May News & Prayer Letter

Oral Bible Story Training for Condozi Indians

 

US missionary Steve Ford and Argentina missionary Maria Canilla with 

Oral Bible graduating class of Condozi Indians

 

Steve leading communion for the Condozis

 

Maria (left) with Condozi women

This past week I had the privilege of joining with this Assembly of God team to help train 125 Condozi Indians on how to learn the Bible through stories for those who cannot read or read well. This 6-day training started after two days of travel from Yurimaguas, where I live, to Ullpayacu community where the church that hosted us is located. The stories began with Creation and ended with Moses and The Golden Calf. Each class was designed to teach the Condozis Bible stories so that they can not only learn Word of God for themselves but also share it with those who do not know.

Steve Ford and his wife Terry are Assembly of God American missionaries who have been ministering in different parts of Northern Peru for 25 years. Maria Canilla, from Argentina, also an Assembly of God missionary, has been working with several Indian tribes in the area as well.

Steve has put together this incredible training to teach the Condozi Indians the Word of God through Bible stories and the results were absolutely phenomenal. For instance, when hearing about Noah’s ark and the rainbow one woman said that she never knew anything good about rainbows (they believe that if you looked at one you will break out in sores or some other type of skin disease). Now through learning what the Word says about them, she said, “I’m going to announce to everyone that the rainbow represents God’s love and promises.” On another story when the group heard about the 10 commandments this same woman said, “I can see that we are not following them.” Others said that they never knew them before and could see that the enemy was keeping them from knowing how to follow God.

On the last session, Moses and the Golden Calf the one I did, we had a very lively discussion about idols and different false beliefs. The result was that many of their long-held beliefs were challenged when held up to the Word of God.

Sharon sharing the Word of God through stories

This was very enlightening to me to see how this method of evangelism and discipleship could be used. Although we have done Bible storytelling in our 5-day trainings with our Shawi Indians we did not employ this method but we will surely do so in the future.

Prayer Request

In light of that I want to share with you that we will be traveling to the Shishinahua River this Saturday, May 21 to Wednesday, May 25. The purpose of our trip is to build our first church in one of the communities that we have been working in for the last 8 years named Yarina. One of the men has had it in his heart to do this for some time and so we have agreed to help him. Hallelujah! Our official breakthrough!

Maria’s brothers will be helping this man named Ignacio build the simple palm-leafed, wooden structure to house meetings that he will initiate. It should only take a few days to build and while the men are working Maria and I will go to the neighboring village of San Francisco to minister in the Word of God and coordinate a water filter project with them. During our time together we will be trying out this new method of Bible storytelling to teach the people the Word of God. Would you therefore, stand with us in prayer for this trip?

• Safety and ease of travel
• That the church will be completed by the time we leave
• That the people of San Francisco will be wide open to the Word through Bible storytelling
• Sensitivity to the Holy Spirit in knowing what to share and how.

Thank you so much for your intercession for this trip. Let us believe together for great things to happen in each heart resulting in a total community transformation. God bless you all.

Sharon Malcolm