largest group of listeners is ages 25-35, Torrealba said, which is younger than had been expected. She attributed that, in part, to the fact that the three presenters sound young, and that they avoid Christian jargon. Also, they connect with their listeners on social media.
“They are very creative, and they make it fun and interesting for the listeners,” Torrealba said.
Listener responses underscore that.
“I came across Mission 66 on Instagram, and at once I was conquered,” a listener in Colombia wrote on 29th February, 2024. “Your simple and pleasant way of teaching and sharing the Bible caught my attention.”
The English version
The English version also was blessed with top-rate vocal talent. John Mathews, who is from Wales, and Esther Sisulu, from South Africa, emerged as the best among a number of fine candidates, Hollinger said.
There was no attempt to “Americanize” their accents. “It’s an international show; it’s not American,” Fugler explained. “We wanted it to be as broad as possible.”
An English-language listener in Nairobi, Kenya, for example, would hear the same programme as a listener in Eugene, Oregon.
Wherever they are, listeners will notice authenticity from the pair, Fugler said.
“They have internalised and owned the material, so they are speaking from their hearts and not just communicating information,” he said. “And you sense that by how they deliver the content.”
They do that even to the point of ad-libbing, Hollinger said. Once, Sisulu said the verses they were discussing reminded her of the lyrics to a hymn. “Are you thinking of this song?” Mathews responded. He proceeded to sing the first words of the hymn.
“The best way to think of it is that [it’s] just like we’re sitting around a table,” Hollinger said. “The third person at the table is the listener, and John and Esther have invited the listener to be sitting at the table and enjoying the conversation.”
It’s uncertain how many others are sitting at the table; data from the radio broadcasts isn’t yet available. Online, the English broadcast had been heard 27,307 times as of 10th January. In Indonesian, the number was 14,799.
As of 1st January, the English-language broadcast also is being heard in Great Britain on the TWR-UK channel three times a day, Fugler said.
Both the English and Spanish versions of Mission 66 have Facebook and Instagram pages.
More to come
Completion date for presenting Mission 66 in the 10 most-spoken languages depends on how soon the money is available to get the job done, Fugler said. “We have people and tools available now to begin the translation process.”
African French is in development, he said, and it will be followed by Arabic.
To help you tune in for yourself, TWR360 has a page dedicated to Mission 66. Learn how to help bring Mission 66 to more languages here.
