Steve Shwetz on Faith, Media, and Transforming Lives in Liberia

SPEAKER 01 : 0:01

It’s Mike Triem of the Crawford Media Group. Today we’re joined by Steve Schwartz. Steve is the host of Through the Bible. And Steve, you’ve got some awesome stories to tell us about Liberia and what you’re doing there. So thanks for being with us.

SPEAKER 02 : 0:12

Yeah, Mike, thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to tell these stories. And we’ve talked about this on the program some, but it’s just – I appreciate having a little bit more time to talk about this. Take the clock back to 2022. A longtime listener, a guy named Rob out of Henderson, Nevada, which is kind of a suburb of Las Vegas, is listening. And he calls and contacts us and just calls our 800 line and says, hey, I’ve got – I work with this ministry, and I support it in Liberia, and it’s an orphanage, and it’s a school, and I think that they could use these media players that you’re talking about. And so he got in contact with Ray Allery, who’s one of our directors, and he sent him a single media player just to see how it would go. And long story short, one went to 20, went to 200, went to 500. It’s growing, and they contact us and say, hey, we want to have a three-day conference. that’s a result of all of these people that have listened to through the Bible to come together, both to meet you and to hear some, some good solid preaching. And so we flew to Liberia, Ray, myself, Rob, who kicked this whole thing off with making that phone call and had a full day of a men’s conference and then a full day of a women’s conference. And there were, Probably 300 men and probably 350 women that came on those individual days. And we had the blessing of hearing testimony after testimony of how the Lord moved in these people’s lives as a result of being able to listen to through the Bible on these media players.

SPEAKER 01 : 1:50

So how did you guys? Oh, so go ahead, Steve.

SPEAKER 02 : 1:53

Well, and we’re just seeing the Lord move in that way in such significant ways throughout Africa and around the world, but particularly in this season in Africa.

SPEAKER 01 : 2:03

So as you get through the Bible programming to these folks in Liberia, talk about some of the ways you’re doing it. You mentioned it wasn’t just not just the media player. And then also, how do they listen? Is it in their language? Give that for the person that doesn’t know.

SPEAKER 02 : 2:22

Yeah, good question. Through the Bible is in over 130 full languages, and so it’s in African French, it’s in African English, and it’s in Liberian. I’ve got to remember if it’s Liberian or not, but I believe it’s Liberian. So they’re listening to it in their particular language. But the exciting part of it is I keep saying, but wait, there’s more. And when we were meeting there, they said, hey, there’s a strategic place that we want to get a radio tower in. And I’m thinking, okay, you guys don’t have the resources for that. There’s no way it’s going to happen. And it’s in this area of Liberia called Foya. And Foya is about 350 miles away from the capital, 300 miles, 350, which is Monrovia. And you think, okay, in my world, that’s like for me, I’m in Southern California to San Francisco. That’s not even that. It’s not that big of a deal. It is a… 15-hour hard drive on what would barely be called roads at some point. You feel like you’re a rock inside of a dryer on a slow tumble trying to get to these places. But it’s strategic because FOIA is on the edge of Liberia, and it borders Guinea, and it borders Sierra Leone. And it’s on a pretty substantial hill, so it gets great coverage for terrestrial radio. So anyway, they’re excited about taking through the Bible, starting with this one media player and getting it on that radio station and building a radio station. The towers will be coming from the U.S. There’s equipment coming from other parts of the world. We have partners that are putting the whole thing together. And the exciting thing about it is the support that we’re getting for that is just phenomenal. Two days ago, I actually, and I didn’t know who this guy was, but there’s this guy talking on this program, on this video saying, you know, thank you for this. And they’re showing the opening ceremony of him dancing. digging in the ground. And it turns out the guy is the president of Liberia, who’s actually a believer who wants this radio tower in. And he said, Liberia and Sierra Leone and Guinea need the gospel. And this is a way that we can do that for these people. And so it’s just exciting to see how the Lord’s moving and how they’re getting solid Bible teaching in their language, all because of one listener to through the Bible that made a phone call and said, Hey, I think I’ve got a way that through the Bible can be used in Liberia.

SPEAKER 01 : 4:49

We’re speaking with Steve Sweats. Steve is the host of Through the Bible. You just see – I know you’ve seen this in the past so much with Through the Bible, how God opens these doors. A guy from Las Vegas, not exactly the Bible belt of the U.S., and he’s paving the path. And then you find out the president’s a believer, and this impossible project is going to work out, it sounds like, with the radio tower. Yeah. That’s crazy stuff. The audio player is what, a solar? I think we talked about this quite a few times in the past.

SPEAKER 02 : 5:27

It’s a solar player, right? Well, it’s a media player. We have gone with solar. I think right now the current iteration is some Chinese device that works for a certain number of days. There’s a cost per device issue. What we’re really working on and continuing to develop is the Through the Bible app that allows you to put it on primarily Android. It’s Android and iPhone, and it’s what I primarily listen to the program on is the iPhone app. But we’re taking – we’ve got the underlying code base for the U.S. domestic app. We’re making it better. We’re continually improving it, and then we’re going to roll that out, and we are in the process of rolling that out into over 100 languages. So the goal will be – you know, you go to Liberia – people barely have, you know, shoes on their feet, but they’ve all got smartphones. Exactly. And so the desire to get an app that, and this is key as well, you know, that we talk about before that we started rolling on this thing, we were talking about 5g and, you know, coverage and all of that. Well, in Liberia, they don’t even have 3g. Like when we were in the hotel, I could kind of get the local carrier. If I tried to get online and, You know, to to check an email or something at three in the morning. But as soon as the world wakes up at six o’clock, you can’t even get on the Internet because their infrastructure is just so poor. So the goal is to get basically an offline app that allows people to go to a center and download, for instance. The core product and just book at a time. Here’s Genesis and here’s Matthew. So download that. Go listen to it in your small group, in your home group as an individual. When you’re done with that, come back and we’ll give you the next segment. And that gives us an opportunity to kind of for our ministry partners to. to help and come alongside, disciple those that are coming in, get reports, what testimonies, how are you using the player. And it’s just, it’s amazing the way one media player and ideally one smartphone ends up being used for multiple groups of people listening to the program together in fellowship around God’s word.

SPEAKER 01 : 7:36

I think that helps our listener realize how strategic you have to be through the Bible. Because each country, I’m guessing, totally guessing here, that their challenges are different. Every country you go to. So one’s different than the other. And you have to figure out, okay, how can we make this happen? Is it peer-to-peer? I know you and Greg were talking about that at one point. Do we have to have one cell phone, kind of talk to the other? And just some things that here in the States, we don’t even think of that. It’s crazy what you have to do. But it’s worth it for God’s Word.

SPEAKER 02 : 8:11

absolutely because the infrastructure is is just not there the other thing is you know technology is one thing but also ultimately it’s it’s the spirit of god that’s got to move in people’s lives and you know we’ve talked before western europe is uh is pretty dead you know there’s not a lot of activity doesn’t make sense for us to be on terrestrial radio there because christian radio is barely a thing and there’s not very many people listening and it’s fairly expensive in those areas But you take that same situation and you see the spirit of God moving in Africa, in Liberia, in Ethiopia, in Kenya, those types of countries. And terrestrial radio makes a lot of sense. And it’s not an either or, but it’s in combination with terrestrial radio in combination with an app that’s on somebody’s phone that they can then engage in in a meaningful way.

SPEAKER 01 : 9:01

That’s interesting because we have the mobile apps here and different ways that people can listen. Well, out there, there’s a passion and speak that a little bit because they seem to have a real passion for God’s word that sometimes, unfortunately, we don’t see here in the States.

SPEAKER 02 : 9:16

Yeah, there is a real passion, and that passion also represents challenges. You go to Africa, and it’s been said before, what’s the phrase? Africa is a mile wide in their Christianity and two inches deep. And with a shallowness of understanding of scripture and doctrine, there’s room for lots of false teaching, frankly, to come in. And when I was in… uh, in Liberia, I mean, you go to, you, you drive through what is the, you know, the biggest city in Monrovia and they’ve got all these, um, prosperity gospel preachers that are running these big events. And that’s something that we in the U S have exported into Africa. You know, all the big, uh, prosperity gospel guys are going to Africa because there’s a massive audience there and they don’t get much from each person, but they get a lot, they get a little from a lot of people and it’s a lot of money. And so there’s a lot of, a lot of false teaching that needs to be straightened out. And that’s the beauty of, if you listen to through the Bible, you know, the Dr. McGee takes you through the Bible, you’re reading and engaging the scripture and the doctrine is solid. And that’s what those people need. And they’re responding to that.

SPEAKER 01 : 10:28

I think for our listener, that gives really powerful reasons to give and donate and know where their money is going. That’s why we do these interviews in part, because it gives some extra context to if I give to through the Bible, what does that mean? What’s that translate to? And it’s complex, isn’t it?

SPEAKER 02 : 10:47

Yeah, and it’s a couple things that’s unique about Through the Bible. The ministry that we have, our commitment is that over 50%, at least 50% of all the money that comes into the ministry goes out in international donations. support for ministries like what’s going on in Liberia. And terrestrial radio is expensive in the U.S. That’s where the other portion, big chunk of it goes for us. But the thing that we ask for, and yeah, we’d love for you to support it. And Dr. McGee talks about the Bible bus is a thing if you listen to the program. And people write in and talk about buying tires or a tank of gas or whatever they’re doing in their donation. And we need that, and we so appreciate that, and God is faithful in providing that. But the thing that we really ask, the hard press for us is that you would pray for the ministry. And that’s why we have our World Prayer Team, where we go, you get a daily email Monday through Friday, one page, quick read, testimony of what’s going on in a particular part of the world, and then how you can effectively pray for that part of the world. And we like to say there’s about… depending 16, 17,000 people on this list. And they’re getting that email every day. And we are traveling around the world, figuratively speaking on our knees, praying for the ministry through the Bible. And that’s our greatest ask because we know that the Lord is going to provide, but it’s the prayers of his people that moves his heart. And that’s what we want to see happen.

SPEAKER 01 : 12:08

Yeah. Too often, right? We, we, others will go to certain, certain things instead of saying, why don’t we just stop and pray about this first and see what God wants us to do.

SPEAKER 02 : 12:18

yeah yeah so is that we’ve seen there is that through tdp uh ttb.org okay yeah if you go to ttb.org pray and you can just sign up very easily uh and you’ll get a daily email in your inbox monday through friday we don’t turn around and sell your name you’re not gonna get a bunch of other solicitations you get that monday through friday email that you can just pray and hit delete And the challenge that I put to people is if you would do that and start your day with going through that email, it will change the way you go through your inbox on a Monday morning and every day, Monday through Friday.

SPEAKER 01 : 12:53

Then that’s our challenge for everyone listening is to go to ttb.org slash pray. Get that. Come into your inbox. Try to find the right words, but obviously just quickly. And it sounds like it’s 5, 10 minutes in the morning. Pray. Make sure that you make this a priority.

SPEAKER 02 : 13:13

Absolutely. It can even be, it can even be less than that. I mean, it’s a quick glance here, the encouraging story. And that’s the thing that people, when they write in, we get, I think a very high percentage of the letters we get. And we ultimately read our people that have joined the world prayer team and they They share a couple of things. Number one is they are moved by the stories of people around the world and how God has worked in their lives. Many of them relate to similar situations, issues with family, death in the family, loss of job, being a prodigal son and coming back and God’s faithfulness. All of those things happen all around the world. And so people appreciate that. They talk about looking forward to meeting these folks in glory someday. I mean, that’s something that we all have a chance to look forward to. And the encouragement that today the Lord is moving around the world in significant ways. And I think we can sometimes forget about that, you know, with the constant news stream in the U.S. of what’s going on. And, yeah, we have an international piece to it, but there are – souls that are being won to Christ around the world every day in significant ways. And I think we as believers need to remember that and be encouraged by that.

SPEAKER 01 : 14:24

Steve, so much good that you brought up today. It’s Steve Schwetz. Steve is the host of Through the Bible. Become a part of the World Prayer Team. Go to ttb.org slash prayer. Steve, thanks for taking so much time with us. We’re really grateful.

SPEAKER 02 : 14:39

Thank you, Mike. I appreciate the time as always.

SPEAKER 01 : 14:43

Steve, I’m going to do the ending real quick again because I said prayer instead of pray.

SPEAKER 02 : 14:46

So I’m just going to… Yeah, I thought I was going to… I’ll just let it go. But yeah, that’d be good. ttb.org forward slash pray.

SPEAKER 01 : 14:53

Well, Steve, thanks so much for taking the time with us. It’s ttb.org slash pray for the World Prayer Team. Be a part of that. Just make sure you make that a priority every day. Steve, thanks for taking the time with us.

SPEAKER 02 : 15:07

Oh, Mike, thanks so much for having me on. I really appreciate it as always.