CHAMBERSBURG, Pa.— Despite a recent surge in literacy over the past ten years, just over 75% of Indians are deemed literate. Literacy is a vital foundation for opportunity and development all around the world—if a person cannot read and write, they are unable to access quality information and ideas that can help them improve their standards of living and better care for themselves and their families.
Team members of The Tide® (www.TheTide.org) ministry in India have been leading adult literacy programs to help the local people learn how to read and write. This program is in addition to The Tide® ministry’s main method of reaching people — global radio broadcasts that share the Gospel in listeners’ heart languages, or the languages they were born to speak.
“These adult literacy programs provide an essential need for the people in these regions,” The Tide® Director Don Shenk commented. “It gives the local people a valuable skill that they can utilize in their day-to-day lives, as well as provides them with the ability to teach it to others in their community.”
It can be difficult to continue programs like this during an ongoing global health crisis, but The Tide® ministry staff have persevered. Over the past three months, the team has reached over 600 students to not only teach literacy, but also health and safety, gardening, and generally cleanliness.
These additional efforts are already making an impression. One social worker reached out to ten villages over just two months, with 24 people coming to Christ and five of these new believers getting baptized. The adult literacy program workers also provide COVID and hygiene education, as well as preparing people to start their own gardens in the months ahead. The staff even provide some livestock to villagers, such as chickens and goats. One goat has already given birth to two kids, which provides the villagers more self-support.
“It is so encouraging to hear that despite the current events of the world, peoples’ lives are still being touched by the teachers in our adult literacy programs,” Shenk stated. “We hope that it reminds the locals that they are important to us — and even more important to our heavenly Father. Hopefully this outreach will continue to grow and change lives, all for the betterment of the Kingdom.”
Being focused on the kingdom is precisely what The Tide® ministry is all about. The organization tells the truth of the Gospel daily to people through radio broadcasts all around the world in over 20 different languages on three continents,reaching millions of people including those in Afghanistan, Albania, Bhutan, India, Kosovo, Mozambique, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, and Zimbabwe.
For more information about what The Tide® ministry is doing in India and the surrounding region, click here.
After over 75 years of Gospel radio broadcasting, The Tide® ministry and its partners will focus on the core foundations of “The Tide Diamond Vision” for the next seven decades:
- Amplify – The Tide® ministry will increase ministry initiatives so that more people can experience God’s grace.
- Magnify – The Tide® ministry will work to grow its support base to an expanded demographic.
- Solidify – The Tide® ministry will develop and supply more resources to help new believers to grow in their faith and live in right relationship with God.
- Verify – The Tide® ministry will measure the effectiveness of its activities to both manage them well and to demonstrate the efficient stewardship of resources.
- Glorify – The Tide® ministry will strive to ensure that all it does to achieve its vision will bring glory to God.
For more information about The Tide® ministry broadcast projects, history, radio programs around the world, special year-long campaigns, the weekly Global Update radio features or other news, visit its website at www.thetide.org or its Facebook page.
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To schedule interviews with Don Shenk, director of The Tide® global radio ministry, contact Media@HamiltonStrategies.com, Beth Harrison, 610.584.1096, ext. 105, or Deborah Hamilton, ext. 102.
To inquire about airing any of The Tide® ministry radio broadcasts, contact Michael Hamilton,610.584.1096, ext. 101.