USED BY GOD TO BLESS ISRAEL #4
I hope you have been following this miraculous journey of Ken Crowell’s faith and how in One of God’s Other Ways© the Lord equipped and led Crowell so He could bless Israel and the world.
The vision that Ken Crowell had almost 40 years earlier was confirmed the minute he met Harold Kent and Alan McGuirl at a missions conference in 1989. All three men had been spoken to by the Holy Spirit about the exact same thing. How remarkable that these three men who had never met, who lived in different areas of the world and did not know each other, had the same visions.
The “Harvest” picks up speed…now the conclusion to this amazing story.
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The three men hoped to spread the Gospel by using fix-tuned radios. They combined their efforts and formed a new business in 1989. They named it GALCOM. Ken Crowell’s job was to design a fix-tuned radio that was would receive only one station - a designated Christian Station. Harold was to provide funding, and Alan’s job would be to set-up distribution.
Since then millions of these fix-tuned solar-powered “little red missionaries” called Go Ye radios have been produced and are used in 126 countries! The name comes from the Bible when Jesus told his disciples:
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Matthew 28:19 KJV
There were four radio models, each powered by an attached solar panel. The tuner was fixed to the frequency of the shortwave Christian radio station that was local to the area where they were sent. The four designs, appropriately named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, were mostly assembled by volunteers.
One of GALCOM’s founders, Rev. Allan McGuirl, said, ”They (the radios) have no head, no arms, no legs, they don't need a visa, they don't need a holiday, they speak the language immediately, work 24 hours a day and never need a break".
Over the years more than 950,000 units of the radio were distributed. They were upgraded to Go Tell solar, fix-tuned radios. These new radios offer better radio reception and multi-band, multi-station access in places where there are multiple Christian broadcasts.
Many of the radios are shipped directly to partner organizations for distribution, while others are sent with mission teams from North America. They distribute them by canoe, horseback, donkey, camel, or in whatever way they can to get them into very remote areas.
As the first radios were being sent into the Middle East in 1989, God brought together Ken Crowell and another man - Tom Treseder, an Australian and a Bible Society leader.
Treseder and a group of men had a vision about a device yet to be invented – a reliable audio apparatus that could record and play back a digital version of the entire Bible. It would have “no moving parts”, so it would be less prone to mechanical breakdowns. The device would reach billions of non-readers who could hear God's Word in their own language.
At that time mission agencies were using audio cassette players, but they were not mechanically reliable. Besides, it took forty audio cassettes to record the entire Bible! Considering the technology available in 1989, creating a solar-driven audio device with no moving parts that could play back the entire Bible in several languages would be a miracle. Even the MP3 player would not be invented for another ten years!
Ken and his development team went to work. The memory capacity of technology at that time was about thirty seconds. A first prototype solar radio they produced had an audio capacity of up to fifteen minutes This was extended to thirty, then sixty minutes and on upward.
The digital audio Bible became a reality, and was produced by Megavoice, the company founded to create and develop the needed strides in technology for its creation. Crowell and Treseder give the glory to the Lord and have said, “It is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.”
Today the MegaVoice Audio Bible “speaks” Scriptures and Bible Stories in 4,500 languages. Its mission is to help the Church fulfill the Great Commission by bringing God’s Word to as many people as possible. Millions have been and continue to be reached. Only in eternity will the final story be known.
Meanwhile the Crowells were involved in other developments in Israel. 1990 saw the founding of The Galilee Experience, a multimedia theater giving presentations to tourists and Israelis. The production covers 4,000 years of Galilean history, from Abraham to Jesus to the present day. Located in Tiberias, it includes a gift shop, an art gallery, and a cafe overlooking the Sea of Galilee. The production has presented the Gospel to over 25,000 Jewish Israelis.
In 1999 they founded Galilee of the Nations Music, a record company that distributes worship music from Israel. It has become the largest producer of Messianic music in the world. It pays royalties to local, believing musicians, enabling them to support their families and ministries.
During Operation Desert Storm and the Iraq/Kuwait war in 1991, customers of GALTRONICS were concerned that scud missiles would rain down on Israel and destroy the company’s factories. So Ken expanded GALTRONICS’ geographical mission by creating backup production facilities in Scotland and China. The GALTRONICS model of developing businesses that were locally owned by Christians earned international status and renown. God has blessed the nation of Israel as well as other nations.
When Ken Crowell died in 2012, I can imagine he was welcomed into heaven with the words: “Well done, My good and faithful servant.” Matthew 25:21 NLT
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IN A FORTY YEAR TIME SPAN, GALTRONICS HAS GROWN TO BECOME A WORLDWIDE COMPANY WITH OVER 750 EMPLOYEES, OPERATING STATE-OF-THE-ART CENTRES IN NORTH AMERICA, EUROPE, CHINA, KOREA, ISRAEL AND VIETNAM WITH WORLD-CLASS MANUFACTURING FACILITIES IN CHINA AND VIETNAM.