Shout At Us!

Praise & Prayer Report #1, November-December of 2012 & January of 2013

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Dear Friend of God’s Story,

We saw 2012 as the most fruitful and productive year yet, and now January 2013 looks even more fulfilling. In November and December, God’s Story for India was completed in Urau-kru, Liangmai Naga-njn & Rogmei Naga-nbu, and Maninka-emk for Guinea.

Shout At Us! “Prayerfully reading God’s Word is by nature inspiring and speaks to us, while in STS the Bible stories are like turning up the volume 100 times and the stories shout at us!” USA Senior Pastor, President of Global Fellowship Network

“Great Training. Well done. I've been to hundreds of conferences.  Never have I been to one that I can attend for 2 full days and never have to look at my watch waiting for sessions to end."Mission leader over 200 plus churches

Talk About Miracles!  An STS instructor in the USA was invited by leaders in India to tell STS stories to 15,000 at once! AND, they paid his airfare to come! After the trip I asked him,

“Could you sense with that large of a crowd if the stories actually impacted the people?” He responded, “Well if you count it as impact that at the end of the stories most had tears running down their faces, I’d say yes.”                 

99! STS workshops have trained workers in inductive Bible study, oral style in 99 countries!

Update! When someone combines God’s Story and STS, look what happens. Our last newsletter told about girls in Nepal being rescued from sex-traffickers who were taking the girls into India.

A survey was just done on 278 of those girls who were rescued. These had come to faith in Jesus. They were trained to sew and were discipled using STS storytelling. After six months the girls returned home with a sewing machine and a solar audio player (containing God’s Story, oral-style training on how to study the Bible using STS, a New Testament, six in-depth, interactive Bible-stories with questions and 66 recorded Bible stories.)

By using their personal testimony of faith and the recorded information, in only three months, these newly saved and trained girls planted 328 churches!    

God’s Story

“The Arabic God’s Story is perfect to give to Muslim students interested in learning the sequence of the Bible and more  importantly seeing what it says about redemption.”  USA

Too Old At an STS training in West Africa, an instructor showed one of the night-time, hotel-guards a solar player and then let him hear a bit of God’s Story in his language. “He showed interest, so we left the player with him while we went in for dinner.

“When we came from dinner, the guard had listened to it all. He said, ‘These words are true of God.’ He continued excitedly, ‘God has put something in my heart tonight!’  When our country director asked the guard if he prayed the prayer to become a Christian he explained. ‘I am an old man and have been a Muslim too long to change now.’

“Our leaders prayed for the guard and then decided to let him take the player home for day.

“The guard continued to listen to it all evening and the next day took it home to his wife who was doing laundry. She asked, ‘Is this long?’  He said, ‘Yes. The story of God is long.’ She decided to listen to the story. At the end she asked her husband if he was going to switch to follow Isa. He remained quiet.

“Two days later he went to his sister's house who is a believer and shared all he learned from God’s Story. She was amazed. ‘How did you learn all this?’ He said, ‘from a player, but the lady took it back.’  He also told his sister, ‘You never told me these things!’

“The last day there, the man said he now believed in Jesus and he wanted his sons to hear the story. We gave him a player.”

Many reports like this come to us. And usually we hear later that the newly saved use the players to share the story with their families, their relatives and even their whole village.

Simply The Story

Story Convinces.  A mother attending an STS training in the Middle East shared that she and her 21-year-old daughter heatedly debated the value of Bible stories. The mother, seeing the discussion leading nowhere, started telling the story of blind Bartimaeus. In less than 2 minutes, in tears, her daughter said, "That was beautiful." 

Changed Our Way. “A small team of us completed an STS training in Central Asia. One of the workers attending the training called our office 6 months later to say, ‘We are using STS all the time and this has changed the way they are doing ministry.’"

Myanmar Wishes. “We told a story to 200 over people. That was great in the church. After the service, the pastor come and say, ‘That story really make something deep and encourage me. Usually we use simple way of just a story. But we do not talk about it deep. But when I heard the story and think about it with the questions, that is strengthen me.’ There are many people wishes me to come tell stories like that. Thank you.”

Unreached Being Reached!!!! We met a 4th generation STS instructor in Africa. (That means we taught someone, who taught someone, who taught someone.) He told of being in 7 workshops, first learning, then helping, then leading. That 4^th instructor down the line is also a church planter.

A people group of 100,000 in Togo, that African mission agencies had not been able to penetrate with the Gospel, had no known believers. That would classify these 100,000 as an unengaged, unreached, people group (UUPG). Their religion is “traditional,” so they are animists.   

The church planter and his wife visited this group. He said, “We carried in nothing, no literature. For a year we told stories, 102 of them!  We are leaving now and going to a new place.

“They do not need us anymore. There are four churches and 400 believers. The people have learned the stories and we talked about them. When the people retell the stories, they tell them like they were part of the story, like they were real! They have the stories in their heart pockets, and they understand them and they are sharing them with others.”    

Recently a pastor who has been a Christian for years visited these people in Togo. He said to the church planter, “I have never seen the level of spiritual maturity in Christians as I see among these people who believed and were baptized.”

Another church planter who uses STS was listening to this testimony. He joined in, “This is happening at another place as well. There were a few believers there to start. They want more training to increase the quality of their work among their own people.”

Need Prayer

1. Right now, among the many workshops being done all over the world, Arabic-speaking teams are leading workshops in various North African countries. We did not tell them to go. We trained them in STS. The Word of God directed them to become missionaries! Please pray for their protection, for fruit and an expanding army of effective, oral-style teachers.
2. Our staff at Hemet, CA headquarters is experiencing so much interest in STS and GS that we struggle to keep up! Please “Pray ye the Lord of the harvest to send workers.” We apologize now for any lack of response or errors we may make in the mean time.
3. Since the year 2000, we tried to produce Urdu. Multiple false starts have stopped this version. We hope to see the recording done very soon. Will you pray for its completion?

New Resources

This year we finally designed and printed brochures for God’s Story and STS. As well, we added a Short Term Mission Trips brochure. We write these in English, but plan to translate and print them in multiple trade languages. French is available and Spanish we hope to have soon. 

A new, superior STS Handbook, Edition #5, contains major edits on the draft we have used in the past few years. We kept the ever-changing handbook as a draft because we were continuing to learn better ways to travel this uncharted path. The path is becoming clearer. Now, skills of oral, investigative Bible-study and interactive storytelling that used to take 2 or 3 workshops to hand off to others is being transferred in one workshop!

This printed Edition #5 is available in English and French and we hope very soon in Hindi, Chinese, Nepali and Swahili. Fifteen more languages are in translation. As we have already done in English, after handbooks are translated, we record an audio version of the handbook for those who want to learn by listening.

The Ministry That Multiplies: Practitioner Guide is rivaling the new handbook in excitement. This easy-to-use booklet works even for those new to teaching. In 12 sessions, people who have learned STS can minister using stories and hand off some STS skills! The guide even includes multiple story sets from which to choose.   

All these resources, plus the STS how-to bookmark, Interactive Discovery of the Bible DVD, Practitioner Audio Training and more are being produced in multiple languages. Some can be downloaded free and all can be purchased from the “Resources” upper tab link on the web site.

In His service,

Dorothy A. Miller

Girls Rescued

Praise & Prayer Report #4, July-Oct 2012

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Dear Friend of God’s Story,

It’s been 96 days since our last report to you!

God’s Story

During those 96 days 7 new languages of God’s Story were completed. Urau-kru, Pareer-(Southern India), Liangmai Naga-njn Rongmei Naga-nbu all for India; Giryama-nyf for Kenya and Dagaare Southern-dga for Ghana. We also recorded, or have out for final approval, 22 other new languages.

God’s Story on solar players, with recorded Scripture, Jesus Film and STS training in oral Bible study is going to countries by the thousands. Nonliterate villagers are hearing, understanding and responding to the Gospel. As well, nonliterates, who learn STS and become storytellers, use the recorded stories and Scripture as a benchmark to help them stay accurate to the Word.

Girls Rescued: Awhile back a gift of 400 solar players went to one of our God’s Story leaders. These players are being used to minister to young Nepali girls who have been rescued from sex trafficking. The rescued girls are loved, nurtured and taught a trade. Most become followers of Jesus.

They go back to their villages with a solar player, and as needed, something with which to continue their new trade skill. Instead of returning home as outcasts, each newly confident girl is perceived now as having value and she becomes a witness in her village.

Simply The Story (STS)

Replication and Bondage Breaking: Consider the implications of this news. In STS workshops in Niger, Benin, Togo, Kenya and Mozambique, Western missionaries were trained by an African staff of 3rd and 4th generation STS instructors!

An African mission leader with a doctorate in theology stated, “In Togo we see tribal animosities disappear as workshop attendees from different tribes study the Word of God along side one another.”

Replication is tangibly seen. Bondages of measuring people’s worth and spiritual capability by their education, age, gender, ethnicity or social status are spontaneously being broken.

Surprise in North East India: An Indian instructor on a training trip to NE India encountered an excited man. “I attended your STS workshop three years ago. We have used the stories to reach Buddhists and we planted a church because many got saved, and now we have planted many churches there because so many are getting saved!”

Pray for Them: “I have m.uslim couple they were my students in STS by calling through cellphone. They live where is %100 the mu,s.lims and they believe STS is the best way to minister the mus.l.ims. Pray for them.”

Drawn in by Radio: “A Mus.li.m man in the Philippines was always listening to my story program on radio. Then he decided to come with Lord Jesus Christ. He contacted to me recently and told me that he wanted to learn more about STS.”

Another Radio Program in an Undisclosed Location: “Hallelujah!!! our God is great. he is working in my radio program because the rebels group they were listening my program. one of them who are very interested and listening in workshop on air, he learned a lot and he share to his people up in the mountainous place which are the most dangerous place because they was having war between government and rebels group.

“God is great and mighty. I do not know that they fellowship together and talking about the story from the bible. most of them they do not know how to read. they called me and asked me to do workshops with them about story telling. they are 27- men and I am going up this month.

Hallelujah what a great part in my life that God allow me to share those kind of people and I see STS is breaking the walls of the darkness who capture the heart of my people for a long time!!”

Post Script to the Invitation by Rebels: Christians have never gone to this region. We at headquarters did not know if this was a legitimate request or a trap, so we earnestly prayed for the instructors who decided to answer the invitation.

The instructors reported that after three days of teaching Bible stories, “We baptized many new believers. These new believers are desiring to plant church in the mountain instead to work in the mountain for war against flesh and blood. now they are the applications of Paul wrote in Ephesians we fighting against the power and the rulers of heavenly realm."

Prayer Needs

Huge Potential: In a few days we meet with a ministry that has planted 100,000 churches. They are interested in the STS way people can go deeply in the Word, yet use oral story discussion methods. Can you pray for God’s guidance in this?

People World Wide Want to Learn: Right now we have teams actively training and setting up STS workshops in Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Togo, Senegal, Burkina Faso, North Africa, Central Asia, Middle East, Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, Italy, Cambodia, Thailand, USA, South East Asia, Nepal, Philippines, Australia and India (just to name a few!)

Leadership Development: Two advanced trainings that develop leaders through exposure to story and oral communication are being done. One, a week long in India, and just beginning in Kenya is the 6-week Comprehensive STS Leadership Training. This is the 3rd offering of this training. Applications for April, 2013 trainings in USA and Kenya are being taken.

In one meeting an STS instructor told stories to 40,000 people …in a country not his own! Beyond the challenge of the tremendous size of this meeting and that everything was being translated, the fact that most of those gathered had never seen an outsider … and that the outsider had white skin … caused the standard STS style interaction to be stifled.

So this innovative storyteller began using rhetorical questions, pausing to allow people time to recall the story and to think of responses, even though their responses remained unspoken. As well, at times, he asked questions and then would say something like, “Raise your hands if that has ever happened to you.”

He knew that if you give people time to think of their answers to questions, and if you encourage a physical response, people stay connected to the information, remember the story and will make personal applications to themselves.

I asked this storyteller, “Do you think those two stories had any impact on the people, I mean do you think they even understood the stories?” He chuckled. “Well if you think since most of them had tears and many were crying is a measure of impact, I would say ‘yes.’”

Please pray for these 40,000 that their hunger for deeper understanding of the Word of God will be met.

First Oral Bible School Graduation in Ethiopia: Hangeremarian villagers now say, “Eight of our people are graduates!” Imagine knowing and being able to teach 210 Bible stories. Four other people couldn’t complete the process due to drought and ongoing poverty. Those who stayed also experienced hardships, but all say it was worth the sacrifice. Over ten schools have started in Ethiopia (or are due to begin soon). Pray for these motivated, dedicated students and the STS instructors who plant and oversee the schools.

Higher Learning Just Went “Higher” Three added seminaries have embraced STS as curriculum for their students. Pray for many more Bible schools and seminaries to adopt STS. Pray that they will discover the vital usefulness in more effectively equipping their graduates to reach the oral learners they intend to serve.

Drama Story Quiz Answers: Stories in photos from India are The Good Samaritan & The Prodigal Son.

I appreciate your interest in this ministry and thank God for your prayers and support.

In His mercy,

Dorothy A. Miller

Persecuted Church Impact

Prayer & Praise Report # 3, April-June 2012

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Dear Friends of God’s Story,

Persecuted Church Impact. A team traveled to Egypt and led two back-to-back workshops. The believers they trained experience beatings, threats, surveillance, disappearances and more. In the workshop Egyptians asked, "How can we face what we see coming on our land?" "How can we help our flock with what is happening around us?"

This new partner in Egypt just sent this exciting testimony on GS and STS results.

We have trained over 500 people on the story telling and the use of the Bible story to reach the unreached for Christ. We also recorded God’s Story in Egyptian, printed a program for children (this year program includes 11 lessons taught on 11 days designed according to the STS way) and trained Sunday school teachers and the program is reaching more churches and more unreached areas.

Knowing that Egypt is a country we’ve prayed for, one being turned upside down politically and with massive challenges to believers, makes that report most exhilarating!

These photos show 3^rd and 4^th generation storytellers in a nation not friendly to Christianity as they tell stories in the marketplace of life. Many hearers are being saved and baptized.

I wish I could reveal this next country to you, but it is so high on the persecution scale that I dare not. Some believers were secreted out to a nearby country for STS training. We later received a note telling how “the brothers and sisters are enjoying telling the story.”

Telling story in STS format become our lifestyle. Now we started to reach some unreached places with STS and now the quality of believers life is improve and the passion to tell God story in their heart language, also the blessing they have using STS in personal devotion

Only Stories? What About Evangelism? When we talk about telling stories and discussing them with unbelievers, some people rightly inquire about using “only stories.” They express caution that “with just a story all that occurs is a moral lesson.” I suppose this could happen. But in action, what we see over and over is that God’s Word reaches people spiritually. As unsaved individuals see the character of God demonstrated in people’s lives, they ask, “How can I know this God?” For example, we heard from Nepal:

We used the STS story of Abram & Sarai in audio with lots of questions [Practitioner Audio Training] on 14 unbelievers. These Hindu and Buddhist men discussed story more than two hours. They expressed strong feelings about how Abram acted. They said Pharaoh was better man and talked how God treated Abram nicely. After, the men asked if they could talk about some more stories like this.

Later we heard that within 7 months, 13 of the 14 men had accepted Jesus and 6 churches had been planted! That is just one of many reports we hear that demonstrate that the “goodness of God” (as seen in stories throughout the Bible) “leads to repentance.”

Notice in Sudan how a story (inside God’s Story) impacted a listener.

A boy here was furious with a classmate. So he brought a knife to school intending to kill the other boy. We had just given the teacher of this class a solar player with God’s Story in Juba Arabic. That very day, the teacher played the story of Cain and Abel for the class.

When the angry boy heard that Bible story, something happened. He took out his knife— and gave it to the teacher, confessing his plan! God had touched his heart. That day, the boy asked God to forgive all of his sins and accepted Jesus as his Savior.

New Resources. We now have brochures for God’s Story and Simply The Story. Also we completely restructured our STS Handbook, printed it, and recorded it for use in audio. This stand-alone book now allows people not only to learn the how-tos of STS, they can also find testimonies of STS impact and obtain some of the reasons (the apologetics) for this way of preparing and sharing Scripture. We completed a booklet, Practitioners Guide, that helps newly trained people use STS in ministry and shows how to easily hand off their new skills to others. We also prepared a syllabus of 3 courses for use in seminaries.

Contact us if you want any of this material or check the search feature on web site to see if there are downloadable versions.

God’s Expansion. While we were developing needed material, the Lord helped staff lead STS workshops in 5 of 6 continents of the world. (None in Antarctica!) Trainings were done all over USA, India and Kenya. Also we trained in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Myanmar, Mexico, Southern Ireland, New Zealand, Burundi, Uganda, Togo, Mozambique and many other countries. The settings ranged from prestigious seminaries to outdoor village locations.

We joined 41 academic leaders from around the world who gathered at Wheaton to investigate how to incorporate oral strategies into theological education. After a few delegates voiced concern about stories being done without the larger framework of Scripture, a professor who uses God’s Story in his courses on narrative spoke up, “God’s Story is the metanarrative you need. Have you not seen it?” [metanarrative=big picture]

Over 60 STS-Oral Bible Schools (OBS) in 9 countries are in session or beginning and STS is now used in 96 countries. Four new languages of God’s Story were finalized: Egyptian Arabic, Spoken-arz; Giryama-nyf for Kenya; Bisu-bzi for Thailand and Pyen-pyy for Myanmar, plus 15 other new language versions wait for final approval.

Advanced Trainings, Joys and Challenges. The advanced training in Kenya is going so well that country leaders are on a waiting list to participate in the October class! The 6-week course, Comprehensive STS Leadership Training, covers STS training, advanced leadership skills, multiplication methods and setting up Oral Bible Schools. The August class has 15 students from 7 countries on 3 continents!

An African denomination’s leaders had observed the impact of STS on their people, so they believed in STS and had called for an advanced training so that OBSs could be set up throughout their country. The team of African instructors arrived at the location only to find that none of the STS Assistant Instructors to be trained had shown up! It seems that when those well-meaning country leaders discovered that those who had come for the advanced leadership did not have formal Bible education, the leaders sent those uneducated people home and selected instead people who were “qualified,” people who had certificates—but people who were not STS trained!

After a time of explanation, the leaders realized that they had not understood how STS opens Scripture so it can be learned and shared by anyone “who has an ear to hear.” They grasped the principle that STS is an oral way to learn, and that oral learners can teach their nearly 100% oral congregants as well as (possibly even better than) those educated in Bible in a literate style. So a beginning workshop for the selected Bible school graduates was done instead of an advanced training. Below see the heartwarming and insightful responses of the “educated” attendees.

"I've learnt so much within the short time I have been here for this training. I wish I was taught this way in the bible school I attended."

"This is what our people need. You have talked about OBS, do you have plan to open one in my village? My people need this."

"It is amazing how we just discovered so much treasure in the story and we even didn't finish the whole story. Who taught you this wisdom? We are so happy that you came to teach us this."

"I think the school I attended forgot the non-literate people because they only taught us to teach in literacy way. So the people we have been reaching do not get it. Thanks for this new way you have taught us this week."

The leaders themselves said, "You told us that every school should have twelve students, this will give us a ‘problem’ in selecting the twelve. Already there are so many people who want to attend the school."

Thank you for your prayers and support.

Dorothy A. Miller, TGSP

Empowering Others

Prayer & Praise Report #2, March 2012

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Dear Friend of God’s Story,

For your prayers we thank you, and for God’s answers we stand amazed.  

A few days ago our Africa director spoke to the Lausanne Executive Committee about oral strategies. He later shared with the African committee how our program, Regional Empowerment, can reach Africa. The leaders agreed and said, “Let’s do it.”

God’s Story: From Creation To Eternity

God’s Story versions increased by 25 in 2011.  We have completed 4 more this year; 11 are waiting for final field approval, and 7 are in recording. More are in translation.  The following languages were completed since we last listed new versions. For Ghana we have Ntrubo, Sekpele, Selee, Gikyode, Lelemi, Koma & Wali; Ethiopia got Afan Oromo West Central; for NE India, we produced Hajong & Thadou Kuki.

“Best Tool.”  At an Eurasia media conference in Germany, attendees showered our International Director with, “God’s Story is the best, most effective tool we have to reach the lost!”  How exciting to hear verified again that the timeless nature of God’s Word, as delivered in the stories from the Bible in this chronological overview, does reach the lost.  For basic discipleship, many are using the short stories in God’s Story and then discussing them with those learning about their new Saviour.

“For Me!”  While in India, we were privileged to hand over scores of our 150-page flip charts and MegaVoice solar-powered audio players with God’s Story, New Testament, recorded Bible stories and the how-to of Simply The Story.  

One village church planter, who oversees 6 churches, was enthralled when he saw the chart and heard his own language on the solar player.

But when I said, “These are for you,” in shock he asked, “For me?”

After he finally realized he could keep the player and chart, he couldn’t stop smiling. 

For a long time he just kept turning the pages and listening to God’s Story.

Over and over this same response of delight for the gifts reminded us of the value of biblical resources to those who have so little.

Simply the Story

After the training, our instructors traveled to 15 locations in 12 different countries to oversee and move many they just trained toward leadership.  Challenges arose that many of our instructors had never experienced. Promised preparation that did not materialize (and worried gatekeepers who at first resisted the information) confused those who were new at overseas ministry.

After prayer and quick reminders of worldview differences and bondages, hundreds were blessed.   

In many regions ministry took place. As you see in the photo, interest in Bible stories and responses to the Gospel were many. 

After training, text messages, emails and phone calls poured in from pastors and workers at the rate of 20 or more a day!

Here are two of the hundreds of messages:

“STS TEACHINGS ARE VERY MUCH USEFUL IN MY CONGREGATION, ALL ARE SO PLEASED.  I WANT TO GIVE STS TRAINING TO MY AREA PASTORS AND BIBLE WOMEN IN MY AREA.  PLEASE PRAY AND ENCOURAGE ME.”

“I want to thank you for spending time to train us. Your labor did not go in vain as just trained more then fifty pastors and evangelist. STS has played an important role to open the eyes of the pastors and church leaders to shift their old way of thinking, as we have conducted two workshops in XXX and XXX in Kashmir. And we invited pastors, evangelist and the Bible teachers too.

“At the beginning they started telling me ‘brother we know most of the Bible stories we are learning all these stories from our childhood,’ but I said ‘at least come and attend one session if you don't like then you can go back.’

“Praise God and thanks to the STS leaders who have made the gospel so easy and simple and interesting which anybody can easily understand. And, I tell you at the end of the day every one was saying ‘this a good way to preach the gospel and we will implement this method to our churches, and in our Bible studies.’ Praise God that we got the positive and tremendous response from all our participants and not only that they started using this method to their congregation from same day onward. Please continue to uphold us in your precious prayers so that we may train and equip many more pastors and evangelist and church believers.”

Combining God’s Story and Simply The Story

A year ago, a missionary who has used God’s Story for years in the public schools in his country of service asked us to help him. His question came during an STS workshop, his first exposure to STS: “We have these one hour weekly mandatory religious education slots where I have developed a story by story program using God’s Story, but I need a DVD with a full program so I can multiply myself. How can I use STS and God’s Story on DVD in schools?” His question sparked development of the Interactive Discovery of the Bible (IDB)

Over this last year, we developed and tested this new DVD program.  We tried it with children and adults, in Christian and secular settings, even in prisons.  In India we watched over 100 people interact with the filmed storyteller, respond to his questions and then periodically go into small groups and discuss their ideas about the Bible story.

The IDB design was such that, presumably, it would work in audio too.  Suddenly, when the projector went out, we had an unplanned chance to see if the audio version worked.  It did!  The lively discussions continued. The participants never missed a beat!

Empowering: Our goal and tools are all designed to empower. We trained a film and editing team while in India so the IDB can be produced by Indians in their own languages.

The empowerment is working. Note one of those trainers (in this photo) is an African who had been trained by USA leaders on two trips to Africa. Now these Africans are producing their own films.

Innovations: Last year we developed an advanced leadership training called Vine Huggers. The Africans then led their own version of it. They had 15 “leaders” from six countries sleeping on the floor in apartment living rooms just so they could gain this oral leadership style. They went back to their own ministries to lead workshops and establish Oral Bible Schools

Kenya now has 22 OBSs and Sudan just opened their first two.  Philippines operates 4 in remote places. They train, check stories and do discussion—all over cell phone!

Blessings,

Dorothy A. Miller

Executive Director TGSP

Multiplication of Leaders

Prayer & Praise Report #1, January-February 2012 

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Dear Friends of God’s Story,

We saved up reports, and again, finally exploded with excitement wanting to share reports with you. God has been answering prayer, so thank you for praying and thank you Lord for your Word and that you are enlarging your family!

But first, this announcement: A week ago we said goodbye to Norm McGary, the talented artist who worked for 2 ½ years painting the hundreds of pictures in the film. His vision and love for the lost started God’s Story. He did all of the art for the movie. Our loss–heaven’s gain! We will miss you my friend.

Risk Taker: Today a letter came in from a worker in a mu/sm dominated country of less than 2% believers in Jesus. In only two years, this worker distributed over 3,000 copies of God’s Story in 3 languages! Why risk getting caught?... People want to know God. People are curious about Jesus.

Another Risk Taker: National Christians in another mus/ln country (that is often in the news) are working on 4 new language versions of God’s Story that target unreached people in their country. They too take a risk as they are seeing a hunger for Jesus and results from the one language version of GS available that works in their county.

Kenya: A businessman who witnesses in Africa using tracts received a gift copy of God’s Story. He watched it at night, got up in the morning and watched it again. Then he purchased a lot of copies, gave them out, and came back for more!

Wide Use: Another report came from a missionary in Asia. Her organization has distributed thousands of God’s Story for use in evangelism and decided to obtain rights for it so they could “seriously” distribute it.

In a few days I fly to India. An ace team of 25 STS instructors from 17 countries and 19 states of India are to lead advanced training of 70 instructors. Then, after this unprecedented training of trainers, workshops are set for 18 locations in 9 countries.  Why do these unpaid volunteers spend their time and money to commit to this training?  They see results.

One key man just was turned back. Please pray.

India: At an STS workshop, the lead instructor had encouraged mainline pastors to go out with him one evening and use Bible stories to witness to "strangers." “These pastors had NEVER done that in their lives. Until now, they only go to the

office and people come to them, or they preach in church. On the outreach 14 people accepted Christ! The pastors were ecstatic!

“Then a uniformed policeman and a plainclothesman came to "investigate" the situation. There had been a false report of a disturbance. Someone was trying to stop the training! The policeman in uniform asked, ‘what you are doing?’

“So I told him a Bible story and he too accepted Jesus. That day he stood in front of all attendees to give testimony of his new faith.”  [God's Word does not fail!]

What we are seeing now with Simply The Story and the Oral Bible Schools is production and multiplication of leaders; godly, motivated, deep-in-the-Word leaders. We just expanded our STS Handbook, the first copies being due off the press in March. One section includes impact reports.  Following are a few from the book that show how the time spent teaching and digging into stories touches lives and replicates.

Mentoring and Multiplication

Three of the testimonies below came from Bram..., Mark and Ramesh, men mentored deeply by the TGSP executive staff. Those they mentored have trained others – who are training others. Isn’t this God’s way?

“A Bishop in Embu stood up and said this to me. ‘The church is in trouble, because we lack church fathers who are biblical ... Please tell those who trained you, “Thank you for empowering Bram... to be a father to Bishops...’”

Bram... M - CEO Straight Path Resources, Kenya

“STS method helped us to train more spiritual leaders than before and multiplication is talking place in producing spiritual leaders, and keeping them in the church, and sending them to the mission field. His Word is for both literate and non-literate, both young and old. It is a complete spiritual meal to fellowship with our Triune God.” Dr. Mark Muniyappa - All India Council / TGSP-India

“I am non-literate but serving the Lord as Pastor and Evangelist since 5 years. I came to the Lord in the year 1993 and I wanted to serve the Lord and to get Bible knowledge in any Bible College, but Academic Bible colleges did not accepted me to get Bible training because I am non-literate and also I was not able to understand God’s messages on the pulpit because it was literate style.

“I was struggling to share the Gospel to my family members and friends; in this situation our Lord brought TGSP into our lives and ministry I thank God for that. I have learned 155 stories through STS method and now I am happy to say that I can share the Gospel to both the literate and non-literate.”

[Mark’s leaders trained this man.]    Y. Babu - Evangelist/Pastor MMBC-Karnataka, India

“What words do I use to express my gratitude to you all? I am so much thankful to the Lord and to this tool Simply The Story. In my 20 year's ministry time, it is most useful that I ever came across.

“STS certainly helped me getting deeper and wider into the Word of God but it also has many applications in my organisational life. Some lessons learnt from this is to look for choices before I made any decision and it also made my team farsighted to see the impact of our work.”

Ramesh Sapkota – CEO Kingdom Investments Nepal,

Organisation Fighting against Human Trafficking

“First of all I want to give all glory and heartily thanks for our all mighty Lord Christ Jesus and my co- prayer Elder brother Ramesh.  When I met him I was new in Christ and my ministry was just like new born baby. I needed Spiritual mother to continue nourishing me.

“Ramesh gave me STS training. This was the beginning. In that time we were very few people in Christ and had one fellowship that was very weak. He continued STS in my Church.

“Now in very short time through the STS training God used to plant eight Church and this year we have planned to plant two new Churches.

“I used STS method to multiply Church because of this reason wonderfully I got invitation to participate in the STS training not only me but to get the chance my daughter Church leader he is using STS method better then me.

“Thank you brother Ramesh, I was only a body of butterfly and now you are preparing me to complete butterfly!

“Thanks to the Servant of the Lord those who have labored for the STS to Glorify His Name and to bless me and my ministry.”

Ps. Krishna P. Ghimire - Asst. Gen. Secretary, National Churches Fellowship of Nepal

Follow Simply The Story on Twitter!  Looking forward to tweeting.

The official link is http://twitter.com/SimplyTheStory and click +Follow or Text follow SimplyTheStory to 40404 in the United States.

We would appreciate prayer for upcoming summit in India, and for all of the godly leaders who sacrificially train others. There is much opposition.

Blessings,

Dorothy A. Miller

Executive Director TGSP

She Remained Determined

Prayer & Praise Report # 5, 2011 

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Dear Friends of God’s Story,

Wow days are full!  Since we sent report number #4 in September, numerous workshops in USA (PA, MI, 3 in CA) and scores overseas were held.  

Also since September, 4 new languages of God’s Story were completed: Kijita for Tanzania and Adele, Ewe and Nkonya all for Ghana. 25 other new languages are in production or awaiting final approval and yet 26 more are now in line to be recorded! Why continue to produce languages?  Those who need Jesus need to hear in their mother tongues!

 “Stories” about God’s Story

North Africa: “We have given many C.D's of GS wherever we go and the Mega voices players with God’s Story.  When my son goes the fields to visit the Shepherds, he always takes his back pack with GS and player.  It is a great way to start a conversation.  They always welcome you!”

UK Innovates New Course: “What a wonderfully clear presentation which so effectively encapsulates the Gospel of His plan of redemption.  I see this as an ideal resource to use with our ‘Christianity Explored’ course and particularly welcome as we had identified a real need to be able to complement the course with an overview of the Bible. 'God's Story' fits the bill perfectly!
”Having now had opportunity to appreciate the value of the Discussion Guide, I would much appreciate it if you could forward 2 additional copies.”

Christmas Witness Special: We made a large run of God’s Story in English on audio CD with a cover title of “How Christmas Began.”  These are perfect gifts for family and even for spontaneous witnessing opportunities while out during the Christmas holidays.  $2.30 each. 

Cost Dropped for solar-powered MegaVoice players. With either 3 languages of God’s Story on them (or God’s Story and assortment of programs and New Testament if available) the cost went from $45 to  $39.95. 
New “storyteller” model solar-player holds one God’s Story and some added content … only $17.95!!!!   

Simply The Story

Shall We Call Them Churches?  Out of the 19 Oral Bible Schools now in session in Kenya, four use the “business” model. Businesses there stop work at 5:00 p.m.. So from 5:00 to 9:00 in the evening, five days a week (and now often in lunch time too) students gather to learn and discuss Bible stories. During the 7 months they have followed this plan, the students have learned 147 stories! As well, students are telling those stories to others and people are getting saved. These new believers meet together weekly to hear and discuss more Bible stories and sing, pray and break bread together.  Shall we call them churches? Oh, by the way … so far, 16 of these “churches” have sprung up!

Two STS workshops soon! Weekdays, Victory Ranch in Hemet and Weekend in Feb in Beaumont.

Kenya Not Qualified! After Anna (in photo) was saved, she had a passion to evangelize. But when Anna’s pastor discovered that she was illiterate, he told her, “You are not qualified.” But God equipped this lady.
A week after she was turned down for service, an Oral Bible School began in her village. One year later she graduated, having never missed a day of school!  As well, she could tell 210 Bible stories AND knew how to teach them using discussion.  To her pastor’s surprise and joy, she also now leads weekly Bible studies and has a vibrant evangelism ministry!­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ She remained determined    
 Ghana: He won 2 Goats! A successful missionary with a heart for children has established 189 Bible clubs in 19 regions of Ghana.  The 6,000 children who attend these weekly clubs took part in a year-long contest.  They “studied” God’s Story on DVD or from a solar player.  This missionary compiled 239 questions about the film, plus some from Galatians. 

A 12-year old boy answered all of the questions correctly and won 2 goats! (The 2^nd place was one goat and some chickens, 3^rd  one goat and some money and 4^TH one goat.) Don’t you wish you could have competed?  Realistically, the boy probably would have beaten us all, so I guess we would have missed winning the goats anyway.

From USA to Africa (Or is it from an African to an American?) Christian university student from California traveled to Uganda and stopped by an STS workshop led by Africans from Kenya.  The discussion of one story, Martha/Mary, spoke to her so profoundly that her life was radically impacted. Across the world from her homeland, God spoke His message to a young American girl through a Bible story told by an African!

India: Births At Funeral: ”A phone call came to a church office while I was doing some business there.  The caller said her relative died who used to work in that office. They phone several Pastors of that denomination to visit this family but no one came on time so they requested me to help them in all proceedings. So I went and conducted funeral service.  

Next March we plan to lead training summits in Asia. We hope to encourage and fine tune hundreds of STS instructors. We also plan to do advanced training of those who orchestrate new God’s Story versions and those who record God’s Story and audio and DVD Bible stories.  All these leaders come from a wide range of countries and states outside of the USA.

Our ”Thanksgiving” to God is for this huge increase of instructors world-wide who now are independently leading Simply The Story (STS) workshops and orchestrating and recording new versions of God’s Story.  Thanks to you for your interest in The God’s Story Project!!!!

For prayer, please hold up the thousands of leader in TGSP, many serving at risk.

In His service, Dorothy A. Miller