October 14, 2009 by Ed Weaver
This is the office we’re working out of while in Salka, Niger State, Nigeria. Our Baseline survey team is out on their second day of work in Auna and Agwara – we hope to have an additional 200 surveys completed by tonight.
My team is in the office finishing 20 or so hours (in each of the three Kambari languages) of health, agriculture and Biblical stories, songs and dramas and loading them on 750 MP3 players so that lives can be touched and transformed by hearing the Truth in their heart language!
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September 12, 2009 by Ed Weaver
This is a picture of a world map created by YWAM right before we began praying as a network for all the nations. We took off our shoes and walked on the map – praying for specific countries and specific needs as we lifted up the nations before God for His salvation of the people. What a blessing to be together and being able to put such a tangible expression to our prayers.
International Orality Network and The World Map
Originally uploaded by t4global
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June 22, 2009 by Kyle McClellan
Pastor Nicholas
Meet Pastor Nicholas. Pastor Nicholas is a typical Samburu pastor. One year ago, his church was small and struggling. They met under a tree and wondered how much longer this particular work could continue.
Last July, the MT4 project came to Nicholas’ church. In a 3-month period, 400 Samburu who were not followers of Jesus, became followers of Jesus. His church grew, and folks from other villages began walking to his village to go to church. Immediately, Nicholas and the Kenyan leaders of the MT4 project knew what they needed to do: plant churches in villages that had new believers, but no church.
This church planting strategy brings new challenges to pastors like Nicholas: How to train these new pastors? Many of them have herds of cattle and goats to shepherd and cannot go away to Bible School. A great number of these potential pastors cannot read, so how do you train them to be “mighty in the Scriptures”?
Pastor Nicholas is a part of a pilot training program underway in Samburu. Using the MT4 techonology, the wisdom of our indigenous partners and T4G’s oral strategy, 50 Samburu pastors are undergoing orality-based pastor training. These pastors will be trained over a course of 2 years without a single book, manual or paper being written. They will master 120 Bible stories, and have an understanding of how each story is a part of God’s grand story of Redemption through Jesus Christ. These pastors will also have an orality-savvy model of preaching, and will be under the tutelage of seasoned pastors like Nicholas.
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June 18, 2009 by Kyle McClellan
75 years ago, the Rev. R.R. Brown began the Okoboji Lakes Bible and Missionary Conference. Dr. Brown was a radio preacher of some renown, and since Omaha in August is oppressively hot, the folks at WOW radio had an idea. What if Dr. Brown did 10 days of a conference that could be carried over live radio? And, what if the location boasted pleasant weather? With that, the Okoboji Conference was begun on the shores of Lake Okoboji, a vacation spot of some renown in the Midwest.
Over the years, the Okoboji Conference has hosted thousands of missionaries. Back in the day, there was a “Missionary Parade” (as in, a literal parade), and flags from various nations still adorn the walls of the conference tabernacle. Missions has always played a central role at Okoboji. The stories told by expat missionaries home on furlough shaped the lives of many conference attenders, myself included.
This year at Okoboji promises to be an historic one. The Conference is celebrating its’ 75th anniversary, and for the first time, two of the missions speakers will not be expats.
This year, Pastors Simon Mwaura and Wilfred Lenaisemoi will be speaking at Okoboji. A conference that has heard from, prayed for and financially supported thousands of expat missionaries will hear from indigenous church planters. The fruit of 75 years of faithful praying and sending will be on display.
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April 11, 2009 by Ed Weaver
This is a topic of discussion that is near and dear to our hearts, as well as to our partners – both on the ground and in the donor community. It is a critical component of our ministry and yet it is the one we wish could be invisible at the same time. As I say to on-the-ground partners, the MP3 player kit we use is just a delivery truck. If there is nothing in the truck, the truck made a wasted trip.
That said – it is the contents of the truck that takes time, understanding of culture/worldview, and a clear view of the needs of oral learners. This is where the true value lies. In theory, ANYONE can purchase technology and put content on it for use in listening groups. [We hope that our God-given understanding of technology helps make the purchase of the RIGHT technology for the application through good stewardship, though.]
This is Matthew Wong and his family. We’ve worked with Matthew for almost 4 years now to handle our purchasing and logistics in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, China. He and his family are a great encouragement to our ministry and they join us in our faith in God through Christ – it is a blessing to be with them and to share what God is doing through Matthew’s efforts as a businessman to help us reach oral learners in many countries around the world.
Technology
Originally uploaded by t4global
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April 7, 2009 by Kyle McClellan
Here’s the congregational invocation prayed this past Sunday at the church Pete and I attend:
Lord Jesus, Savior and King, speed the coming of Your Kingdom to the ends of the earth. By Your powerful grace, draw the world to willing obedience to Your reign. Overcome the enemies of Your Kingdom. Rescue what sin has laid waste, and repair the desolations of many generations, that the widerness may rejoice and the cities be made glad with Your Law. Rain down righteousness bringing salvation to the nations. As the waters cover the sea, so may the knowledge of Your glory fill the earth. Amen.
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March 10, 2009 by Kyle McClellan
Recently, a group of ministries working among the Samburu gathered for a meeting at North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, GA. Present were representatives from Water Missions International, Global X (NPCC), the Mission Society and T4 Global. The topic: how can we integrate and work strategically to take the gospel to this least-reached people group?
When asked for a summary statement, Dr. Darrell Whiteman, T4G board member and resident missiologist for the Mission Society had this to say, “The work thus far has been a model for recovering the whole gospel. The gospel is that we are rightly related to God, to each other and to God’s creation. The work in Samburu has done that. We cannot divorce spiritual rebirth from issues of justice and mercy.”
Tags: Kenya, Samburu
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February 23, 2009 by Pete McLain
As the group stood up and started singing, it was obvious that everyone knew the song. The song was a song about malaria which they had learned from our MT4 players distributed among the Samburu. They said it was one of their favorites and that everyone in the village now knows the song.
What is remarkable is that not everyone in the circle, or the village for that matter, had listened to the MT4 player. They had learned the song from others who had listened to the MT4 player. This is a phenomenon that we see happen every time we implement an orality project.
Our recently completed third-party evaluation of our project among the Samburu in Kenya pointed out that while a large percentage of those surveyed had listened to the MT4 player, 18% had not. Yet when they compared average percent increases over the baseline for changes in knowledge, attitudes and behavior, the increase for non-listeners was 39%! Our evaluator, Calvin Edwards and Company, concludes:
“This suggests that there is a very significant degree of secondary learning occurring within this oral culture—even those who don’t listen to the MT4 player are quite likely to learn as ideas are passed along orally.”
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February 9, 2009 by Pete McLain
We are starting to see trends emerge from our evaluations across different countries and contexts, from Nepal and India to Sudan and Kenya:
1. People are listening to our training content again and again.
2. People are listening in groups.
3. People are memorizing the stories and the songs.
4. People are discussing the content with others.
Here is some recent data that supports these trends:
–In India 66% of the listeners to the MT4 players said they listened more than once. In Kenya, 71% listened to the content three or more times; 49% listened more than 10 times.
–In India, the average listening group was 6-10. In Kenya the average listening group size was also 6-10; 28% in Kenya listened in groups larger than 10.
–In India, the percentage of listeners who could tell various Bible stories very well grew from only 13% on average beforehand to 65% afterwards. In Kenya, the percentage grew from 28% on average beforehand to 81% afterwards.
–In India, 83% said they have told one or more stories to others who have not listened to the MT4 player. In Kenya, 100% said they discussed the content with others in their listening group. 100% said they discussed the content with others not in their listening group.
These four trends indicate that a significant transfer of training is occurring. People are not just hearing information; they are internalizing it, owning it, discussing it, sharing it, and changing their lives and communities as a result.
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January 29, 2009 by Pete McLain
Preliminary data is in from our third party evaluation of our project in Punjab, India. It appears that we have another project that is showing dramatic shifts in knowledge, attitudes and behavior as a result of our approach to training among oral culture people.
–Regarding symptoms of various diseases, we saw shifts from 8% of people understanding certain symptoms before our training to 42% afterwards. In one case the shift was from 8% to 92%.
–Regarding treatments of various diseases, we saw shifts from 29% to 85%, 21% to 75%, and 29% to 75%.
–Before our training, no one surveyed could tell the story of Moses in Bible. Afterwards, 58% could tell the story very well. 13% could tell the story of Abraham, Isaac and Sarah beforehand; now 83% can. Only 7% could tell the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 beforehand; now 83% surveyed can tell that story very well. 75% can now tell the story of Jesus calming the big storm and 67% can tell the story of Jesus casting out the evil spirit, whereas only 20% could tell those stories before our project.
These are not just statistically significant. They are dramatic changes!
A key indicator of impact of a training project in an oral culture is whether people are retelling stories they have learned to others. If they can retell a story, they have obviously learned the material. But if they are volunteering to retell the story to others in their community, then the material has really impacted them to the point that they want to share it.
So a key finding from our evaluation is the fact that 83% of those who have listened to the MT4 player content have told one or more of the stories to others who have not listened to the MT4 player. We have started a conversation in Punjab that is reverberating around the community. It is this dialogue of telling and retelling stories and songs that leads to transformation.
Tags: Evaluation
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