story telling
The main objective for pioneers is to reach the unreached. they go beyond the towns that they live in and search beyond the straight guided roads to minister the gospel. there are three villages that i visited during my stay in banda: kamancheli, tabor, and mekoda- these areas are so remote, it’s difficult to receive government support in terms of education and welfare.
These villages are about 28 km away, which isn’t that far if you had paved roads. It’s bumpy, uneven, and narrow. When it rains, it’s nearly impossible to get to the villages by car or even by motorbike. Our driver, Willie, has to drive at 5 mph in some areas so the road doesn’t damage the truck. Instead of it taking a relaxing 15 minute car ride, it can take up to 45 minutes. Not pleasant for a girl that has a weak stomach. Sometimes, I barely make it without feeling queasy.
As you can imagine, the villagers need to travel far to get to certain resources such as markets and schools. Their farms are close by, sometimes they sleep at their farms to save the trip back home. And now that WellDone has provided wells near their homes, they no longer have a need to travel far for water. But they are still without schools and the fact that most of the community is illiterate does not change.
So how does Pioneers minister to these people? The Banda team developed a program called “orality,” which focuses on telling stories from the bible to relay the gospel message. They take a passage like the story of Zaccheus and repeat the story numerous times until the community can re-tell the story to each other. Then, the team split the groups by gender to discuss the meaning of the story and how it applies to our daily life.
Sounds like a regular bible study but the task is quite a challenge. The men say they’re too old to recall the story and the women have spent their entire lives keeping their mouth shut and eyes to the ground. Most of the children don’t attend school, so their memorization and reiteration skills have not been exercised. So they depend on the youth- to translate the story, to move the discussion along and to also remember the story to tell at a later time.
But the people like the stories. They can relate to it more than someone spitting bible verses at them and telling them this is God’s truth. Some gather just to hear a great story. This past Sunday, we noticed a Muslim woman loitering around our service, so we invited her to sit with us. She became one of the few women who participated in the re-telling of the story, which means, the ministry continues to imprint the gospel into their minds and hearts of the unreached.
