Saturday, May 16, 2009

Can I tell you a story?

This story begins before there was anything. There was God alone. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. There was nothing on the earth. It was dark and empty. Then God said, "Let there be light." So the light appeared. And God saw that it was good and he seperated the light and the darkness. He called the light day and the darkness he called night. There was morning and then there was evening that first day. ......

I'm sure you know by now what I'm saying. But what if you had never heard this story. What if you were being told this story for the very first time. And when I was done speaking with you, you would only have my words to remember it by. Imagine you have no book with this story in it. And even if you did, you couldn't read the words. Is it worth me telling you the story?

2/3 of our world are oral peoples. They do not read, write, or learn through books or the internet. Their history is not recorded in textbooks. They are oral people. They tell stories. They sing songs, they have ceremonies, they learn dances and crafts that their grandparents taught them. This is how they learn their history, their culture, their religion. Through words. spoken words. Does God want them to know about his saving grace? Did he intend for only those who can read the bible to believe in him? I hope not.

There are 6,814 living languages. This means that these are languages that are being used and spoken every day by real people. And do you know how many languages have a bible in their language? All of them? 3,000? 1,000? no. 432 of them. 432 of the almost 7 thousand languages have a bible in their language! Are you understanding this? Am I understanding this?

If you haven't already realized, we learned about bible storying this week. How to evangelize through stories. How to disciple through stories. How to train new leaders and believers to evangelize through stories.

I have never learned about storying or was even aware that not everyone had the bible. Not only that, but i certainly never thought that the majority of the world had no access to scripture.
But how awesome it is to have a God who knows all and loves all in that He would send his perfect son Jesus and how did Jesus teach? You guessed it. Stories. I'd never even thought about it. Jesus taught in parables... which are stories! Can you believe it? God was thinking of his children even 2,000 years ago. He had not forgotten his children in the African Bush, or his peoples in the brazillian jungles. Oh that we would have a heart like his. That he would give our eyes are refreshing view of his children around the world waiting to hear the story of Jesus.

They are waiting to hear the greatest story of all. The story of Jesus. And who doesn't love a good story? And the best part is that we already know that it certainly does end with a "and they lived happily ever after..."

The End

Katie
Habakkuk 1:5

Pray that God would prepare ready hearts in Colombia.
Pray for another round of immunizations on Tues and Fri this week.
Pray that God would allow me to filter this overwhelming amount of information and be able to retain what I will need in the future.
Praise God that shots were not as painful as I had expected.
Praise God that I will be seeing my family this week.
Praise God that He is a God of stories and HE is the greatest story of all.

"Evangelism is going in and picking up the spoils after the battle has been won in prayer. " - Randy Sprinkles

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