illiteracy

We have been interacting with Naveen, an evangelist/pastor/leadership trainer in India. Naveen is seeing many come to Christ and he is actively developing leaders for the many new groups of believers where he works. The challenge is that many of them don’t read or write even one word. He is asking MAF LT to help him develop leadership development materials that he can use with these leaders.
What do “materials” for non-literates look like? What are the issues in transforming training materials written for lettered cultures into materials for oral cultures? Should that even be attempted?We invite you to participate with us through prayer for wisdom as we wade into this with Naveen.Below is a recent e-mail from him.

Only a few lights filtered through murky night haze as we descended into Mumbai, India. A great city lay beneath us, certainly not asleep, but wrapped within its own dense cloak. Later, riding to the hotel, rows of dark apartments stared down at us with only an occasional lit window for punctuation. Streetlights, shop lights, and bouncing headlights alike pushed vainly against midnight soup, setting the environmental tone for the entire three-week project. Day or night, India’s smoggy air remained visible yet always obscured the sky.

Ministry Partnerships Train Church Leaders

Mission Aviation Fellowship’s Learning Technologies (MAF-LT) division along with Hemet, California based “The God’s Story Project” (TGSP) partnered with two different Indian national church groups to conduct three sets of workshops in October 2007 in Mumbai and Delhi, India. These “Simply The Story” (STS) workshops trained selected Indian church leaders to present the Gospel using stories.

TGSP Director, Dorothy Miller, TGSP International Director of Technology, Andrea Pebbles and India Field Manager, Rev. Dr. S. M. headed the team. They drew instructors from a pool of previously qualified volunteers in the United States – a retired lady from Northern California, 2 young ladies from Southern California, an emerging leader from a Texas inner city rehab program and experienced China missionaries. Additionally, veteran missionary, Regina Manley, MAFLT Orality Specialist represented MAF in this joint project. I, MAF-LT’s Communications Specialist, chronicled the team’s activities.

Coordinating our work in Mumbai were Pastors Dr. J & E. S. of an active Christian fellowship. Their church of over 5,000 people meets in scores of small groups and house churches scattered throughout the vast slums of northern Mumbai. They own no buildings and manage no large facilities. Instead, they direct the entire ministry from rented rooms at the end of narrow alley along a fetid creek. Despite the setting, they supplied a ready cadre of drivers, organizers and helpers to ensure everything we could possibly need was immediately at hand.

Seven hundred miles northeast, in the national capital of New Delhi, Pastors Dr. J & M. T. provided similar aide. They secured the use of a rare, large church building for the seminar. Indian law allows religious freedom. However, in a society 80% Hindu and 14% Muslim, public displays of Christian proselytizing or worship draw sharp opposition rapidly. So, as in Mumbai, this Delhi church meets in small groups scattered about the greater metropolitan area.

In Mumbai the team offered two sets of three concurrent workshops located in different parts of the city. Each workshop hosted 12-25 students for three days, training them to present stories, ask the right questions and facilitate the resulting discussion. In Delhi we presented an additional three-day course.

Why is it that 90% of the Christians sent to Bible school DO NOT RETURN to live among their people after completing training? Some may be tempted from their call by the lure of an easier lifestyle in the city. But can this account for every one?…most of whom were sent because they demonstrated both talent and passion for preaching the Gospel? Is it possible that part of the problem is actually caused by the educational system?

We talk a lot in the Learning Technologies team about how we can help to provide resources and training to under-resourced pastors and church leaders.

My recent trip to Nairobi and London to meet with ministries in Africa and the Middle East powerfully brought home the desperate need for training. Here’s one example from east Congo (DRC).

A recent survey of churches in two districts in a region of east Congo that is struggling to pick up the pieces after a debilitating civil war revealed the following statistics.  Sixty percent of the 850 churches found in these two districts had no pastor.  Church congregations are largely illiterate.  The few Bible schools cannot begin to meet the need–economic factors and low levels of literacy rule out all but a few who can relocate to these schools.

This is where MAF Learning Technologies lives and breathes.  Our minds and energies are engaged in finding creative solutions to these daunting challenges.

More next time on how we are working to tackle the problems facing the church in Congo.