​When church members visited the Garcias the following month, they found that the family had been listening intently to the Mazatec Scriptures. Arturo and two of his siblings had even chosen to follow Christ. And by the next month, Arturo had invited neighbors to Sunday services in his home, led by visitation team members. Listening to God’s Word in his own language, while seeing that message lived out through people like Maria and Valentina, transformed his life. Scripture apps, like the Mazatec app, are being used increasingly in Mexico, Papua New Guinea, West Africa and other parts of the world as well. The apps are easily created using SIL’s Scripture App Builder. Translators or other ministry workers load audio and text versions of Scripture into the app, which then can be loaded onto phones without the need for internet access. The apps give local believers tools not only for hearing or reading Scripture themselves, but also for sharing it with their neighbors  — in their own language and on devices they carry every day. They can even help someone learn to read, highlighting a written passage word by word while the audio plays.

 Bible translators and partner organizations working across the Africa’s Sahel region (just south of the Sahara Desert) were the first to ask how they could easily build Scripture apps. With the increase in smartphone availability, local partners said they needed simple Scripture apps that could be customized for local contexts and distributed without internet access. Released in 2015 by SIL developers, Scripture App Builder can be used to create any number of apps in any number of languages around the world. To date, 556 apps in 523 languages have been created and released.