Bible Storying Conference, Day 2

Things got off to a great start yesterday as the participants recalled the Sower, Seed, and Soils stories, as well as told cultural stories.

Will you PRAY for training facilitators and the participants at this long-term Orality and Bible Storying project?
PRAY for good health for all participants, facilitators and trainers.
PRAY for unity on all teams and among the group at large.
PRAY for all involved to be ready to do the hard work necessary to learn God's story well and share it well with others.

Special thanks to The Seed Company for helping to make this project happen.

--Facebook post by Bert Yates

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Please pray specifically today for the Muwera language team and Mama Josephine. Pray that they will become excellent tellers of God's story.

--Facebook post by Kathy Shafto

Bible Storying Conference, Day 1

At the Mbandaka Bible Storying Project, things are off and running.  If you don’t know where Mbandaka is, I encourage you to find a map and look for it a little north of Kinshasa.  It’s a fairly large city right on the mighty Congo River.  The 8 groups who have come to this training are from 8 language groups, and our first day today went exceptionally well.  We know that you’ve been praying.  We can feel it and we can see visible fruit of your prayers.

Today was teaching about story-telling in general.  After hearing the story of the boy who cried wolf, every person in each group was assigned the task to tell a story in their language from their own culture.  Then each group chose their best story and storyteller and those individuals presented to the entire group.  Some great storytellers we have already!  We understood not one language spoken, but could easily tell by their tone of voice, by their jests, and by the response of their audience.   We can only imagine how they are going to progress as the training goes along and how they are going to apply their natural story telling skills to the greatest Story ever told.

An example of one answered prayer:  One older woman who is well known by one of our facilitators shared the story for her group.  He had never really heard her speak before.  He has worked with her often and said that normally she is quiet and timid.  Today she hit the ball out of the park as a story teller.

This afternoon all participants went out into the city to find those who will tell them a cultural story in their mother tongue.  Tomorrow our trainers will help them to analyze what they’ve learned.

That’s the upfront part.  Behind the scenes, lots of things are going on.  We are preparing Bible stories that we’ll be asking these storytellers to craft and learn in their heart language.  We’ve downloaded chapters of Mark and cut the necessary stories with a program called Audacity.  We’re transferring those stories to SD cards which the participants will play in locally purchased radios which take SD cards.

Keeping up with the necessary receipts of expenditures is a daily job.  Kathy, along with two Congolese facilitators are responsible for this job.  Wire transfers are being sent; other necessary money is drawn from ATMs.

 

Meals are being prepared for all participants, generators and solar panels are being maintained so that we charge our phones and computers – all necessary for the work at hand.

 

How can you pray today?

• Pray for health for all participants and facilitators and trainers.
• Pray for unity on all teams and among the group at large.
• Pray for clear receipts for money and successful wire transfers as necessary. 
• Pray for these story tellers to improve their craft and to apply it to God’s Word.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR FAITHFUL PRAYERS!

Mbandaka Bible Storying Conference

The teams are on their way.  Five people from 8 different language groups arrive today for the Mbandaka Bible Storying Project.  Over the next two weeks they will be learning 4 stories from the gospel of Mark.  Just as importantly, they will be learning how to craft stories in their heart language and how to effectively share them with others.  The crafting process involves translation in a way that maximizes both accuracy and comprehension through oral presentation.  The stories will be tested, mastered, and finally recorded in all 8 languages.

Please pray for the leaders of the training conference: 

Tom, Steve, Marius, Belanga, Gabriel, Jay and Kathy

Pray for the 40 participants from the following language groups:

Longando, Longondjo, Bodjenga, Bondjale, Muwera, Likoka, Lotwa, and Lomongo

Also, there will be a daily post this week regarding their training so look for those each day.  Thank you for committing to pray for this important training this week!

Telling His story -- a way of life

This is our personal goal.  It is also the goal of our team here in DRC.  And it’s also the goal of our Timothys, those who meet with us regularly to learn to tell stories from God’s Word and hold each other accountable for doing it.

 

After we returned from our recent holiday trip to Spain for some time with family followed by a meeting with colleagues, we made some follow-up phone calls to our team of Timothys here in Kinshasa.  We heard this amazing news – 15 people confessed Christ and were baptized at Christmas in their church.  All because people are telling His story as a way of life.

{Practicing the story of the house on the rock}

In a city in the interior where we did a Tell His Story training in the fall, another pastor reported that 50 new believers were baptized in his church on Christmas day.  The fruit of more obedient disciples who tell His story as a way of life. 

{5 fingers represent 5 people to whom you’ll tell His story}

{Even children can tell His story as a way of life}

We miss our friends back in Burkina, and are so happy to know that they too are telling God’s story as a way of life.  Two dear colleagues and two amazing Christian brothers are this very week teaching a large group of women to be God’s storytellers.  Praise the Father as you read this excerpt from my colleague’s prayer letter:

We are living and breathing the one great story and our hearts 100% in for these two weeks.  We’ve just completed day 6 of our 10 day training.  And, at the end of day 5, the women were able to name the 85 stories in chronological order.  What a site to see and hear!!

Women, some who can read, some who can’t, who can cite the chronology of 85 important Bible stories as they follow a trail of rocks as a memory aid.  And soon, as they master the details of many of these to share with their friends and family, their storytelling way of life is certain to bring about new confessions of faith in Christ among their loved ones. 

Thank you for praying for us and our friends and colleagues as lifestyle storytellers. 

Tell His story.

Tell it often.

Tell it well.

May it become a way of life for you and for me.  “And you will be my witnesses…”

Christmas has come to your house!

Those were the first words out of the pastor’s mouth as he took a seat in our living room.  He came with 4 members of his church and a pastor friend who wanted to learn how to better tell Bible stories.  The nativity scenes were of special interest, with each person pointing out the characters in the Christmas story as they found them in each of our many nativity sets.  Today was a special meeting of the men and women we have trained in storytelling in a church in Masina, a difficult neighborhood of Kinshasa.  One by one they shared how they were telling stories.

“I went with another church member to share with a group of 20 unemployed young men who are always at the same corner.  They stopped their game to listen.  Now when I go by there, they make me sit down to tell another story.”

“I shared with a student at the school where I teach.  The next day a different student came and asked me questions about faith.  The following day another teacher came and got me when a student started talking nonsense.  First, I prayed for the student, who calmed down.  Then we got her to a clinic to check for malaria. She was fine.  Everyone wants to know if I am a pastor or pastor’s wife.  I said, “No.  I am just a servant of Christ.”

“At school I have told some of my friends the demoniac story.  They started asking me questions I couldn’t answer and saying that Jesus was not God.  What should I do?”

“Saturday I was supposed to meet with others to go out in our neighborhood, but I was late getting back home, so I just told stories as I went and met them later.  In total, I shared with 45 people.”

“Outside a courtyard there were 7 grown men drinking moonshine.  I sat down and they put a cup in front of me, inviting me to join them.  I told them a story from the Bible and encouraged them to choose their families over their drinking.  The next day 3 of them joined us at church.  Within the week one had a job offer!”

We broke into two groups today to uncover and list Bible stories on the birth of Jesus.  One group started in the Old Testament with prophecies from Isaiah and Micah and continued chronologically.  The other group focused on personalities, like Zachariah, Mary, Joseph, the wise men, the angels.  After 30 minutes we had over a dozen stories and their references!

Each one then chose a story to learn and tell before December 25.  Kathy chose Mary.  Jay chose the angels.  Rachel, a high school student, chose the prophecies in Isaiah.  Leon chose John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son…”

What story are you telling this Christmas?

At this time of year our thoughts turn to family and gift giving.  Kathy and I are grateful to you and Southern Baptists for your generosity towards us. Because of your gifts to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, we are able to live and serve here in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  God has blessed this past year, allowing us to train over 1400 Christians to Tell His Story, Tell it Often, Tell it Well.  Many have then trained others, and even more have made storytelling God’s Word a lifestyle. We extend a special thank you to the many who regularly pray for us and our ministry.  We are indebted to you, as are those we work with.

When Christmas comes to your house this year, may it come with the joy and peace of the promised Savior!

Pirogues and Pygmies, part 2

This morning's trip back to the city of Mbandaka was to start promptly at 5:00 am, but a tropical downpour delayed us by an hour.  We loaded the pirogue in the drizzling rain and found as we got underway, that the boat was riding a lot lower in the water than before. Although we had used half of the fuel and left behind all the empty water bottles that we had drunk during the week, we had gained heavy branches of plaintain from the forest as as a gift from our Pygmie friends. We also had an extra rider and some other items that members of our team were taking back to Mbandaka to sell. 

I got the last seat under the tarp, right above the chickens (part of our gift) and next to a serious leak. Jay found a small piece of reed that I plugged it with and as the reed swelled, the leak stopped.  In front of us, however, a pastor is bailing water coming from somewhere in the front of the pirogue, and he'll probably have to keep it up the whole trip back. It's going to be a long day.

Breakfast is being served and each item is carefully passed back from person to person until it reaches me.   One of the chickens has made it to his feet and just pecked my ankle. I'll try not to invade their space.

The hum of the motor is relaxing, and with the sun covered by clouds, the breeze is cool.  The forest is amazingly beautiful, so the long hours will pass relaxingly. The quietness of the trip offers time for reflection on the week's lessons and prayer needs:

1. Utmost in my mind is the need to pray for peace for this beautiful country. We learned that there were problems in Kin while we've been gone. And in this part of the forest they spoke of possible war between the Pygmies and the Bantou people.

2. Racism is real and deep and openly practiced here. Just one shameful example among many is that in some churches, Pygmies are refused baptism and communion. Pray that those who call themselves Christian will act like the One whose name they claim.

3. A pastor who is on this trip with us is a coordinator of the Baptist schools. He is returning to Kin with a burden for the Pygmie school and will be seeking funding for them to be officially recognized by the government so that their teachers will possibly receive a salary for their work. Notice that I said possibly.  Just because the school is officially recognized doesn't mean the government will pay.

4. As we've taught about the Father's heart, both Pygmie and Bantou church leaders and laity have felt the burden of being obedient disciples who are fishers of men. Pray for their zeal to not wane.

5. Apart from our fellow trainer, Pastor Ndebe, we've had 3 other Kinshasa Baptist pastors with us on this trip. They've experienced as much culture shock and heart tugs as any American would have. Pray for them to have wisdom to know how to support their church planter, Pastor Jeremie, and how to begin leadership training for the Pygmie pastors. Pray that they will not just start throwing money around in ways that make their own tender hearts feel better, but that God will show them sustainable ways to help with the people's felt needs and not help in ways that create dependence on outsiders. 

What does it take to tell a story?

We loaded the pirogue at 5am and were underway less than an hour later. My goal for the 11_ hour pirogue ride is to master 4 kingdom parable in Lingala: the parable of the mustard seed, the parable of yeast, the parable of the mysterious grown of a seed sown, and the parable of the net.

Some people find it easy, but it's not for me.  Even in English, I make sure I've told myself a story 10 times before I present it to someone else.

In French, at least twice that...

In Lingala, 4 or 5 times that...

At first it's almost memorization for me.  Before I share it with others, I learn what the Lingala KJV equivalent and the living Kinsasha-language Bible has, and then I test it on a few friends and make necessary changes.  And then when I teach it, I listen intently for how people say the story in their own words.

For example I notice that instead of saying the archaic word for nest, most people simply say the birds build their houses.  Or I find that the term "flour medicine" for yeast is a word coined by Bible translators and no one has a clue what it means.  Really everyone uses the French word "levure".  We call this 'crafting the story', and for me as a non-native speaker, it requires diligence and faithfulness to communicate God's Word accurately in ways that my listeners can easily understand.

Even with all that, my work isn't finished, because there's the very real problem of pronunciation and accent.  You can take a girl out of the south, but you can't take the south of this girl.  So I record my crafted story told by a native speaker and listen to it when I walk in the mornings and when I wash dishes and cook.

As I write this, it's now almost 3pm.  We've been underway on the river for over 9 hours, and we know that today our trip will definitely be on the + side of 11 hours.  More like 13 or more.  We've seen beautiful sights and troubling sights out here on the rivers of the Congo.  As we have motored along at about 15 miles per hour, I've told my stories to myself at least 5 times each.  I've asked a couple of clarifying questions of my friend, Mahmi.  And before we arrive, I plan to say them to myself all again, at least 5 more times.

All in a day's work...

{Mahmi}

***Our arrival time was 8pm, so we spent 14 1/2 hours on the river.***