January 19-21
About a year ago, God gave my
husband a vision to help reach rural Paraguay more efficiently. For the past months he has been buying things
in preparation (mattresses, notebooks, etc), making photocopies, and preparing
studies and illustrations. He has been
inviting men and asking for prayer in regard to this project wherever he
could. We have been excitedly awaiting
the date of the first Timothy Training Workshop.
How I wish I could have been a fly on the wall this past weekend! When Jeff got home, he was full of stories of
God’s faithfulness here’s what he says:
The first Timothy Training workshop was a huge
success! Between January 19th and 21st, 20
Paraguayan men representing 11 different communities and several different
denominations met for 3 days of intense training. Topics such as
Paraguayan learning styles, oral pedagogy (teaching techniques geared toward
non-literates and/or oral learners), Bible story crafting and storytelling,
evangelism, discipleship and small group leadership training. This has
been a dream of our missionary family for several years and many of us have
attended seminars, conferences, in-services and have done a lot of reading on
the effectiveness of humbly laying down our preferred learning and teaching
styles in order to best reach rural, Guarani-speaking Paraguayans. Tony
Floyd and Dan Reich, fellow SIMers, myself, along with Higinio and Pedro, the
two elders of the San Francisco Bible Church, were the teaching staff for the
conference. We had our doubts about how far these 20 men, almost all
being uneducated, hardworking farmers, would be willing to go in
storytelling in front of a large group, dramatizing the stories and setting
them to music. But they really excelled and enjoyed the process of
working together in groups. This was a TOTALLY different way to learn and
share God’s Word, and many of them remarked at how effective and simple the
storytelling method was. In fact, this was the first Bible training of
any kind some of the men had ever received.
One of the object lessons that hit home for one school
teacher/ lay leader was the pitcher of water and the chunk of ice. In the
lesson, a large pitcher (representing an organized outline and structure of a
traditional sermon with 3 points and a lot of good information, illustrations
and scripture references and abstract categories) was filled with water (God’s
Word) and was then poured out into the hands of the first man. Well, it
was way more than his hands could hold and the excess ran out onto the
ground. He then waited a few moments and then passed his handful of water
to the next man. The process was sloppy and the water quickly drained
through the space between the next man’s fingers and hands. When he then
tried to pass that water to the next man, only a few drops remained. That
teacher tuned to his neighbor and said, “That’s exactly how I teach!” This is
what happens when a teaching style which works great in one place is tried in a
different place where the majority of people does not think or learn in that
manner. The initial reception of the information, the short and long term
retention of the information, and the subsequent transfer of that information
are seriously flawed. It just doesn’t work. I then passed a medium
sized chunk of ice (the words of God in vernacular, shorter, story form) to the
first man who then passed it to the second who then passed it to the third and
so on. After many transfers, only a portion of the original had melted
away. It survived intact as it was originally given and received. That’s
how it should be when we teach God’s Word in the way the people of our target
audience prefer to receive, remember and transfer on to others.
Stories do that here in Paraguay. They get
God’s Word off the pages of a book and deep down into the hearts and minds of
people who can carry that Word around with them wherever they go. It’s
there to be retrieved and retold at a moment’s notice. That school
teacher is experiencing a paradigm shift. And he isn’t the only
one. They are now equipped with 6 memorized stories, 6 memorized
scriptures, speakers for playing memory chips which contain God’s Word and
introductory material for each story, as well as a notebook full of written
material (for those that read) and storyboards of drawings for remembering and
teaching each story. These men are now charged with the task of telling each of
the 6 stories a minimum of 3 times to different individuals. Lord
willing, they can start a new group and teach through the series of stories
over the next 2 months. They must also find a disciple and
teach him the story set. That disciple must also tell each story a
minimum of three times. At the next Timothy Training we hope to see many
of the men plus their disciples pass the story telling exam! Doing so
will complete the fourth link in the chain according to 2 Timothy 2:2-
“And the things you have heard me say in the
presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also
be qualified to teach others.”
Thank you for praying!
Jeff
