What are the chances of finding a stranger 11 years later?

In 2007 we shared the following story as written by our founder, Dorothy Miller.

The Boy Who “Was” Unruly

Mark, our TGSP Director in India, spoke to me on the phone at length as he spilled out dozens of stories from his recent trip. Mark had been on the road 16 days. He led Simply the Story workshops in 5 locations plus recorded two new languages of God’s Story.  

One leg of the journey was a 2-day train ride. Mark traveled in a compartment with three Hindu leaders and two teenagers, one very unruly. After Mark listened to their conversation and put up with the bad behavior of the one boy, Mark took out a solar-powered audio-player and started listening to God’s Story in Hindi. The unruly boy asked, "Is that a radio?"

Mark handed it over and soon all the people in that train compartment were listening to the Hindi version of God’s Story, starting at Creation. They all became enchanted by the story.  Finally one man asked, "Are you a Christian?" 

Mark told me, “I gave them my testimony and told about Creation and that first day, all 5 prayed and came to Jesus.  The rest of the trip we prayed and sang new praises to God, together!”

We shared this story again, because Mark gave us an update to this story while visiting our headquarters in January. Mark said he did a training in 2018 at a church in Eastern India. During a break, the pastor came to Mark and said, "Sir, did I meet you on the train?"

Mark replied, "Which train, there are many?"

Then the pastor identified himself as the unruly boy Mark met 11 years earlier! This man had become a pastor, married and had a young son. In a country that exceeds 1 billion people, can you imagine meeting the same person who came to the Lord because of hearing God’s Story on a MegaVoice player 11 years earlier?  What a blessing to see the fruit of Godly seeds sown after so many years.

Reaching children using STS and other tools

We have been meeting with a successful children's ministry over the past year. They are transitioning to an oral based training that we believe will dove-tail nicely with Simply The Story and our Oral Bible Schools (OBS).  We ask for prayers for this children's ministry as they develop their training and for our two ministries as we field test moving forward together.

Our first ever STS and flannel graph training with By Design Visuals proved highly successful. Six people registered to learn how to lead Bible story discussions combined with the Sower's Set flannel graphs (3 Old Testament and 4 New Testament Bible stories). The training will continue to be refined in India over the next two months and offered again this summer in Hemet, Californi

Reaching Native Americans

With the temperature reaching a balmy 5 degrees on the first morning of an STS training, our team braved the weather to teach STS to 13 students and 3 YWAMers in Northern Arizona. We are excited to see that people who work among Native Americans are asking for more training. Please continue to pray for this. We know that Jesus came to heal the broken hearted and STS is a key to people hearing the truth of God's Word.

What is God doing in South East Asia?

Recently our India director and 2 others conducted two sessions at a South East Asia Network conference. We're thrilled that this led to interest in producing 10 new God's Story languages and multiple STS trainings.

In another Asian country, our TGSP leader wrote to us that they were reaching government and religious leaders with the gospel during the Christmas season. Surprisingly, the government in this closed Asian country allowed this leader to do a Christmas program on the main road and in local areas openly. They are also continuing to bring the good news to the prisons. We are grateful to the Lord for His mercy and grace to allow all these groups to hear the Way, the Truth and the Life, Jesus.

God's Story Languages

Last December, we received word from our leaders in Nigeria. They plan to work on 29 new God's Story languages spoken in Nigeria.  Pray for these leaders, the translators and all involved during this major and ambitious project.  We believe there will be a great impact among these people groups through God's Story. Major languages included are Agatu, Basa, Eggon, Gade, Goemai, Gwandara, Ham, Kofyar, and Lijili.

Our leader in Burkina Faso recently finished recording and checking 6 languages of God’s Story for Burkina Faso and Cote D’Ivoire. She braved long hours and hard work to coordinate and guide several people to translate and record these languages.  Three of these languages are unwritten!

How to Reach the Older and the Younger People!

In Southern California, we received this report from someone who works in our office and leads Sunday school class using STS.  She shared that a friend talked to an elderly Italian neighbor and told her about an STS class where people could ask questions, talk, and discuss Bible (because the Italian lady can not read or write English). The Italian woman was so excited. She said that this is something she has been praying for all her life.  Now she is telling everyone and even shared that she loves STS. Before this, she could never understand the Bible because she doesn't read well.

Are We Reaching the Heart or the Mind?

A woman who recently attended two STS trainings wrote to us what happened when her husband first taught a Bible history class and how STS meets the need her husband discovered. She said he was "WELL prepared to expound on the Reformation & Martin Luther. After a full-to-the-brim 2 hour class, he looked forward hopefully to a barrage of questions...but nary a one.

"Finally, after several promptings, the questions began to flow but not ONE was about the subject....they were ALL HEART questions! Dear provincial pastors struggling with their failures, broken people and broken lives, desperate to find if there really were answers in the Word... and so he threw his notes out, sat down on the ground, literally, and hurt with them.

"I believe in STS because it's not the 'mind' that hurts...it's the HEART. I love the Heart Pocket reference."

How Could Working Together Impact Uganda?

This story exemplifies 2 churches working together from different continents to impact 1 nation. We also see 2 different ministry tools brought together to help fan to flames the emerging movement.  In 2018 one instructor was enlisted to help train people going to Uganda on a missions trip from Southern California. The instructor took a literate based, heart-healing curriculum and trained the team how to make the curriculum more oral using the principles of STS.

God is now using this STS / healing curriculum hybrid in Uganda to heal the broken hearted Ugandans by Ugandans!  

Pastor Isaac from Uganda recently attended our Comprehensive Leadership Training. He wrote to the pastor here in Southern California the following note.

"Am here in Kenya enjoying the STS. I did a story today and it was a beautiful experience. Can't wait to do another one.

"Also longing to do small tribe and big tribe training (tribes are the same as groups, named after the tribes of Israel).”

Follow us on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/pg/SimplyTheStory and feel free to “like” us. Visit our “official Simply The Story” Youtube page videos: https://goo.gl/UzZQoZ  We are excited to share our podcast at HeartPocket.org. Pray we can get this on iTunes, we have run into a small  snag.

Serving the Lord together,

Andrea
Executive Director
& the whole staff of The God's Story Project (TGSP)