‘Mission 66’ Breaks New Ground

Since its debut in late 2024, the English-language version of the 613-episode Mission 66 program has been broadcast in Africa, Asia, Europe and the United States. 

Mission 66, the teaching program created by Brazilian theologian Luiz Sayão, became available to more than 400 million additional listeners on a single day in October.

God already is using it to change lives.

“If all pastors can explain the Bible the way the pastor has been explaining Mark Chapter 9, I could have long abandoned my sinful way of living,” a listener to the English-language version in South Africa wrote. “From today I must listen to this pastor via Trans World Radio.”

Oct. 28, 2024, was the debut of the 613-episode Bible survey in English – the first language of 380 million people – and in Indonesian – the first language of 44 million. (The total numbers of people who speak the two languages are 1.4 billion and 199 million, respectively.)

It also marked the first time that a full-length TWR program, in English, was heard on U.S. radio stations.

“To me, that’s groundbreaking,” said Scott Hollinger, Media Content Creation team leader for the Global Content department in Cary, North Carolina. “This is a teaching program that is meant to educate and encourage listeners spiritually through daily teaching in the Word. And we’ve never done that before in English, in the U.S.”

Sayão, a scholar and Bible translator, first developed the program in collaboration with RTM Brazil in his native Portuguese as Rota 66. It has been distributed for more than a decade on various RTM* outlets. It’s also heard in Spanish, Mandarin and Japanese. 

The agreement

In March 2023, Sayão signed an agreement with Lauren Libby, then-TWR CEO and president, giving TWR the authority to develop the program in additional languages, with the world’s 10 most-spoken languages the first priority.

The English-language version is heard on TWR stations in Africa, Asia and Europe, as well as on several stations in the United States. The station roster continues to grow. Online access is at mission66.org, TWR360.org and on major podcast apps.

A free, downloadable study guide is available to listeners at mission66.org.

Veteran TWR missionary Bill Early is creating an adaptation of the English translation from the original Portuguese.

Early has been writing scripts for all sorts of programs since starting for TWR on the island of Bonaire in 1986. Although now based in the United States, he continues to voice the announcements that air between programs for the Bonaire AM station and also writes and voices the local news for the Bonaire FM station.

“I’ve been in a number of different projects where someone needed a scriptwriter, and Bill Early was the person they called on,” said Ted Siemens, who has coordinated the Mission 66 project for more than a year. “He’s used to being on air. He understands that you have to capture people’s attention.”  

Early’s English adaptation will be the basis for translations into other languages, Siemens said.

TWR already broadcasts on Spanish-language stations in the United States, and U.S. radio carries short programs in English, such as the inspirational stories retold by Andy Napier in Footsteps. But each episode of Mission 66 is 25 minutes, marking a new venture for English-language TWR programming in the U.S.

Indonesia

In Indonesia, the world’s fourth-largest country by population and the country with the largest Muslim population, the program is distributed in the Indonesian language online, on shortwave from KTWR on the island of Guam and on affiliate station BE 107 FM.

It goes beyond that, said Daniel Saputra,** an Indonesian who is TWR’s international director for Southeast Asia. TWR’s Indonesian national partner sends the program to 15 commercial radio stations across Indonesia, including some Christian stations and some that are secular.

“Our relationships with those local stations have been built for many years,” Saputra said. “So the stations are actually very open to broadcast almost any program YTWR asks them to.”

In regions not reached by radio, TWR already has partnerships with churches. It will provide MP3 players, and the churches will set up listening groups.

Before the end of September, the Indonesia team already had recorded 133 episodes out of a total of 613 – enough to reach well into this year.

“Our team … is very excited,” Saputra said. “I asked them about any problem in producing the program, and they said, 'Oh, we just enjoy it.'”

About 10% of Indonesia’s population – 26 million people – are Christians, Saputra said. But Jesus followers in his country need the sort of discipleship that Mission 66 provides.

“In some places the church grows quite fast,” he said. “So we don’t have enough trained church leaders. Having this kind of program will help them grow spiritually.”

One year in Spanish

Oct. 28 also marked the one-year anniversary of the program’s new Spanish-language broadcast, which has a potential listening audience of 200 million across Latin America, said Annabel Torrealba, TWR international director for Latin American and Caribbean-Hispanic ministries. It’s also available online at mision66.org (note the single S in this URL).

A Spanish-language version had been heard for six years, Torrealba said. That version was recorded in Spanish as it's spoken in Spain, which sounds foreign to people in Latin American countries.

But perhaps the bigger difference is stylistic. Although Sayão’s teaching is the same, in the newer version it is presented less as an exposition and more as a dialogue among three voices.

The presenters – Kimberly Yepes of Colombia and Jonny Perez and David Silva of Uruguay – have clicked, Torrealba said.

“It’s beyond expectation,” she said. “This is the first time I’ve seen a project have so much feedback in just one year.”

Also beyond expectation: the youthful age of listeners. The largest group of listeners is ages 25-35, Torrealba said, which is younger than had been expected. She attributed that, in part, to the fact that the three presenters sound young, and that they avoid Christian jargon. Also, they connect with their listeners on social media.

“They are very creative, and they make it fun and interesting for the listeners,” Torrealba said.

Listener responses underscore that.

“I came across Mission 66 on Instagram, and at once I was conquered,” a listener in Colombia wrote on Feb. 29, 2024. “Your simple and pleasant way of teaching and sharing the Bible caught my attention.”

The English version

The English version also was blessed with top-rate vocal talent. John Mathews, who is from Wales, and Esther Sisulu, from South Africa, emerged as the best among a number of fine candidates, Hollinger said.

There was no attempt to “Americanize” their accents. “It’s an international show; it’s not American,” Fugler explained. “We wanted it to be as broad as possible.”

An English-language listener in Nairobi, Kenya, for example, would hear the same program as a listener in Eugene, Oregon. 

Wherever they are, listeners will notice authenticity from the pair, Fugler said.

“They have internalized and owned the material, so they are speaking from their hearts and not just communicating information,” he said. “And you sense that by how they deliver the content.”

They do that even to the point of ad-libbing, Hollinger said. Once, Sisulu said the verses they were discussing reminded her of the lyrics to a hymn. “Are you thinking of this song?” Mathews responded. He proceeded to sing the first words of the hymn.

“The best way to think of it is that [it’s] just like we’re sitting around a table,” Hollinger said. “The third person at the table is the listener, and John and Esther have invited the listener to be sitting at the table and enjoying the conversation.”

It’s uncertain how many others are sitting at the table; data from the radio broadcasts isn’t yet available. Online, the English broadcast had been heard 27,307 times as of Jan. 10. In Indonesian, the number was 14,799.

As of Jan. 1, the English-language broadcast also is being heard in Great Britain on the TWR-U.K. channel three times a day, Fugler said.

Both the English and Spanish versions of Mission 66 have Facebook and Instagram pages.

More to come

Completion date for presenting Mission 66 in the 10 most-spoken languages depends on how soon the money is available to get the job done, Fugler said. “We have people and tools available now to begin the translation process.”

African French is in development, he said, and it will be followed by Arabic.

To help you tune in for yourself, TWR360 has a page dedicated to Mission 66. Learn how to help bring Mission 66 to more languages here.

 
* RTM – or Radio Trans Mundial – is the Portuguese and Spanish version of TWR.
** A pseudonym