One Handful of Rice

   I spent a good part of this afternoon studying an evangelism method designed for non-literate people. It’s a training program in which trainers teach non-readers to tell stories, both their own and some from the Bible, to invite them to choose Jesus. In turn, these new believers immediately find another person who wants to hear a story and soon these illiterate people are able to articulate both their faith and train others to do the same. It’s a fact that most of the remaining unreached people groups are those who would not benefit from Bibles translated into their language as they don’t read their own mother tongue. But they love to hear stories, and especially those giving them hope for a better life. The program is called S-T4T, or Storying:  Training for Trainers. Every person who says yes, they want to hear stories, and then receive Christ as the mediator between themselves and God, learn right away to tell the stories to others. If they say no to Christ, they are invited to join a group to hear more stories. The model was first developed in China and then modified for non-readers everywhere. Lots of thought has gone into providing for cultural differences as vocabulary is tweaked to ensure clear meaning within a given culture, illustrations are chosen from familiar life experiences and so on. We’re excited about sharing this method with our workers in India and with friends there who are looking for appropriate ways to share the Gospel. It’s such a simple message at the heart of it, yet we tend to make it so difficult. It’s God’s provision for restoring people to Him through Jesus. It’s a wonderful story.