“Tweeting with God” Author Explains Book Relevance to Christians Seeking to Deepen Faith

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“The questions in this book are real questions from young people. The answers are formulated as they would be when talking with young people; they are not scholarly or exhaustive. The questions are grouped in the book around global topics to make them easier to find,” he said about the book that was originally published in Dutch in 2012.

The member of the Clergy of Rotterdam Diocese in the Netherlands added that the book whose target audience has always been young people “deals with the essence of faith, God, the Creation, the Bible, and the ways that God relates to us.”

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The book also “deals with the origin and history of the Church and how the Church is present in the world,” Fr. Remery told ACI Africa shortly after his presentation of the Swahili version of the book at Paulines Publications Africa in Westlands, Nairobi.

He continued, “The book deals with prayer, how difficult life can be, the role of the church building, and what the liturgy and the sacraments do for us. It also deals with the Christian life and the different choices that you may be confronted with as a believer.”

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The author went on to say that additional tools have been developed alongside the book, including a website, a Mobile Application (App) social media and videos. 

Using the App, a reader can “scan a particular page and continue to read online,” he said, adding that the App “itself has links to videos, more reading materials, and links to related questions.”

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The platform dubbed “Online with Saints”,which works together with “Tweeting with God” has been developed to facilitate knowledge about Catholic Saints, Fr. Remery said.

He explained, “Online with Saints offers a virtual encounter with 100+ saints from all around the world; women and men, carpenters and scholars, mothers and Popes, princes and paupers: their inspiring life stories are linked to real-life modern questions.”

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The virtual encounter with dozens of saints has been integrated in the course program dubbed, “How to Grow in Faith”, “which is intended for groups, for people that have a lot of experience, or those who have no experience at all in leading a group to deepen the knowledge on the Catholic faith.”

On the book’s relevance for other parts of the world, including Africa, Fr. Remery said, “This material was originally developed in Holland, which is far from the culture in Africa and we discovered that the same questions are asked everywhere.”

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“Given the situation here, people wanted the translation to be available in Kenya and surrounding countries; everyone who speaks Swahili and wants to sit down and talk together in Swahili has a resource in that same language,” the 50-year-old Dutch-born Priest said.

He invited Catholics not to be “afraid of questions regarding the faith for answers can be found, and if this material is useful for you, do check it out and then see where it can help you because it's too important that you grow in your understanding of the faith by finding answers to your questions so that you also can deepen your personal faith and therefore share it with others.”

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“Kutwiti na Mungu”, the Swahili version of “Tweeting with God”, is available at Paulines Publications Africa for US$5.00.