ENGAGE!

Twenty students gathered for their morning session on ethnographic research and ethno-arts.  I had been invited by our colleagues on Tuesday morning to share about SIL Nigeria and Scripture engagements.  To stand in front of young men and women who have a passion to be missionaries in their own country was very humbling for me.

After they danced and sang energetically...

I had the job of keeping the energy high while sharing about how they could ENGAGE the communities they are serving with the Word of God...with Christ.

Storying: "We had gathered again, on that day of Pentecost.  Many people were in the city that day.  Jesus Christ, our Savior, who had gone back to heaven 40 days ago told us to wait in Jerusalem. So we did.  I don't know how to explain what happened while we were praying in that place...there was a wind...the promised Holy Spirit had come..." I began.

Drama:  Zach and I did a skit on Scripture Engagement...the same skit we had done many times this summer in front of American audiences.  What a different experience when one man came later and said, "I understood very well what was being said on the audio Scripture you played...you do you speak that Efik?"

Trauma Healing:  I shared the story of a friend who had been raped when she was 19, went from relationship to relationship after that.  My eyes blurred as I remembered her tears, and said, "Some of you have experienced deep pain.  The people of your community have experienced pain.  If they cannot receive the gospel, maybe it is because they need to know Christ as their healer first."

Scripture Listening Groups:  Zach shared with them a passage of Scripture in English and then asked questions to help them see how they can reach non-readers with the Gospel through oral Bible studies.

Ethno-arts: Then we shared a song I had written, with our colleague Peter playing the African drum beat for me, from that passage (2 Timothy 2:8-90 that declares, "But God's Word is not chained!"

The challenge to them was:  Engage your communities with Scripture, allow God's unchained Word, Christ, to touch and change hearts!

Here they are making the motion for "Engage!"  that we did in class.