Divine appointment in a Lyft

Today was a roller coaster of a day.

I had an online meeting from 8:30-9:00 and then had to order up a Lyft (ride share like Uber) to take me to pick up my car from the shop and go straight from there to a funeral at 10 a.m.. And from there to a doctor's appointment with my parents. 

So it seemed rather random when I decided to pick the Standard pickup time rather than the Priority pickup for my Lyft. Time was tight but I figured I could spare the extra minute. 

As soon as I got in my Lyft, I could tell the driver was African. I asked where he was from. He said, "West Africa."

"Where exactly?"

"Ivory Coast"  (Côte d'Ivoire) 

I immediately switched over to French and told him how I had lived in Mali and Ivory Coast for many years. This is always a moment of joy, both for me, but also for the person who is taken totally by surprise to find an Okie speaking French to them. 

We chatted about where I had been in Côte d'Ivoire and then I asked what ethnic group he's part of. He said he was Wobé. 
I asked if he's a Christian and he said he was. I responded that I thought one of our teams had completed the Bible translation in Wobé. 

We kept talking but I pulled out my phone and went to the Google Play store and searched for Wobe. There it was -  the "Bible in Wobe with Audio"!

We had just a few blocks left of the ride. I downloaded it and got the audio loaded, too, and played him a bit of Matthew 1 from the back seat. 

You could see his smile - even from behind! There's nothing quite like hearing your mother tongue, especially in a foreign land. 

We were just pulling up to the garage but we managed to exchange phone numbers and I sent him a link to the app. I also found out that he lives quite close to me! I'm hoping we can stay in touch. 

I would be remiss if I didn't say more about about these scripture apps. 

I have several SIL colleagues who create these apps around the world - in Mali, Côte d'Ivoire, Germany, Cameroon and there are many others. 
Each app is a stand-alone ap -  that is to say they're not part of the Bible App that you probably use. Instead there is one per language. That way, if someone happens to think to search for their language, there it is! And they are all free. Most of them come with audio that plays along with the text. All are designed to be downloaded once and then not need internet connection. 

If you know someone who speaks a minority language, ask them their language name and search for it in the Google Play store of the Iphone App Store. Most of these are produced for both Android and Iphone. Some also have tablet/ipad versions.

If your friend speaks a majority language - Spanish, French, Ukranian, Chinese, Indonesia, Arabic, Urdu, Swahili, etc. -  check first in the Bible App/YouVersion to see if their language is part of that. 

Faith Comes By Hearing, a partner of ours, also has their own app and cover 2200 languages where they have recorded an audio version of the scriptures. 

Finally, check out https://scriptureearth.org which allows you to search by language or country and it lists ALL the resources available in a given language including Jesus film, published scriptures, recordings, etc.