Strategic Update · July 10, 2026
The flywheel is turning.
Scripture is reaching the Last Mile through the ethnē app, and communities are sharing it onward. Here’s the evidence it’s working and the plan to grow it.
ethnē
Technology to Put the Last Mile First
Our prototype spread phone to phone into Syrian communities with no church and no internet — and people re-shared it at real risk. The technology breaks through where nothing else does.
Traction
Last Mile ministries paid for their own — 7 custom apps in 72 languages.
Hear
For the first time
ethnē is the only app built for the ~1,200 active oral Bible translations in unwritten languages — where Scripture will be heard, not read, for the first time.
Traction
In its first 5 months, 2026 has already reached more people than all of 2025.
Share
In community
Scripture spreads the way it always has — person to person, in community.
Traction
Shares of Scripture outside the app nearly match installs — about one share for every install.
Publish
Bible translators
For years we developed the flywheel’s components, led by the needs of those we serve in the Last Mile. At the May 2026 Oral Bible Translation Gathering the last one dropped into place and the flywheel turned for the first time. Translators now publish approved Scripture into the app the day it’s ready.
Traction
4 launched live at the conference and on track for 100 Oral Bible Translations by the end of August.
“It was like the coronation of a King.”
A translator describing his community’s joy as his first Oral Bible Translation went live in the ethnē app at the May 2026 global gathering. Within the next month he published 7 more translations.
In the first week of July, each time the app was opened people listened to an average of 2.4 Scripture passages.
It reaches where nothing else does.
In the hardest places — communities with no church and no internet — ethnē’s technology is breaking through. In just the first five months of 2026, it has already reached more people than in all of 2025. And people don’t just receive Scripture; they share it onward person to person, often at real risk.
App installs
Audio Scripture passages and media shared via the app
Scripture spreads person to person
— phone to phone, even to people without a smartphone.
Significant by Kingdom standards.
ethnē serves Last Mile language communities of 50,000 to 500,000 speakers, often with only a few hundred believers. Each install often represents a household, a fellowship, or a first encounter with Scripture in a heart language. And this is before acceleration: the regional growth staff who carry the app to new communities aren’t in the field yet. Your gift is what puts them there.
The growth plan
Life in the Last Mile is relational, so our app growth strategy moves at the speed of trust, community to community, as we serve Bible translators, churches, and ministries.
Partnership Managers in 5 strategic regions
Your gift is catalytic: it brings native-speaking Partnership Managers across five strategic regions into the field sooner rather than later — the relational engine that carries the app from one community to the next.
Partnership Managers will
- Reach out to and onboard new Bible translation teams
- Equip local churches and ministries to disciple in their heart language
- Grow reach by 100s of communities a year
From the Portal · March 2026
Ó ti jí dìde! He is risen!
A West African Wycliffe translator was introduced to the ethnē app through a friend and wrote to us: “I have been using it for my morning devotion. The Easter stories are just wonderful. Could they be published in the Idaasha language of Benin in time for Easter?” Within a week, the resurrection stories resounded in Idaasha through the app — and ethnē gained an ongoing translation partner. Through the Portal, we’re ready for their next goal: Scripture in 12 new languages in June.
This is the season we scale.
We built the prototype, the ethnē app, the Portal, and the proof it works — on roughly $300K a year with a small team. The model is built, validated, and turning. What’s next isn’t more building. It’s scale.
