Colin Stott
USA Director

Dale Rickards
New Interim Director

Changes

Dear friend of GRN,

This year promises to be one of challenge and change for GRN! It was a year ago that I talked with my board about my stepping out of leadership in February 2011. It was with a sense of sadness that I made this decision for it has been a great joy serving in the leadership of such a strategic ministry.

But I believed that the time was right for a new leader to step up - one called of God and equipped by Him for this role; someone who will faithfully carry out the vision to tell the story of Jesus in every language!

The Board is continuing to ask the Lord for clear direction. For now it has appointed Dale Rickards as Interim Director to take my place as of March 1, 2011. Dale has served on the GRN board for two years, and for the past year has been on staff as our Operations Director.

I have appreciated Dale greatly as my understudy. He is gifted in so many areas and I am very happy that he is moving into this new role. Do keep Dale and his family in your prayers. Certainly there will be many faith challenges for the new leadership to face. But, we serve a great God who has shown His faithfulness throughout the years.

Because of this we are expecting great things from God this year!

People ask what I will be doing next. My wife Patti and I believe that God wants us to continue with GRN. It is such a crucial ministry. So, after a short break, I hope to serve in a new international role to mobilize more prayer for the least-reached peoples and to encourage focused and informed intercession for all areas of the ministry.

Noted Christian leader and writer of yesteryear, Andrew Murray, once wrote: "The man (or woman) who mobilizes the Christian church to pray will make the greatest contribution in history to world evangelism." GRN wants to do its part n mobilizing prayer for the great commission and for the harvest field where God has placed us. This is something I am excited about and for which I have a passion.

Some things should never change

GRN is always in the flow of change, especially as technology changes. Decades ago, we started with phonograph records. We eventually transitioned to cassettes and then to CDs. Now we use mp3s and Internet downloads. We are always trying to improve our methods and use better equipment. Change is constant.

But some things should never change!

The vision that God gave our founder Joy Ridderhof of the gospel in every language is still relevant and continues to motivate us today. Until the good news is available and understandable in every language, this vision must not change.

The need for faith and prayer is unchangeable. We will accomplish nothing of eternal value without them. And our dependence on God must never change. We will easily lose the plot if we fail to heed what the Lord spoke long ago through the prophet Zechariah: It is not by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord. We must always stay fully dependent on Him so that what we do here on earth will be His work, carried out in His strength and for His glory. This must never change.

Speaking to the heart

I am encouraged by reports that often come across my desk, including this one that was published recently in the Global Prayer Digest: "The former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, once said, 'When you speak to somebody in the language he understands, you are speaking to his head. But when you speak to a person in his mother tongue, you are speaking to his heart.' Global Recordings Network feels this truth so strongly that its goal is to record the gospel message in as many of the variant dialects that the Fulbe peoples (of West Africa) speak.

Some Fulbe have heard the gospel recordings and have believed in their hearts that Christ has saved them, but they are reluctant to confess Him publicly because they fear persecution.

This was the case with Ibrahim who raised cattle and was searching for more grassland. He asked a local pastor if he could graze his cattle around the pastor's house. The pastor said yes and Ibrahim and his seven children moved into one room in the pastor's home for three weeks. Every morning they left to tend their cattle. At night the pastor shared GRN tapes with them, and they put their faith in Jesus.

In another African country closed to missionaries, a Muslim lady came to get more recordings from the GRN distributor. She said, 'In Islam we women are treated as less than dogs. Just wait and see if all the women will not become Christians when they hear this good news.'"

Sybil Shaw from Australia, recording the good news in yet another language of Papua New Guinea

No witness in 400 years!

I am also challenged by reports that tell of people who have never heard the name of Jesus. Reports like this from one of our teams in Asia really stir us:

"We drove up a windy, rough road to a village our team had not yet visited. One home in particular caught our eye; it was covered in bright white plaster instead of the typical mud bricks like the rest of the homes. Just outside it, a man was working. Through an interpreter we asked if he had built the house himself. He said yes. It had taken him seven years and now it was nearly finished. A teammate asked how long his family had been living in the village. He said he wasn't quite sure, but it was around 400 years. We asked if he had heard of Jesus and he said no. For 400 years his ancestors had lived in that tiny village secluded from the rest of the world and unaware that a Savior had died to secure their eternity."

A new milestone

This year GRN is on the verge of a new milestone - that of recording the good news of Jesus Christ in our 6,000th language and dialect. This has been a tremendous effort by GRN recording teams and some partner ministries over the past seven decades. These valiant workers have traveled the globe, going to some of the remotest areas on the planet to deliver the good news to people of all cultures and languages - telling them of a Savior who loves them and took the fall for their sins.

Encouragement

As I hand over the leadership to Dale, I want to thank all who have prayed for me in my role as director, and for those who have sent notes of encouragement along the way. These have meant a lot. I have enjoyed sharing with you over the years through the Minute with the Director articles in our Sounds publications, as well as the short editorials in Together in Prayer. It was by God's grace that I had anything to say.

I invite your partnership

May I also take this opportunity to invite your continued partnership with us? We can't do this work on our own. It is your prayers and resources that enable us to take the gospel where it has not yet been proclaimed. Opportunities abound. Many open doors are before us.

I invite you to join our prayer team, daily lifting up the ministry's needs to the Lord. If you want to invest resources into the lives that this ministry is reaching, your gifts can help fund the recording of a new language, support our staff missionaries, or to keep the general fund supplied. If you would like to serve as a GRN missionary or volunteer, there are many gaps to be filled.

For more information about how you can be involved, please call our office or visit our website.

As we work in partnership together, in union with our Lord, we can make a real difference for eternity in the lives of many unreached peoples.

For His glory among the nations!

Colin Stott

USA Director in transition!