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| Tom & friend at wedding event |
Yet in the West we have a bias against stories. Everyone loves a good story but when it’s time to learn something, we put the stories away, we take out the text books and we listen to lectures and we expect a logically presented argument. Stories are for children and entertainment. Not for learning.
The western worldview of our team in regard to stories was challenged this past week as we engaged in a seminar on the use of stories in teaching. From the beginning we felt this challenge. The seminar started out, not with theory or lecture but with a story. We learned to tell a story--without any pens or papers--completely orally. We learned to tell a story from our favorite book with accuracy and detail. It felt strange, almost like a waste of time. The story was familiar, although before we couldn’t have told it nearly so well. Why spend so much time repeating and repeating this story?
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| Megan with bride and groom |
The next day was even stranger. The same story again, but this time we were learning to tell it in the island language, alongside islanders! This was a challenging language time for our team, to say the least. And then after going through that same story again and again, we were given homework: Go tell the story! To an island friend! In the island language!
And so we did. On the third day of the seminar, we talked theory. We got to put things into categories and hear logically presented arguments on the usefulness of this method and how to go about it, and different factors we might want to consider. It was time well spent, and I think we would all have enjoyed more hours of it. Theory! Lists! Programming! Our western minds were pacified.
Meanwhile the stories were working their power. I had told the story separately to two people, my friends Sterehi and Ananas. It went relatively well. They asked some questions, and seemed to enjoy the story. I assumed that was the end of it. But a few days later Sterehi came back to me. “Do you have a new story?” he asked. “I don’t yet,” I replied, “but I will.” He wanted to hear another story! The first story had stuck with him.
A few days after that I went to visit my friend Ananas at his home. We were talking with him and his wife, when the subject of the story came up. Imagine my surprise when it was Ananas’ wife who retold the story and asked questions about it! I hadn’t asked Ananas to share the story with anyone. He had just done it. The story I had told to Ananas he had in turn told to his family. This is exactly how it’s supposed to work! And his family was engaging with it, thinking about it, challenged by it.
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| She lost her first tooth! |
I am impressed anew with the power of stories.
All these things [he] said to the crowds in parables; indeed he said nothing to them without a parable. Matt. 13:34
PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are thankful for all that we are learning and being challenged to think in new ways. We are also thankful for the opportunity to take the things we learn and put them immediately into practice. Ma Imani had a good conversation with her mom this week that helped break through some of the issues that still hadn’t been discussed. We hope the same will happen among the sisters of the family!
PRAYERS REQUESTED
As of writing this, our teammates are still waiting for their baby, but it could be any day! Pray for our teammates as they get impatient for their baby girl to arrive. Pray for our storytelling. Pray that we might become people who tell stories. Pray for our language to grow as we learn to tell stories well. Our second pregnant teammate is having a lot of back pain- pray that she can find comfortable ways to sleep and alleviate her pain. Pray with us as we seek how to best encourage fellowship among islanders-- we want it them to have the ownership and the desire!
