Asia Trip Nepal This is Crazy
Prayer & Praise Report #1, 2008
“Surprised Attendees”
The encouraging 3-day Nepal workshop is completed. Some of the attendees want to come to our director’s’ home for further Bible study, if riots do not follow the elections.
We trained 68 pastors and church planters. Many came from very remote areas, enduring days of hard travel to get here. Below are just a few of the rewarding responses. (Not included are the spiritual responses to the stories as they were taught. Excited spontaneous testimonies of discoveries from the Bible stories were common. Then, at times the eager and verbal attendees suddenly went silent as conviction grabbed them.)
Testimonies: Same old same old..."I do not go to conferences but came here and didn't know why. Now I see. The Bible is opened up to me and I can now share with others. "
"When I heard the statistics of literacy in the USA, I suddenly realized that if it is that bad in the USA then here in Nepal is much lower. I must use this oral strategy to reach the lost."
(You will like this one.) "When I saw this big woman up front give such interesting action to the story I said to myself, "If she can do this then why can't I?'"
Workshop attendees share Bible stories with illiterate villagers like this Nepali lady who is
Pastor who attended workshop reaps fruit from use of teaching Bible through STS story style.
"I am over 25 woman who go out and evangelist woman who are not literate. I am going to teach them all to tell the stories in this way."
"My pastor told me to go to this conference. I said to myself, 'Go to a 3-day conference to learn to tell stories? That is crazy! How long does it take to tell a story? Now after three days I see the time went so fast I didn't even notice it because I was interested the whole time."
"I went home the first day and told a story to my children and they said, 'Mommy do this all the time!'"
"I am going use this by waiting until the Buddhist monks who walk around the temple get tired and stop to rest and then tell them stories."
"I will use in my church...youth.. in the field.. with children..etc."
"I was not reading very carefully and missed all of these treasures."
After every round all the storytellers came to me to share their view of what happened in the presentation. Every one reported that lives were impacted even as they the storytellers and questioners were nervous and struggled.
I asked many of them. "Do you know how to ride a bicycle? “Yes," each would respond.
"Do you remember the first time you ever rode a bike?" I would ask. Big smiles would come, and they would say things such as, "Oh yes. I fell and skinned my knee!"
"Now you ride a bike well from practice. Even though you are wobbly in your skills of STS. like you were wobbly on your bike, you made progress and already lives are being touched. It is the Word of God you are delivering and in time with practice you will become more skillful."
Blessed to be in God's service, Dorothy