Storytelling in Kampala

Five nations, five+ languages, all meeting in Kampala, Uganda. Why? To learn to use storytelling to share the gospel in oral people groups in their nations and beyond. A huge thank you to Scriptures in Use (SIU) and in particular, Jacob and Mike, for coming to spend a week with us. It was crazy at times, but God did something powerful and those guys deposited so much into each of us.

What did we learn?

Drama!

Practicing drama by acting out the story of Lazarus.

Singing songs!

Singing a song to tell Matthew 28:18-20

And, telling stories!

Practicing storytelling by going into an oral community sharing Jesus with stories from Scripture:

And, here are just a few of the comments after our week together:

Uganda

“In Uganda we are very much blessed for having hosted you. We thank you very much especially Roger and Brooks for such a good plan for us and we also thank Brother Mike and Jacob. You have labored and helped us to make disciples using storytelling, drama and using songs. So here in Uganda you have given us a tool so that we reach many, many disciples.”

Rwanda

“We thank you so much; it was a blessing to be at this training. What we have got from here is such a blessing. We have been working on disciple-making using Discovery Bible Study. Storytelling has added something to those things, especially for those places we are working outside of Kigali. But we also have use of storytelling in town because even though I live in Kigali town and we are literate, we like to discuss and talk about so many things. This is our daily life. It is not always in writing. We are with people and wherever we are, we are always talking. It will be much easier with this tool to use it all the time. When we learn those Bible stories like that (storytelling method), we can remember them always. Otherwise it is very difficult for us. We again want to thank you so much for this tool.”

Burundi

“We thank you. This training came at the right time. We have had a challenge to reach people who are unlearned and didn’t understand how to do it. We are very much going to be practicing this way. Thank you again so much.”

DR Congo

“I was so happy and I have no words to express. We are so thrilled and we don’t even know what to say. We are so much happy with everyone who trained us and made us to be here everyone who came in to do something so we could be here and get this.. May God bless you a lot. We know what we have learned we are going to pass on so it will continue. So when we get back we will tell you many testimonies.”

Kenya

“I want to thank you so much for the training. We have needed to have more knowledge about how to reach oral cultures. Especially in Kenya we want more tools to reach people. Through stories and through drama it will help us to start other new churches. It will be such a good way to bring those who are unlearned. For us this training was a real blessing. I will be continuing to think about it day and night. May God continue to show us how to use stories and drama.”

Americans

We weren’t four hours into our next scheduled training with ten folks from Northern Uganda and South Sudan when someone asked this question: “What about how do we communicate to those people who don’t speak English or read any Bible and they are not very learned at all. How about those people? There are so many where we live.” Can you imagine how thrilled we were to be able to tell them about storytelling!!!