More than 1,200 digital video disk (DVD) players will soon be on their way to Seventh-day Adventist churches in Africa as part of an evangelism project sponsored by Adventist-layman’s Services and Industries.

The DVD players, purchased May 17, will be distributed to each church in Africa that participated as a downlink site in last year’s “Africa for Christ” event, a three-week satellite evangelism series uplinked by Adventist Television Network last June from Tanzania, and broadcast internationally.

ASI is providing money for the players and donating free copies of the DVD “New Beginnings,” an evangelistic program developed for ASI in partnership with the “It is Written” television broadcasts and Adventist Digital Media, a company based in Portland, Oregon, United States. The DVD, which presents Adventist beliefs using culturally adapted pictures and graphics, is intended for use by lay people, pastors, and evangelists around the world.

Staff from Adventist Television Network, the church’s international satellite broadcast network, have spearheaded coordination of the DVDs for the Africa project. Kandus Thorp, ATN program director, was responsible for overseeing translation of the DVD into more than 10 languages, and arranging purchase and shipping of the equipment. The DVD is slated to be translated into almost 40 languages, and Thorp will continue to coordinate this work.

“This has been an exciting project,” says Thorp, speaking to ANN May 28 from a warehouse in Portland, Oregon, where she is making final preparations for shipping the more than 20 pallets of DVD players and disks. She says the undertaking represents an enormous amount of effort and cooperation between many people. “But this has been God’s project,” she says. “We gratefully thank ASI for its leadership and focus on evangelism which made this project possible.”

Dwight Hilderbrandt, secretary of ASI, says this project has the potential to make a lasting impact on the continent of Africa. “We feel that with this tool, lay people and pastors can significantly enhance their evangelism efforts,” he says.  Hilderbrandt adds that the DVD has already been used with great success in places such as India and the Philippines to share the Adventist message in a clear, culturally sensitive, and easy-to-understand way.

Established more than 50 years ago, ASI is an organization that brings together hundreds of lay supporting ministries—both in the United States and, increasingly, in other countries as well. According to its mission statement, ASI exists to “provide challenge, nurture, and experience in sharing Christ in the marketplace, as well as support for the Global Mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.”