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19.12.2007: "Bible in Your Cell Phone"
You can read the Bible anytime and anywhere if you have a sophisticated enough cell phone and have downloaded the files from the Internet (www.biblephone.net). A young member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church made this possible. Octavian Lupu from Bucharest, Romania works as a telecom engineer. He is motivated by a strong desire to use communication technology to spread the Good News of salvation throughout the whole world.
Raised in an Orthodox environment, Lupu entered a military academy at the age of 14 and continued through military technical college and university. At that time the communist authorities expected him to embrace atheism. But his interest in spiritual questions led him to experience yoga and spiritualism. Finally, he rediscovered the Biblical message and in 1991 joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
This story begins in 1997, when Octavian was encouraged to write articles for the official church paper in Romania about the possibilities of using the Internet for presenting the Biblical message. Inspired by this article, a group of Adventists in Romania developed a web ministry called Intercer (www.intercer.net).
Further progress of Internet and GSM technology incited Lupu to develop another ambitious project - Bible on the mobile phone. As he commented: “The story commenced when I received a multimedia Java enabled mobile phone. At first, I tried to download a lot of games onto it. But while browsing for such games, I found a Bible application for Java enabled mobile phones.”
“I was astonished by the discovery and amazed that it worked on my phone. It was an English KJV Bible. Next, I searched for a Romanian Bible for mobile phones, but found none. Romanian Bibles existed on the net, but at that time nobody was interested in developing a mobile phone application.”
“The good news was that the developer of the English Bible provided on his website (http://gobible.jolon.org) a tool to make Bible applications for the mobile phones. The challenge was to convert the existing Bible texts into a special format. I developed software to convert the text into the needed format, and in a short time the Romanian Bible was available on the net. The first Romanian Bible for mobile phones became available through the Intercer web site.”
“The mobile phone ministry is an extension of the traditional personal relationship, allowing for a flexible, around the clock approach with many people from different parts of the world.”
The Bible in many different languages as well as installation information for different types of mobile phones is available at www.biblephone.net. Several e-books in the Romanian language are also available as well as the lyrics from the church hymnal.
This service has existed only a few months, but many users from around the world are taking advantage of this offer and have successfully installed the application on their cell phones. Satisfied users have left the following messages on the site's guest book:
“Thank you very much for the help provided on the website. I was able to install the Bible on my mobile phone. It is a great blessing to have the Holy Scriptures with me all the time. May God guide you in your ministry and bless you.”
“Thank you very, very much for your help. May God bless you. Whatever else God calls you to do, please follow His leading.”
“I succeeded in installing the application! Thank you very much from the bottom of my heart! I am so happy to now have the Bible on my phone.”
Source: CD EUD ( www.euroafrica.org )
Original article: http://www.euroafrica.org/index.cgi?en_news-archives/00000138
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