Just in time for Pentecost

Hello, I’m Keith Holmes. I tend to be a very enthusiastic person. One of the things I’m enthusiastic about right now is the book of Acts on DVD in the Sinti/Manouche language. Part of the reason I’m enthusiastic is that it’s finally done!


But let me give a bit of background. My wife Mary van Rheenen and I serve as resource coordinators for the Romany Team. The main resource I coordinate is media materials in Romani languages. More than 20 different dialects and languages are spoken in Europe. Two years ago we put out the DVD of the Jesus video in 8 languages (5 of them Romani). I and a couple of other guys took it down to a pilgrimage in Southern France to distribute. The Wycliffe translator I was working with (one of the guys) said, "Okay, what now?" I said, "I don’t know." He said, "Well, I’ve seen this Acts thing in German . . .. "


The first recording of Acts was somewhere around September of 2007. We’ve been working off and on about this thing for about 100 years. We took the published version of the Acts video/DVD and put Sinti voices into. First we worked on the voice of Luke, who narrates the thing. Then we started chasing down other voices for big parts (like Paul) and little parts (like Lydia). We recorded these in church basements and people’s homes. Back in my own home, I mixed the voices in with the background music & effects (sometimes putting in effects where, for instance, laughter was missing). Then, after years of recording and mixing, we had a preview which resulted in more recording of corrections. Finally, the finished DVD is ready. Just in time, oddly enough, for Pentecost. Come to think of it, maybe that’s God’s timing. I hope to show it this weekend at an annual Sinti Pentecost tent meeting here in the Netherlands.

Here's a sample of Peter preaching at Pentacost.