MAF-LT Loans Pilot Back, Discovers Orality

“LT (Learning Technologies) has sent a pilot back out into the field,” is how Bob Dontje describes his return to Lesotho, Africa last year.

From May to November 2008, Bob logged 267 flight hours during which he spent considerable time helping to put the God’s Story Project (an MAF-LT ministry partner) into Lesotho’s language—a benefit to the residents of that country’s mountainous regions where English is not the primary language.

As testimony to the excitement generated by LT, Bob recalled a simple exchange as he and two pastors walked together following a funeral. The pastors wanted to better lead their church members. They wondered how to get an education when they could not afford to leave.

“I suggested they didn’t have to leave because education can now come to them,” he said. “When I explained the concept MAF-LT bringing in distance education for church leaders, their faces lit up. They realized that the practicality of LT is that everyone wins. The pastor gets an education. He learns how to serve better and his congregation doesn’t lose its leader.”

Bob also described how “the clouds parted and the sun came up” when individuals in Lesotho received MegaVoice. The solar-powered, preloaded and locked MP3 player that contains the New Testament, 60 Bible stories, and an audio of God’s Story offered a portable springboard to translating information into their language. 

“Written material looks like just so many marks on a page,” he noted, “but this technology draws people into discussions because it is easy and available in their mother tongue.”

Lesotho is a country in which the spoken word is the primary means of communication. Information—even oral information—built around a written framework does not translate well. Story telling is much more effective.

Disseminating Christian information in the region is challenging. Culture and cultural relevancies in religion are very important in Lesotho, and these indigenous beliefs cause challenges with syncretism. The challenge, Bob notes, is acknowledging the Gospel that has been in Lesotho for a long time in a way that doesn’t allow indigenous beliefs to weaken the understanding of Christianity.