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| After a six week trip to the States to visit supporting churches, donors and family I had the opportunity to involve the Shawi villages that Maria and I work with in a six day Orality Conference. It was an exciting time to be a part of this conference to help teach the Shawis how to learn the Word of God in a story format of the events that took place in the Bible. Since most oral cultures use the story-telling method to pass down their traditions and history to the next generation missionaries in the past adapted this same technique to “pass down” the content of the Bible. It was so encouraging to see how our people were grasping the stories of Creation, The Fall of Satan/Man, Noah and the Rainbow and many other stories come alive for them for the first time. Even the most timid were participating by repeating the story they just heard in small groups as well as in the general meeting. |
The purpose of the conference was to open doors for the oral based Shawi communities to not only know the Word of God for themselves but to be able to tell it to those who have not yet heard. For the Shawi villages that we work with we will be having our own 5-day training in March and will repeat this information for the rest that could not attend this conference.
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| Sharon teaching one of the classes |
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| Shawi participants sharing Shawi worship songs in the evening church service |
Prayer Request
We will be traveling on the river again this Saturday, February 18 until Wednesday, February 22 to coordinate with our villages to attend our next 5-day training. Gloriously, a fourth village called San Francisco, has been a vital part of our outreach and training this past year and has even asked us to help them build their own church building. We will, of course, help them do this within the next few months.
I would ask your prayers as we travel to minister and coordinate with our villages of Santa Clara, Santa Rosa, Yarina and now San Francisco for our 5-day training.
I also have a very special prayer request concerning a family in the village of Yarina. This family has been very close to us over the last 7 or 8 years but recently a pastor has come to their village at their request to live with them. He’s only been there about 3 months but has succeeded in completely turning this family and some others of the village against us to the point where they do not want us to visit them anymore. One of the reasons for the trip is to try and talk to this family/families and let them know that this man has done this very same thing in another village that resulted in a church split that is still unreconciled to this day.
I would ask your prayers for wisdom, tolerance and love as we talk to this family/families about this man, and if need be, to the man himself. He has apparently thought it necessary to relate his feelings about us to the other villages that we work with as well according to the families that came to the conference from San Francisco and Santa Rosa who are the ones who told about the situation.
I know this is an attack from the enemy and it’s not the first time that rumors such as these have gone around about us but this time the man that’s doing it is living there and has done this before with devastating results. Please pray with me that the enemy’s plan of division will be destroyed and that every word from this man will fall to the ground void of power. Lastly, that the Lord will remove this man from the river forever. Thank you for standing with me in prayer for this and if the Lord shows you anything in particular to pray for please let me know.
Yours In the Fight For Righteousness,
Sharon Malcolm
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