We started work on Scriptoria in the spring of 2018. We completed the minimum viable product (MVP) back in April and made Scriptoria generally available. We are so thankful to Every Tribe Every Nation (ETEN) for providing the funds to hire DeveloperTown to assist with making the software. While working with them, we started to learn what we would need to know to continue the work. Over the summer and fall, we have been working on fixing bugs and adding features to make it work well (more than just the minimum 👍).
We have also been making changes needed for our partners: Faith Comes By Hearing (FCBH), Kalaam Media, and Scripture Earth. Both FCBH and Kalaam have hundreds of apps that they are currently maintaining on their own. They have so many, that Chris is working on some special code to make it easy for them to create all the projects and in Scriptoria. We are looking forward to these partners being more productive using Scriptoria!
Partners in Scriptoria
Crossing the Finish Line
In early April, Chris traveled to The Netherlands for the Eurasia Media Distribution Consultation (EMDC). This is the conference that Chris has attended for the last 4 years which alternates between Thailand and The Netherlands. About half of the participants are on-the-ground language workers, church planters, etc. and the other half are either service providers (like Chris) or media experts/providers.
Similar to previous years, Chris spent the first four days assisting with the Mobile Apps for Ministry training track which help attendees learn about designing, developing, and marketing mobile apps. There were also sessions on using Scripture App Builder to create apps using their existing content (including video — see about Gospel Films). The days were busy with training, answering questions, and helping attendees with projects. The evenings were filled with preparation for releasing Scriptoria during the main part of the conference.
When Chris left the United States, there was still quite a bit of work left to do. With the help of his colleague back in West Virginia, David Moore, they were able to complete changes necessary for the initial software release, deploy the new software to Amazon Web Services, and migrate all the projects (over 600) from the previous Scripture App Publishing Service to Scriptoria.
While at the conference, Chris was able to talk with several organizations (like Faith Comes By Hearing) interested is using the service. We are now working with them to add their apps to the service and to develop features they will need to best utilize the service. Thank you, Lord, for allowing us to use the skills you have given to provide more access to your Word to more of your people!
A Great Opportunity
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Chris has been the technical lead and primary developer for the Scripture App Publishing Service. Last fall, they started working with two partners, Faith Comes By Hearing and International Mission Board, to plan an update to the service in order to 1) support multiple organizations and 2) customize the process of publishing apps for each organization.
This would require a significant re-rewrite to a portion of the service. About that time, Chris’ organization applied to Every Tribe Every Nation (ETEN) for direct funding of certain projects including the Scripture App Publishing Service. A very generous grant was given by ETEN that has allowed them to sign a contract with DeveloperTown to design and develop the software that needs replaced. They didn’t have the staff to complete this work internally and this is a great opportunity to complete the work. Praise God for the resources and talents He has made available!
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Significant Partnership
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Chris has been the technical lead and primary developer for the Scripture App Publishing Service. The initial rollout of the service utilized a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) strategy which provides just enough features to satisfy earlier customers and provides feedback for future development. The service has been running for about a year and they have gathered valuable feedback for what needs to be done in the next release.
They have also communicated with other partners who have similar needs. Two of these partners, Faith Comes By Hearing and International Mission Board(IMB), have stepped forward to help with the future development of the service. IMB has a team in Bulgaria who they employ to fulfill different IT needs. Chris has been tasked to design the expansion of the Scripture App Publishing Service and train the IMB team to do the development. He will be traveling to Bulgaria to do the training sometime this fall. Please pray for wisdom for Chris to know how to design the system so that it can be effectively implemented by the Bulgarian team and be flexible for the diverse needs of many organizations.
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New Open Doors
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Partnerships are very important for the spread of the Gospel. We are grateful that Chris can focus on developing software that accelerates Bible Translation and distribution. Recently, his organization partnered with Faith Comes by Hearing (FCBH) and Renew Outreach to make changes to Scripture App Builder that will allow them to open new doors to distribute Bible apps with text and audio to minority language communities.
FCBH has Bible recordings in 1,066 languages. They distribute these recordings using the Bible.is app for Android and iOS devices (and others). This requires that the user install the app from an app store. Due to licensing restrictions, the audio has to be streamed over the internet. This is a huge barrier (and in some cases dangerous) to many minority language communities. Renew Outreach works with FCBH to distribute the audio on lockable Micro SD cards and Wifi hotspots (LightStream) to be used in audio players and feature phones.
With the changes made to Scripture App Builder (we are collecting usage data and transmitting when the user is on-line), now FCBH and Renew Outreach will be able to create apps with the audio and text bundled into the app and distribute the app virally.
“Everyone is VERY excited about using these apps. I met one new friend in particular who runs a ministry in a restricted country. He’s very well networked in his nation, knows approximately 80% of the believers, of whom there are few. Thanks to this app, now they will all be able to get Bibles safely because it’s illegal to distribute Bibles otherwise and easy to get caught with print ones. … These are the kind of folks who will now be able to get Bibles in their language for the first time, unhindered by outside forces. Praise God and thanks for your hard work on SAB!”
— Brandon Honselek, Vice President/COO, Renew Outreach
New Software, Come and Get it!
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Chris has been working with colleagues on porting Scripture App Builder to macOS for the past couple of years. This program allows users to create Bible apps specific to a minority language that include synchronized text and audio that are easy to distribute. Best of all, the user can do this with no programming necessary. Before, users on Windows and Linux computers could only create Android apps. Now users of Mac computers can create both Android and iOS apps. We are very excited to announce the first release of Scripture App Builder for Mac!
“For the past two or three years, Bible translation teams around the world have been enthusiastically building customized Android apps to make the translated Scriptures available in both text and audio. But we kept getting asked, “So, when can we build apps for the iPhone as well so that more people in our region can get access to God’s Word in their language?” Now the waiting is over: Scripture App Builder for Mac has now been released – and translation teams can go ahead and build both Android and iOS apps. Thank you so much to David and Chris for all their hard work to make this possible!” (Richard Margetts, SIL Francophone Africa)
Scripture App Builder 3.3 for Mac / iOS
Let’s Release!
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Chris and his team have released the first version of the Scripture App Publishing Service! After many months of design, development, user testing, and refinement, the service is now available to Wycliffe members. This release is a minimum viable product and they plan to enhance the product in short iterations based on user feedback. There are currently 175 Android Apps in the Wycliffe Bible Translators’ Google Play Store being managed by the Scripture App Publishing Service.
Waiting For WeSay for Linux
Today we had a special treat in the software development office. We got to hear from John Nystrom who is a translation consultant for an 11 language cluster project in Papua New Guinea (PNG). He and his colleagues were the ones that pioneered language cluster project is dramatically improving the quality and effectiveness of translation. He and his wife have written a book (Sleeping Coconuts) about the incredible way that God used a tsunami to change the face of Bible translation in PNG (and all over Wycliffe).
The translation projects get together 5 times a year for a month long workshop to work on a section of scripture. They gain so much from hearing the feedback that the other teams receive that they won’t go back to working separately. The consultants have asked to make sure that they really want to spend almost half a year away from their families in order to be able to work together. The response from all of the translators is that it is invaluable to their efforts.
He was also sharing about some of the technical challenges in PNG. They are currently using Windows and have a horrible issue with viruses. They don’t have good network connections so they rely on flash drives to transfer data. When you purchase a flash drive in PNG, it comes pre-loaded with viruses! It might be pirated music or software, but you cannot get a flash drive without Windows viruses on it. They have repeatedly attempted to train the national translators on how to keep their computers clean, but they just get a blank stare back from them (either they don’t understand or they have just been culturally insulted–it is not clear).
They long to be able to switch to Linux, but they are waiting for an updated version of WeSay to be available on Linux. The good news is that we are on the home stretch. Please pray for our team as we complete the work on WeSay for Linux.
