We are going through troublous times. The world is unraveling around us, and it’s hard not to recognize the severe challenges that society faces on every hand.

Prophesying about the time when Israel would be restored to rebuild Jerusalem following the 70 years of Babylonian captivity, Daniel noted that “the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.” (Daniel 9:25) This isn’t the first time that God has led His people through challenging circumstances.

When Nehemiah was rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem, he indeed faced obstacles, discouragements, and distractions on all sides. How did he respond to his enemies when they came to harass him in those troublous times?

And I sent messengers unto them, saying, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you? (Nehemiah 6:3)

Regardless of the trying circumstances that threaten to dampen our courage, delay our plans, and silence our witness, let us say as did Nehemiah that “we cannot come down” because we cannot allow the work to cease!

At AudioVerse, we are taking this message to heart, and that is why despite all that is occurring in 2020, we are pressing forward with one of our largest and most important projects.

Background

AudioVerse has a large international reach in over 200 countries around the world, but the vast majority of our content is only available in the English language. We have taken strides to expand our international efforts by initiating a project to translate our existing English content into other languages. We have piloted the approach in Japanese and have seen tremendous results. In the short time since we launched, we have nearly 700 Japanese messages on the site and over 3,000 downloads each month; with traffic doubling just in the past year! Beyond that, just recently, we have started translation work for the Russian language. (We have even translated the Russian version of the new Last Day Events Explained series!)

Our aim is to expand swiftly and aggressively into many more languages. To accomplish this, we must have the ability to add new team members quickly and efficiently, but we have a significant bottleneck to do this. And that is our existing Administrative Content Management System (CMS)—the custom-built software that controls all of the messages that get published onto AudioVerse.

Our existing system was built by the original founders of AudioVerse back in 2005, which in the online world, is positively prehistoric! Our ministry has grown in ways that the founders couldn’t have foreseen, and so the software was not optimized for the tasks and workflows that are most important now. Due to the inefficiencies, properly training a new volunteer to operate our current system now requires up to several weeks! Certainly not a viable situation for rapid international growth.

Because of God’s blessing and our operating philosophy of resourcefulness, we have been able to accomplish a huge amount even with an aging system. However, the limitations of this old software now far outweigh the benefits of continuing to invest in it. To use an analogy, there is only so much duct tape we can use to keep this old car from falling apart!

So for the sake of improving our current operations, but more importantly, to enable us to rapidly and efficiently add team members to enter new fields and languages, we urgently need to invest in a ground-up rebuilding of our Administrative CMS.

The Plan

Because this CMS controls the very heart of AudioVerse’s operations, it is imperative that we embark on this project with deliberateness and carefulness. It also means that we absolutely cannot cut corners in the process.

Our in-house developers are teaming up with an SDA software development firm in Ukraine to spearhead this project. This firm has extensive experience working with the General Conference and other Adventist organizations on numerous large projects, and they are staffed with dedicated and mission-focused Adventist young people. Importantly for our budget, their services are at least 2-3 times less expensive than what we would pay for equivalent quality in the US.

We have already spent several months in extensive dialogue with them regarding the scope and needs of this project, and are deep in the design stage. Actual software development will begin imminently. The target is to complete this rebuild by early to mid 2021, and we anticipate at that point that training time for new volunteers will decrease from weeks to minutes. Moreover, we are carefully architecting our new system to enable greater flexibility to upgrade in the future without needing as extensive of an overhaul. This upgrade will also result in numerous improvements to you, our end users as well.

If you would like to know more regarding the technical details of this endeavor, feel free to contact me for more information.

The Need

The estimated cost of this project is $140,000, but we have several generous donors who have pledged to match all gifts toward this project dollar-for-dollar! That means each $10 you contribute is worth $20, each $100 is worth $200, and each $1,000 worth $2,000! Your gift will go even farther toward the advancement of the Gospel than ever!

Moreover, for our US-based supporters, under the CARES Act, donors can get a Federal income tax deduction for charitable contributions of up to 100% (normally 60%) of their Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) for tax year 2020.

Seeing the circumstances in the world today, 2020 looks to be a challenging year for fundraising, but we are compelled by the nearness of Christ’s return and the needs of the world around us to press forward without delay. We cannot come down! During the past few months of COVID-19, we have seen all-time records for traffic on AudioVerse across all of our language sites. So if anything, the pandemic has shown us how crucial online evangelism is in the closing work and how urgent the need is to proclaim the Three Angels’ Messages to a dying world!

To send a gift toward this project, there are several ways:

1. You may send us a check made out to “AudioVerse” to the address below. Be sure to add “AudioVerse CMS Project” on the memo line for us to apply your funds toward the match.
2. To give online, visit our donate page at this link: https://www.audioverse.org/english/give. And under “Where would you like this donation to go?” select: “AudioVerse CMS Project”
3. If you would like to give by credit card without transaction fees, you may give via our PayPal Giving Fund page. However, to ensure your gift is applied toward the match, you will need to email us at [email protected] to note that your gift is for the “AudioVerse CMS Project”, as PayPal Giving Fund does not allow donors to include comments with their gifts.

Donors who give via PayPal Giving Fund will receive a tax-deduction receipt by email from PayPal immediately. Whereas donors who give by check or our standard online donation portal will receive tax-deduction receipts in January 2021 for tax year 2020.

Thank you for prayerfully considering taking part in this important project. Indeed, why should the work cease? We cannot come down because we must continue to press forward the work of the Three Angels as we see the Second Coming drawing ever nearer. I invite you to join us in this work!

Your fellow missionary,
Alistair Huong
Executive Director

P.S. With the unrest in the world around us, it’s easy to get discouraged and to allow our gospel witness to suffer. Like Nehemiah who rebuilt Jerusalem’s walls during troublous times, we at AudioVerse reply, “We cannot come down!” The work of God is too important to be allowed to cease! In fact, we are pressing ahead with one of our largest and most important projects ever in 2020. We are rebuilding, from the ground up, the entire software system that manages the entire AudioVerse operations—our Administrative Content Management System (CMS). We need $140,000 for this project, but some generous supporters have already pledged to match every gift dollar for dollar up to the full amount! Each of your dollars will be worth twice as much! To give toward this exciting project, you may send us a check to our address below or you may give online via our donate page. In both cases, please annotate with “AudioVerse CMS Project” to ensure your gift is applied toward the match. Thank you!

AudioVerse | PO Box 2288 | Collegedale | TN 37315