Unreached People Groups Deliver Gospel

Praise & Prayer Report #3, June-August 2013

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Dear Friend of God’s Story,

To stop and assemble the highlights of all the Lord has done in the last three months overwhelmed me. I wanted to tell you everything, such as hearing about children finding Jesus, or a note from a short term team in Haiti who gave a solar player with God’s Story to Grandma Seyemo, “who cannot read,” or a report from Morocco, “My son and a group went to the surrounding villages playing the GS in restaurants and shops and as he played it, the men came and heard it and after had many questions!” So much to share!

Yesterday Help Came! Then this amazing report arrived. (I attached it to this letter.) In one newsletter, John, our Kenyan Director who serves in Ethiopia captured all we do. So I am using his newsletter! His explosive ministry of evangelism and discipleship and MULTIPLICATION is typical of what is happening with many TGSP country leaders. 

John’s report tells of believers in Unreached People Groups (UPGs) becoming empowered with the tools of God‘s Story and Simply The Story, believers who, in turn, are seeing their own people respond to the Gospel. See impact of solar players, and testimonies from Oral Bible School graduates. Read all of what a former mslm, now a believer, who is a member of a UPG, said about her ministry, “… allow the women to discover God, His love and forgiveness, by themselves as we discuss the story and ask questions …”  

Please Pray.  “E” is in a Philippine city where gov army is fighting mus rebels who are attempting to take over the city. “Pray that we will finish the workshop safe.” Notice: His focus is to finish, not to run!

Quick View of June-August. Hosted 6-week Comprehensive Leadership Training in Hemet … STS Oral Bible Schools in world now number over 300 … After Egyptian house churches adopted STS, in 1 ½  years they went from 5,000 to now 9,000 churches … Hundreds of STS workshops took place, some in new countries, France and Congo … Country leaders who helped produce God’s Story are sending reports of UPGs impacted by God’s Story or STS. Oh my! The first was from India, and it listed 30 people groups reached! It gave a journal of how many were saved and the number of added ministries now working among the people … the book of Acts continues.

Join Us. We are taking registrations for Oct 14-25, advanced STS training. Join us at Bethel, the conference building God opened for us near our headquarters in Hemet, CA. Consider coming for one or two weeks of intense deep STS Bible discussion and personal STS coaching. Jackson leads (and will let me teach too!) Andrea may just make a cameo spot as she is immersed in web and tech projects. Finally, we may see a new beautiful GS web site. And, in the next few months we hope to have up a huge ministry site that is to stream over 300 GS languages, (video and audio) and STS stories and training material.

Please Pray. I need God’s wisdom and stamina for many speaking engagements. In the next 3 weeks we go to the International Orality Network conference in Saint Louis, then on to a workshop. After that we fly to Colorado Springs to film STS children’s stories for TV programming in multiple nations, and lastly to TX to train staff at the Mercy Ships headquarters.

Our God responded to your prayers and gifts. Thank you!

Dorothy A. Miller     

Tipping Point

Praise & Prayer Report #2, February-May 2013

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Dear Friend of God’s Story & Simply The Story (STS),

Celebration!!!!  For 12 years, time after time, we started, stalled and crashed on one God’s Story language production. It has been our biggest battle. Now, finally, by God’s grace Urdu for Pakistan is completed! PLEASE pray for wide distribution and impact in a nation so greatly needing to know the love of Jesus. In addition we finished God’s Story in Ruyankole-nyn and Runyoro-nyo for Uganda; Asante Twi-aka, Nawuri-naw and Ligbi-lig for Ghana; Iraqw-irk, Sukuma-suk, Haya-hay, Sumbwa-suw and Luo-luo for Tanzania; Tase Naga (Mosang)-nst and Rajasthani (Marwari)-rwr for India. Over 20 more soon to be announced.   

GOD’S STORY  Villager in Sudan With MegaVoice, Solar Player
Western worker reports, “We've been showing the movie God's Story and many people have the script already memorized. This picture shows some of the Persons of Peace being trained to disciple others. God bless you.”

Tipping Point Has Come

For a long time we have gone to conferences and done vision castings to let people know about God’s Story and Simply The Story. Now? Oh my! Since January this year, the interest in and use of these tools has skyrocketed.

Explosion!! We had asked for prayer on Egypt. We know that country is in upheaval politically and socially. But, by God's grace, in these trying times, God is again responding to the spiritual cries of those in Egypt. Look what God has done. God’s Story in Egyptian is complete. In Spring and Fall of 2012, we trained core groups of storytellers in Egypt who are now training others. Most of their 5,000 house churches began doing their Bible teaching using STS and they are doing missions to other Arabic speaking countries … not usual for Egyptians, they tell us. Incredibly, by the end of 2012, their 5,000 churches increased to 7,000.

A Sweet God’s Story Response. Call to USA office: ‘We used the Creation section in God’s Story for our home Bible study class. Our grandsons, ages 5 & 8, came to visit. The 5-year-old is afraid of God. My wife decided to play a DVD for the boys, and since God’s Story was still in the player, she thought she would see if they would watch some of it. They did. In fact, they watched the whole 80-minutes! Afterward they announced, ‘We prayed the prayer at the end.” That night as we put them to bed, the 5-year-old said, “I’m not afraid of God any more.”

SIMPLY THE STORY

Body and Spirit Care. This amazing hospital ship of Mercy Ships stays at ports in 3^rd world countries for maybe a year. Two years ago, a ship staff-member attended an STS workshop in USA.

After that staffer used STS for devotions on the ship, the leadership asked us to train 70 Africans who minister as ship ground-crew. [Ask me for the amazing newsletter sent to us from a pastor in Guinea, Africa who was one of those trained.]

3rd and 4th generation African STS instructors led the Guinea workshop! Mercy Ships saw the effectiveness of Scripture delivered by STS on the Guineans (mostly all Muslims) so they asked us to do the same training in July for 115 ground-crew in their next port, the Congo.

This humbling note just came in. “Our President and founder, Don Stephens, fully endorsed the STS method of storytelling to over 600 international staff 2 weeks ago and has communicated his desire for storytelling to be Mercy Ships’ primary form of evangelism in Africa."

Pioneers of Ghana, part of a front-line world missionary organization, invited William, our Director in Togo, to bring a team to Ghana to lead an STS workshop. Check their web site report! “Last Sunday I also used the method in Church. I was very surprised with the in-depth questions that came up.” “Please pray with us that all churches being pastored would be able to have leaders who can teach and use the oral tools to reach other villages.” and more.

NEW STRATEGIES (STS and God’s Story)

County Planting Hits the Target. As we develop tools, the Lord is showing us innovative ways to combine them to most effectively and efficiently use funds and human resources. Our latest strategy, Country Planting, hands off God’s Story, STS, recording of Bible stories and Oral Bible Schools to leaders of vision in regions and in whole countries. Those newly equipped leaders take on the responsibility to minister and train people in their regions.

Our Director in Ethiopia states, Country Planting targets local leaders to take up ownership of the STS process. This is the only way we can see propagation and continuance for the process. I've seem this in Gurage. The last time I was Gurage, the church leaders said to me: "Now this (STS) is not your method again, it is ours. Even if you go back to your Country and don't come to us again, we will continue with STS, we will use it in our ministries and teach it in every village". What a joy that filled my heart!

As I'm writing this, I'm in the Oromo region for an advanced training with our first OBS Alumni. They had this to tell me this evening, "We need OBS in every village;, we are ready to take this everywhere for our people.  We are now waiting for you to give us guidance on how to do it. We need to multiply this everywhere in Oromo region; we are ready to do it."  

I think ownership happened in these two places and Country Planting should help us hear more of this from different places. CP can and will bring about decentralization that will lead to more effectiveness (fruitfulness).

India: New Tool Tested. [We filmed a few STS stories in various world languages calling them Interactive Discovery of the Bible (IDB) We sent them out on DVD to many leaders to be tested. A man received a copy of a copy of the DVD with the story, Fall in the Garden, Gen 3.]

Our India director met this man, Evangelist Ganganna, at an STS workshop. The man shared: “Sir through this God’s message 62 new souls came to our fellowship and now we have started 2 Bible study fellowships. I thank God for this story; it is very powerful and effective in our village ministry. 97% of our people are non-literates, I tried several literate ways to present the God’s message but it was not that much effective. But after I got this DVD, our village people started to show interest to listen and responded to the Word of God. We have made 30 more DVDs of this message and we have given to all our neighboring villages, everybody liked and dozens of new souls are joining in our worship services just because of this IDB from God’s Story Project.”

Notice Age Range and Interest. Storyteller in Ireland just learned STS. Part of the workshop training was ministering in a church.

HA! For several years an instructor in Ireland tried to introduce STS to the pastor of a lively evangelical church. One day this pastor brought a missionary to a workshop to “show him” this new oral training. HA! That day, the pastor discovered STS for himself! Then, a few weeks later, that pastor phoned the instructor. It seems the pastor had told two stories in his church meetings.

The next day, he visited a guy who had strong feelings against church and pastors and a bunch of other things (!). That man's son, who had heard the pastor deliver the second story (Zacchaeus) the night before, was also present. When the dad heard the pastor mention “storytelling at church” he seemed open. The man said he didn't know who Zacchaeus was and showed interest in hearing the story. The pastor wisely asked the son to tell him the Zacchaeus story.

So … in review … this untrained (in STS) pastor does two stories in his church, from ONLY one morning in a workshop … then the son (who heard the story at church) is telling the story he heard to his not-friendly-to-church Dad!!!  After some initial discomfort (at the suggestion) the son told the story to his Dad. The pastor said, “I had an encounter with the Lord in that moment as I watched the Bible story deliver the Gospel to the anti-Gospel, anti-pastor, anti-to-many-things person in a way that NO ONE had ever been able to reach the man before!”

Upcoming. Keep checking our STS web site, lower right side, for upcoming workshops. HELP! We have not found a September host church yet in Saint Louis for our annual workshop that follows the International Orality Network conference. We need assistance in finding a venue.

June 24 starts our 6-week Comprehensive STS Leadership Training at CA headquarters. Graduates of these trainings in USA and Africa have been going out and conquering in the name of Jesus! This class is filled, but we are taking applications for the fall class. Starting July 22, we host Alumni Advanced and Standard Workshops (5 & 2 ½ day options) next door to our headquarters. Do join us. Come meet and fellowship in person with our Egyptian, Indian and West African Directors.

Yes! Interest Hit the Tipping Point! AND now staff at headquarters is “tipping over’ trying to field the interest! Please pray for all in letter AND for hands-on assistance in what God is blessing.

Dorothy A. Miller

Shout At Us!

Praise & Prayer Report #1, November-December of 2012 & January of 2013

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Dear Friend of God’s Story,

We saw 2012 as the most fruitful and productive year yet, and now January 2013 looks even more fulfilling. In November and December, God’s Story for India was completed in Urau-kru, Liangmai Naga-njn & Rogmei Naga-nbu, and Maninka-emk for Guinea.

Shout At Us! “Prayerfully reading God’s Word is by nature inspiring and speaks to us, while in STS the Bible stories are like turning up the volume 100 times and the stories shout at us!” USA Senior Pastor, President of Global Fellowship Network

“Great Training. Well done. I've been to hundreds of conferences.  Never have I been to one that I can attend for 2 full days and never have to look at my watch waiting for sessions to end."Mission leader over 200 plus churches

Talk About Miracles!  An STS instructor in the USA was invited by leaders in India to tell STS stories to 15,000 at once! AND, they paid his airfare to come! After the trip I asked him,

“Could you sense with that large of a crowd if the stories actually impacted the people?” He responded, “Well if you count it as impact that at the end of the stories most had tears running down their faces, I’d say yes.”                 

99! STS workshops have trained workers in inductive Bible study, oral style in 99 countries!

Update! When someone combines God’s Story and STS, look what happens. Our last newsletter told about girls in Nepal being rescued from sex-traffickers who were taking the girls into India.

A survey was just done on 278 of those girls who were rescued. These had come to faith in Jesus. They were trained to sew and were discipled using STS storytelling. After six months the girls returned home with a sewing machine and a solar audio player (containing God’s Story, oral-style training on how to study the Bible using STS, a New Testament, six in-depth, interactive Bible-stories with questions and 66 recorded Bible stories.)

By using their personal testimony of faith and the recorded information, in only three months, these newly saved and trained girls planted 328 churches!    

God’s Story

“The Arabic God’s Story is perfect to give to Muslim students interested in learning the sequence of the Bible and more  importantly seeing what it says about redemption.”  USA

Too Old At an STS training in West Africa, an instructor showed one of the night-time, hotel-guards a solar player and then let him hear a bit of God’s Story in his language. “He showed interest, so we left the player with him while we went in for dinner.

“When we came from dinner, the guard had listened to it all. He said, ‘These words are true of God.’ He continued excitedly, ‘God has put something in my heart tonight!’  When our country director asked the guard if he prayed the prayer to become a Christian he explained. ‘I am an old man and have been a Muslim too long to change now.’

“Our leaders prayed for the guard and then decided to let him take the player home for day.

“The guard continued to listen to it all evening and the next day took it home to his wife who was doing laundry. She asked, ‘Is this long?’  He said, ‘Yes. The story of God is long.’ She decided to listen to the story. At the end she asked her husband if he was going to switch to follow Isa. He remained quiet.

“Two days later he went to his sister's house who is a believer and shared all he learned from God’s Story. She was amazed. ‘How did you learn all this?’ He said, ‘from a player, but the lady took it back.’  He also told his sister, ‘You never told me these things!’

“The last day there, the man said he now believed in Jesus and he wanted his sons to hear the story. We gave him a player.”

Many reports like this come to us. And usually we hear later that the newly saved use the players to share the story with their families, their relatives and even their whole village.

Simply The Story

Story Convinces.  A mother attending an STS training in the Middle East shared that she and her 21-year-old daughter heatedly debated the value of Bible stories. The mother, seeing the discussion leading nowhere, started telling the story of blind Bartimaeus. In less than 2 minutes, in tears, her daughter said, "That was beautiful." 

Changed Our Way. “A small team of us completed an STS training in Central Asia. One of the workers attending the training called our office 6 months later to say, ‘We are using STS all the time and this has changed the way they are doing ministry.’"

Myanmar Wishes. “We told a story to 200 over people. That was great in the church. After the service, the pastor come and say, ‘That story really make something deep and encourage me. Usually we use simple way of just a story. But we do not talk about it deep. But when I heard the story and think about it with the questions, that is strengthen me.’ There are many people wishes me to come tell stories like that. Thank you.”

Unreached Being Reached!!!! We met a 4th generation STS instructor in Africa. (That means we taught someone, who taught someone, who taught someone.) He told of being in 7 workshops, first learning, then helping, then leading. That 4^th instructor down the line is also a church planter.

A people group of 100,000 in Togo, that African mission agencies had not been able to penetrate with the Gospel, had no known believers. That would classify these 100,000 as an unengaged, unreached, people group (UUPG). Their religion is “traditional,” so they are animists.   

The church planter and his wife visited this group. He said, “We carried in nothing, no literature. For a year we told stories, 102 of them!  We are leaving now and going to a new place.

“They do not need us anymore. There are four churches and 400 believers. The people have learned the stories and we talked about them. When the people retell the stories, they tell them like they were part of the story, like they were real! They have the stories in their heart pockets, and they understand them and they are sharing them with others.”    

Recently a pastor who has been a Christian for years visited these people in Togo. He said to the church planter, “I have never seen the level of spiritual maturity in Christians as I see among these people who believed and were baptized.”

Another church planter who uses STS was listening to this testimony. He joined in, “This is happening at another place as well. There were a few believers there to start. They want more training to increase the quality of their work among their own people.”

Need Prayer

1. Right now, among the many workshops being done all over the world, Arabic-speaking teams are leading workshops in various North African countries. We did not tell them to go. We trained them in STS. The Word of God directed them to become missionaries! Please pray for their protection, for fruit and an expanding army of effective, oral-style teachers.
2. Our staff at Hemet, CA headquarters is experiencing so much interest in STS and GS that we struggle to keep up! Please “Pray ye the Lord of the harvest to send workers.” We apologize now for any lack of response or errors we may make in the mean time.
3. Since the year 2000, we tried to produce Urdu. Multiple false starts have stopped this version. We hope to see the recording done very soon. Will you pray for its completion?

New Resources

This year we finally designed and printed brochures for God’s Story and STS. As well, we added a Short Term Mission Trips brochure. We write these in English, but plan to translate and print them in multiple trade languages. French is available and Spanish we hope to have soon. 

A new, superior STS Handbook, Edition #5, contains major edits on the draft we have used in the past few years. We kept the ever-changing handbook as a draft because we were continuing to learn better ways to travel this uncharted path. The path is becoming clearer. Now, skills of oral, investigative Bible-study and interactive storytelling that used to take 2 or 3 workshops to hand off to others is being transferred in one workshop!

This printed Edition #5 is available in English and French and we hope very soon in Hindi, Chinese, Nepali and Swahili. Fifteen more languages are in translation. As we have already done in English, after handbooks are translated, we record an audio version of the handbook for those who want to learn by listening.

The Ministry That Multiplies: Practitioner Guide is rivaling the new handbook in excitement. This easy-to-use booklet works even for those new to teaching. In 12 sessions, people who have learned STS can minister using stories and hand off some STS skills! The guide even includes multiple story sets from which to choose.   

All these resources, plus the STS how-to bookmark, Interactive Discovery of the Bible DVD, Practitioner Audio Training and more are being produced in multiple languages. Some can be downloaded free and all can be purchased from the “Resources” upper tab link on the web site.

In His service,

Dorothy A. Miller

Girls Rescued

Praise & Prayer Report #4, July-Oct 2012

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Dear Friend of God’s Story,

It’s been 96 days since our last report to you!

God’s Story

During those 96 days 7 new languages of God’s Story were completed. Urau-kru, Pareer-(Southern India), Liangmai Naga-njn Rongmei Naga-nbu all for India; Giryama-nyf for Kenya and Dagaare Southern-dga for Ghana. We also recorded, or have out for final approval, 22 other new languages.

God’s Story on solar players, with recorded Scripture, Jesus Film and STS training in oral Bible study is going to countries by the thousands. Nonliterate villagers are hearing, understanding and responding to the Gospel. As well, nonliterates, who learn STS and become storytellers, use the recorded stories and Scripture as a benchmark to help them stay accurate to the Word.

Girls Rescued: Awhile back a gift of 400 solar players went to one of our God’s Story leaders. These players are being used to minister to young Nepali girls who have been rescued from sex trafficking. The rescued girls are loved, nurtured and taught a trade. Most become followers of Jesus.

They go back to their villages with a solar player, and as needed, something with which to continue their new trade skill. Instead of returning home as outcasts, each newly confident girl is perceived now as having value and she becomes a witness in her village.

Simply The Story (STS)

Replication and Bondage Breaking: Consider the implications of this news. In STS workshops in Niger, Benin, Togo, Kenya and Mozambique, Western missionaries were trained by an African staff of 3rd and 4th generation STS instructors!

An African mission leader with a doctorate in theology stated, “In Togo we see tribal animosities disappear as workshop attendees from different tribes study the Word of God along side one another.”

Replication is tangibly seen. Bondages of measuring people’s worth and spiritual capability by their education, age, gender, ethnicity or social status are spontaneously being broken.

Surprise in North East India: An Indian instructor on a training trip to NE India encountered an excited man. “I attended your STS workshop three years ago. We have used the stories to reach Buddhists and we planted a church because many got saved, and now we have planted many churches there because so many are getting saved!”

Pray for Them: “I have m.uslim couple they were my students in STS by calling through cellphone. They live where is %100 the mu,s.lims and they believe STS is the best way to minister the mus.l.ims. Pray for them.”

Drawn in by Radio: “A Mus.li.m man in the Philippines was always listening to my story program on radio. Then he decided to come with Lord Jesus Christ. He contacted to me recently and told me that he wanted to learn more about STS.”

Another Radio Program in an Undisclosed Location: “Hallelujah!!! our God is great. he is working in my radio program because the rebels group they were listening my program. one of them who are very interested and listening in workshop on air, he learned a lot and he share to his people up in the mountainous place which are the most dangerous place because they was having war between government and rebels group.

“God is great and mighty. I do not know that they fellowship together and talking about the story from the bible. most of them they do not know how to read. they called me and asked me to do workshops with them about story telling. they are 27- men and I am going up this month.

Hallelujah what a great part in my life that God allow me to share those kind of people and I see STS is breaking the walls of the darkness who capture the heart of my people for a long time!!”

Post Script to the Invitation by Rebels: Christians have never gone to this region. We at headquarters did not know if this was a legitimate request or a trap, so we earnestly prayed for the instructors who decided to answer the invitation.

The instructors reported that after three days of teaching Bible stories, “We baptized many new believers. These new believers are desiring to plant church in the mountain instead to work in the mountain for war against flesh and blood. now they are the applications of Paul wrote in Ephesians we fighting against the power and the rulers of heavenly realm."

Prayer Needs

Huge Potential: In a few days we meet with a ministry that has planted 100,000 churches. They are interested in the STS way people can go deeply in the Word, yet use oral story discussion methods. Can you pray for God’s guidance in this?

People World Wide Want to Learn: Right now we have teams actively training and setting up STS workshops in Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Togo, Senegal, Burkina Faso, North Africa, Central Asia, Middle East, Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, Italy, Cambodia, Thailand, USA, South East Asia, Nepal, Philippines, Australia and India (just to name a few!)

Leadership Development: Two advanced trainings that develop leaders through exposure to story and oral communication are being done. One, a week long in India, and just beginning in Kenya is the 6-week Comprehensive STS Leadership Training. This is the 3rd offering of this training. Applications for April, 2013 trainings in USA and Kenya are being taken.

In one meeting an STS instructor told stories to 40,000 people …in a country not his own! Beyond the challenge of the tremendous size of this meeting and that everything was being translated, the fact that most of those gathered had never seen an outsider … and that the outsider had white skin … caused the standard STS style interaction to be stifled.

So this innovative storyteller began using rhetorical questions, pausing to allow people time to recall the story and to think of responses, even though their responses remained unspoken. As well, at times, he asked questions and then would say something like, “Raise your hands if that has ever happened to you.”

He knew that if you give people time to think of their answers to questions, and if you encourage a physical response, people stay connected to the information, remember the story and will make personal applications to themselves.

I asked this storyteller, “Do you think those two stories had any impact on the people, I mean do you think they even understood the stories?” He chuckled. “Well if you think since most of them had tears and many were crying is a measure of impact, I would say ‘yes.’”

Please pray for these 40,000 that their hunger for deeper understanding of the Word of God will be met.

First Oral Bible School Graduation in Ethiopia: Hangeremarian villagers now say, “Eight of our people are graduates!” Imagine knowing and being able to teach 210 Bible stories. Four other people couldn’t complete the process due to drought and ongoing poverty. Those who stayed also experienced hardships, but all say it was worth the sacrifice. Over ten schools have started in Ethiopia (or are due to begin soon). Pray for these motivated, dedicated students and the STS instructors who plant and oversee the schools.

Higher Learning Just Went “Higher” Three added seminaries have embraced STS as curriculum for their students. Pray for many more Bible schools and seminaries to adopt STS. Pray that they will discover the vital usefulness in more effectively equipping their graduates to reach the oral learners they intend to serve.

Drama Story Quiz Answers: Stories in photos from India are The Good Samaritan & The Prodigal Son.

I appreciate your interest in this ministry and thank God for your prayers and support.

In His mercy,

Dorothy A. Miller

Persecuted Church Impact

Prayer & Praise Report # 3, April-June 2012

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Dear Friends of God’s Story,

Persecuted Church Impact. A team traveled to Egypt and led two back-to-back workshops. The believers they trained experience beatings, threats, surveillance, disappearances and more. In the workshop Egyptians asked, "How can we face what we see coming on our land?" "How can we help our flock with what is happening around us?"

This new partner in Egypt just sent this exciting testimony on GS and STS results.

We have trained over 500 people on the story telling and the use of the Bible story to reach the unreached for Christ. We also recorded God’s Story in Egyptian, printed a program for children (this year program includes 11 lessons taught on 11 days designed according to the STS way) and trained Sunday school teachers and the program is reaching more churches and more unreached areas.

Knowing that Egypt is a country we’ve prayed for, one being turned upside down politically and with massive challenges to believers, makes that report most exhilarating!

These photos show 3^rd and 4^th generation storytellers in a nation not friendly to Christianity as they tell stories in the marketplace of life. Many hearers are being saved and baptized.

I wish I could reveal this next country to you, but it is so high on the persecution scale that I dare not. Some believers were secreted out to a nearby country for STS training. We later received a note telling how “the brothers and sisters are enjoying telling the story.”

Telling story in STS format become our lifestyle. Now we started to reach some unreached places with STS and now the quality of believers life is improve and the passion to tell God story in their heart language, also the blessing they have using STS in personal devotion

Only Stories? What About Evangelism? When we talk about telling stories and discussing them with unbelievers, some people rightly inquire about using “only stories.” They express caution that “with just a story all that occurs is a moral lesson.” I suppose this could happen. But in action, what we see over and over is that God’s Word reaches people spiritually. As unsaved individuals see the character of God demonstrated in people’s lives, they ask, “How can I know this God?” For example, we heard from Nepal:

We used the STS story of Abram & Sarai in audio with lots of questions [Practitioner Audio Training] on 14 unbelievers. These Hindu and Buddhist men discussed story more than two hours. They expressed strong feelings about how Abram acted. They said Pharaoh was better man and talked how God treated Abram nicely. After, the men asked if they could talk about some more stories like this.

Later we heard that within 7 months, 13 of the 14 men had accepted Jesus and 6 churches had been planted! That is just one of many reports we hear that demonstrate that the “goodness of God” (as seen in stories throughout the Bible) “leads to repentance.”

Notice in Sudan how a story (inside God’s Story) impacted a listener.

A boy here was furious with a classmate. So he brought a knife to school intending to kill the other boy. We had just given the teacher of this class a solar player with God’s Story in Juba Arabic. That very day, the teacher played the story of Cain and Abel for the class.

When the angry boy heard that Bible story, something happened. He took out his knife— and gave it to the teacher, confessing his plan! God had touched his heart. That day, the boy asked God to forgive all of his sins and accepted Jesus as his Savior.

New Resources. We now have brochures for God’s Story and Simply The Story. Also we completely restructured our STS Handbook, printed it, and recorded it for use in audio. This stand-alone book now allows people not only to learn the how-tos of STS, they can also find testimonies of STS impact and obtain some of the reasons (the apologetics) for this way of preparing and sharing Scripture. We completed a booklet, Practitioners Guide, that helps newly trained people use STS in ministry and shows how to easily hand off their new skills to others. We also prepared a syllabus of 3 courses for use in seminaries.

Contact us if you want any of this material or check the search feature on web site to see if there are downloadable versions.

God’s Expansion. While we were developing needed material, the Lord helped staff lead STS workshops in 5 of 6 continents of the world. (None in Antarctica!) Trainings were done all over USA, India and Kenya. Also we trained in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Myanmar, Mexico, Southern Ireland, New Zealand, Burundi, Uganda, Togo, Mozambique and many other countries. The settings ranged from prestigious seminaries to outdoor village locations.

We joined 41 academic leaders from around the world who gathered at Wheaton to investigate how to incorporate oral strategies into theological education. After a few delegates voiced concern about stories being done without the larger framework of Scripture, a professor who uses God’s Story in his courses on narrative spoke up, “God’s Story is the metanarrative you need. Have you not seen it?” [metanarrative=big picture]

Over 60 STS-Oral Bible Schools (OBS) in 9 countries are in session or beginning and STS is now used in 96 countries. Four new languages of God’s Story were finalized: Egyptian Arabic, Spoken-arz; Giryama-nyf for Kenya; Bisu-bzi for Thailand and Pyen-pyy for Myanmar, plus 15 other new language versions wait for final approval.

Advanced Trainings, Joys and Challenges. The advanced training in Kenya is going so well that country leaders are on a waiting list to participate in the October class! The 6-week course, Comprehensive STS Leadership Training, covers STS training, advanced leadership skills, multiplication methods and setting up Oral Bible Schools. The August class has 15 students from 7 countries on 3 continents!

An African denomination’s leaders had observed the impact of STS on their people, so they believed in STS and had called for an advanced training so that OBSs could be set up throughout their country. The team of African instructors arrived at the location only to find that none of the STS Assistant Instructors to be trained had shown up! It seems that when those well-meaning country leaders discovered that those who had come for the advanced leadership did not have formal Bible education, the leaders sent those uneducated people home and selected instead people who were “qualified,” people who had certificates—but people who were not STS trained!

After a time of explanation, the leaders realized that they had not understood how STS opens Scripture so it can be learned and shared by anyone “who has an ear to hear.” They grasped the principle that STS is an oral way to learn, and that oral learners can teach their nearly 100% oral congregants as well as (possibly even better than) those educated in Bible in a literate style. So a beginning workshop for the selected Bible school graduates was done instead of an advanced training. Below see the heartwarming and insightful responses of the “educated” attendees.

"I've learnt so much within the short time I have been here for this training. I wish I was taught this way in the bible school I attended."

"This is what our people need. You have talked about OBS, do you have plan to open one in my village? My people need this."

"It is amazing how we just discovered so much treasure in the story and we even didn't finish the whole story. Who taught you this wisdom? We are so happy that you came to teach us this."

"I think the school I attended forgot the non-literate people because they only taught us to teach in literacy way. So the people we have been reaching do not get it. Thanks for this new way you have taught us this week."

The leaders themselves said, "You told us that every school should have twelve students, this will give us a ‘problem’ in selecting the twelve. Already there are so many people who want to attend the school."

Thank you for your prayers and support.

Dorothy A. Miller, TGSP

Empowering Others

Prayer & Praise Report #2, March 2012

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Dear Friend of God’s Story,

For your prayers we thank you, and for God’s answers we stand amazed.  

A few days ago our Africa director spoke to the Lausanne Executive Committee about oral strategies. He later shared with the African committee how our program, Regional Empowerment, can reach Africa. The leaders agreed and said, “Let’s do it.”

God’s Story: From Creation To Eternity

God’s Story versions increased by 25 in 2011.  We have completed 4 more this year; 11 are waiting for final field approval, and 7 are in recording. More are in translation.  The following languages were completed since we last listed new versions. For Ghana we have Ntrubo, Sekpele, Selee, Gikyode, Lelemi, Koma & Wali; Ethiopia got Afan Oromo West Central; for NE India, we produced Hajong & Thadou Kuki.

“Best Tool.”  At an Eurasia media conference in Germany, attendees showered our International Director with, “God’s Story is the best, most effective tool we have to reach the lost!”  How exciting to hear verified again that the timeless nature of God’s Word, as delivered in the stories from the Bible in this chronological overview, does reach the lost.  For basic discipleship, many are using the short stories in God’s Story and then discussing them with those learning about their new Saviour.

“For Me!”  While in India, we were privileged to hand over scores of our 150-page flip charts and MegaVoice solar-powered audio players with God’s Story, New Testament, recorded Bible stories and the how-to of Simply The Story.  

One village church planter, who oversees 6 churches, was enthralled when he saw the chart and heard his own language on the solar player.

But when I said, “These are for you,” in shock he asked, “For me?”

After he finally realized he could keep the player and chart, he couldn’t stop smiling. 

For a long time he just kept turning the pages and listening to God’s Story.

Over and over this same response of delight for the gifts reminded us of the value of biblical resources to those who have so little.

Simply the Story

After the training, our instructors traveled to 15 locations in 12 different countries to oversee and move many they just trained toward leadership.  Challenges arose that many of our instructors had never experienced. Promised preparation that did not materialize (and worried gatekeepers who at first resisted the information) confused those who were new at overseas ministry.

After prayer and quick reminders of worldview differences and bondages, hundreds were blessed.   

In many regions ministry took place. As you see in the photo, interest in Bible stories and responses to the Gospel were many. 

After training, text messages, emails and phone calls poured in from pastors and workers at the rate of 20 or more a day!

Here are two of the hundreds of messages:

“STS TEACHINGS ARE VERY MUCH USEFUL IN MY CONGREGATION, ALL ARE SO PLEASED.  I WANT TO GIVE STS TRAINING TO MY AREA PASTORS AND BIBLE WOMEN IN MY AREA.  PLEASE PRAY AND ENCOURAGE ME.”

“I want to thank you for spending time to train us. Your labor did not go in vain as just trained more then fifty pastors and evangelist. STS has played an important role to open the eyes of the pastors and church leaders to shift their old way of thinking, as we have conducted two workshops in XXX and XXX in Kashmir. And we invited pastors, evangelist and the Bible teachers too.

“At the beginning they started telling me ‘brother we know most of the Bible stories we are learning all these stories from our childhood,’ but I said ‘at least come and attend one session if you don't like then you can go back.’

“Praise God and thanks to the STS leaders who have made the gospel so easy and simple and interesting which anybody can easily understand. And, I tell you at the end of the day every one was saying ‘this a good way to preach the gospel and we will implement this method to our churches, and in our Bible studies.’ Praise God that we got the positive and tremendous response from all our participants and not only that they started using this method to their congregation from same day onward. Please continue to uphold us in your precious prayers so that we may train and equip many more pastors and evangelist and church believers.”

Combining God’s Story and Simply The Story

A year ago, a missionary who has used God’s Story for years in the public schools in his country of service asked us to help him. His question came during an STS workshop, his first exposure to STS: “We have these one hour weekly mandatory religious education slots where I have developed a story by story program using God’s Story, but I need a DVD with a full program so I can multiply myself. How can I use STS and God’s Story on DVD in schools?” His question sparked development of the Interactive Discovery of the Bible (IDB)

Over this last year, we developed and tested this new DVD program.  We tried it with children and adults, in Christian and secular settings, even in prisons.  In India we watched over 100 people interact with the filmed storyteller, respond to his questions and then periodically go into small groups and discuss their ideas about the Bible story.

The IDB design was such that, presumably, it would work in audio too.  Suddenly, when the projector went out, we had an unplanned chance to see if the audio version worked.  It did!  The lively discussions continued. The participants never missed a beat!

Empowering: Our goal and tools are all designed to empower. We trained a film and editing team while in India so the IDB can be produced by Indians in their own languages.

The empowerment is working. Note one of those trainers (in this photo) is an African who had been trained by USA leaders on two trips to Africa. Now these Africans are producing their own films.

Innovations: Last year we developed an advanced leadership training called Vine Huggers. The Africans then led their own version of it. They had 15 “leaders” from six countries sleeping on the floor in apartment living rooms just so they could gain this oral leadership style. They went back to their own ministries to lead workshops and establish Oral Bible Schools

Kenya now has 22 OBSs and Sudan just opened their first two.  Philippines operates 4 in remote places. They train, check stories and do discussion—all over cell phone!

Blessings,

Dorothy A. Miller

Executive Director TGSP