A New Season for One Voice Magazine
One Voice Magazine is in a beautiful season of fruitfulness this first trimester of 2021. We continue our Internet radio broadcasts with UCAP Radio, release weekly stories on our website, and share almost-daily memes on our Facebook page. Now, we are pleased to announce that our first print issue of 2021 is coming out in April under the umbrella theme of “A NEW DIRECTION.”
The last time we released a print issue was in 2013, right before One Voice spent a full year in action with the folks in Tacloban City. Back then, we used the arts to help the young people of Tacloban process their loss from Haiyan’s devastation. We also shared relief goods with the help of the Church of the Nazarene and delivered vegetable seeds to government farmers. From there, One Voice found itself actively helping communities in Bantayan Island, Samar, Lanao del Norte, Bohol, and Poquiz, Tarlac. We also procured large amounts of Bibles for the soldiers in the Philippine Army.
Fast-forward to 2018, One Voice found itself engaging people online. When the pandemic hit last year, that was when we shifted much of our energy into radio broadcasts. However, just as “A New Direction” became our writing focus for 2021, we found ourselves steered toward the new—albeit old strategy—of print media.
Print, by the way, was an original mandate of the Lord for us, and we believe it is time for this vision to resurrect.
Returning to Print Issues
In this new normal, the argument arises that doing print is suicidal because everybody is now online. Although I agree that almost everyone is online, I believe it is for this precise reason that people crave for something tangible to hold and read. Despite the doomsday predictions that came against print media in 2010 when the IPAD was introduced, print did NOT disappear. Therefore, despite predictions in this new normal that print is suicidal, I would like to cast the form in its best light—that print remembers humanity.
Yes, humanity.
Regardless of the bandwagon calling our present season the “new normal,” the pandemic has actually given us an abnormal way of living. The world, which should be explored and enjoyed with our sense of sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch, must be relived again and remembered— in whatever way possible. To wit, print media allows people the application of our human senses: we see the pages, hear their rustling, touch them, smell the undeniable scent of the printing press, and if we’re the type to wet our fingers when we turn a page, then we taste the page! (I can imagine a few of you laughing and wincing since that last bit was a stretch!)
Granted, we must move along wisely, sensitive to the existing Coronavirus threat. Adaptation in this new ab-normal means the sale of books online. Therefore, online must be an obvious channel for One Voice Magazine’s sales too, especially in the form of subscription. We are, however, working on getting One Voice in a few bookstores because the presence of print on bookshelves still matter.
We ask that you keep us in prayer as we work toward our print issue. We also ask that you continue patronizing One Voice Magazine by subscribing to us or buying our print issue! Our online platforms will not go away, of course; you will still see our radio broadcasts, memes, and stories.
Adopt a Hospital
I would also like to bring to your attention One Voice Magazine’s current campaign, ADOPT A HOSPITAL, which is done in collaboration with the Philippine Bible Society. May you also prayerfully join this campaign, especially since it will provide you with a good opportunity to be active in society.
By joining this campaign, you get to write encouraging letters to our frontliners at the Benguet General Hospital. Each letter you send will include the packaged giving of a Bible and a print issue of One Voice Magazine for the doctors, nurses, and other staff members of the hospital.
There is still a heavy strain of stress and worry on our medical frontliners. Many of them have limited their interaction with family and friends due to the threat of COVID. There is also the stress of everyday responsibilities—responsibilities that have ballooned among virus hotspots.
It is my hope that the information of this campaign, as well as our print issue, encourages you to join us in making words come alive! This is an opportunity to do something good and strengthen our kababayans. Don’t waste it!
As we move forward this year, I wish you all good health and fruitfulness as we journey together in God’s direction for us this season. Now is truly the best time to work with one another and to partner with Him in advancing His Kingdom!
One with you in making Jesus’ voice heard,
Janina Marie Rivera
EIC, One Voice Magazine
Janina Marie Rivera is the author of the book, A Night Bird Sings of Blindness and Fear and has co-authored the devotional, Dawns, published by OMF Literature. She is a contributing poet in the books Joyful Light and Whitmanthology: on Loss and Grief by Various Authors. She is the Editor-in-Chief of One Voice Magazine.
