A visit to India for a brand new storyteller
I am a teacher librarian at an English speaking missionary kid school in Taipei, Taiwan. Over Easter break I had the opportunity to go to New Delhi, India with a team from my church in Sydney. We stayed with an Indian pastor and his family who minister to a church of about 200 families. The majority of these families are seekers or new believers and are mostly illiterate. Our team goal was to promote the gospel and the church by way of English teaching to the surrounding neighbourhood, especially to underprivileged children.
During out two week visit, we were graciously asked to family homes for dinner or lunch. These homes were always a small dark room but brightened by colourful saris and decorations. Remarkably, the families were always hungry for prayer, blessings and Bible stories. Since I am very interested in Bible storytelling, had practiced a couple in English and Chinese, and had been encouraged in a recent training, I was able to take the lead in 3 Bible stories over the two weeks.
The first Bible story I told was the healing of the leper. This was a New Testament story we learned in an evangelism training course. It was amazing how much I remembered when I was asked to give a Bible story on the fly! There were 3 adults, 3 young children and 2 young girls. 1 of the young girls hosts a weekly prayer meeting for the local kids in her home and the 3 young children come every week. Since the other young girl had come for the first time, this was the first time she had heard a Bible story. That was amazing. At the conclusion, I asked the questions according to what I had learned which indicated how perceptive the listeners were.
The second Bible story I told was the parable of the lost sheep. I told this one because at my training course I was lamenting my limited Chinese and the fact that the only opportunities I have in the Taiwanese community is my many taxi rides. Thankfully one of the leaders challenged me to learn the lost sheep parable as it is relatively short and would only require a small knowledge of Chinese. This was told in a slum area to a group of believers who all said that they could relate to being that lost sheep and how they know Jesus has His arms around them.
The third Bible story I told was the healing of the bleeding woman. I told this to about 100 ladies and150 kids at a woman’s conference sponsored by the church. Many ladies said they had been touched at how compassionate Jesus was towards the woman. The Indian culture is known for ostracizing woman in many similar situations.
This all, of course, was translated from English to Hindi. I was used to this as anytime I’m sharing at church I am translated and it gives you time to think clearly.
Shared with permission
