Vicente Mendes da Silva does not own a smartphone. His communication tool is a simple button phone. With it, and 150 kwanzas at a time, he has spent years sending messages of hope to people across his contact list.

Between 2016 and 2017, Vicente served as a literature evangelist in Huambo. During the visits he made as part of that ministry, he developed a habit he has kept since: sharing messages of encouragement with friends, acquaintances, and people he met along the way.

The messages come from a package offered by mobile operators. For 150 kwanzas, Vicente buys a bundle valid for three days. For him, it makes no sense to let those messages expire unused; so before the package runs out, he writes.

Before writing, he prays. He asks God what to say and who to send it to. Sometimes he writes his own words; sometimes he shares a Bible text or a passage from the writings of Ellen G. White.

One of those messages reached a man in acute distress at a decisive moment. Some time later, that man sought Vicente out and embraced him, wanting him to know what the message had meant. He told Vicente that reading it had led him to reconsider, and that he had found reason to believe the difficulty he was facing could pass. He lives in Portugal today and remains in touch.

It is not the only such experience Vicente can recount. He describes others reached by his messages, including people he has prayed with over the phone during periods of serious difficulty.

His experience carries a direct lesson for the UMAVOZ27 movement: a smartphone is not a prerequisite for a digital mission. What matters is the willingness to use whatever device is already in hand.