March Quotes (Email Update)

April 1, 2007

“O Lord, my God, you have done many miracles for us. Your plans are too numerous to list.
If I tried to recite all your wonderful deeds, I would never come to the end of them!”
~ Psalm 40:5

Check out some quotes from this past month:

- “I heard a lot about this stuff before, I heard a lot of stuff from the Bible. I even went to a Christian school, but I never understood any of it…after hearing these stories, I understand more.” ~ Gina, (story-crafter from the city)- after hearing several of the stories.

- “Yes, my sister had an evil spirit in her a few years ago” ~ a testing subject after listening to the story of Jesus healing a demon possessed man.

- “I just washed the feet of 9 little girls yesterday. It was the end of a 9 day fast for 9 lesser goddesses- and so, I washed the feet of 9 little girls, and prayed to them also- as they were representations of the goddesses I was fasting for.” ~ Heather, story crafter- in a discussion about Jesus washing the disciples feet.

- “Who would believe in a god that does that?” ~ neighbor in response to the last plague of death on the firstborn in the Exodus story. After some frustrating discussion, and using a word picture about fairness, she then said, “It’s good you are doing these stories, so we can learn more about God.”

- “Every story you tell me, I tell the story to my mother that night” ~Grace- our (non-Christian) language helper (we didn’t realize she, and possibly others are already telling the stories to others!)

- “It doesn’t sound like different parts, it sounds like one story.” ~neighbor who listened to 4 stories about David.

- “Our gods say I shouldn’t pray for 10 days after someone dies…I was thinking that your God is somewhat different…” ~Precious- story-crafter, on deciding if she should come to our prayer time that week or not since it was only 5 days after someone in her village had died and she wasn’t sure if it was okay to pray to God. She did end up coming…and praying.

- “Did Jesus want the disciples to kill people? ~Heather (story-crafter) after hearing the part of the calling of the disciples story, “You were catching fish, but now you will catch men” – after all, when you catch fish, they usually die, right?

- “I’m glad you are planning to have another workshop. The information you shared with them in the storying workshop is something they can really apply to their ministry, since they mainly work with those who can’t read and write.” ~ one of the local leaders in reference to the workers he had sent for the workshop last month, and his excitement that we are planning to have another workshop in April.

- “It’s raining in our house” ~ me, trying to describe to the shopkeeper that water is seeping through our roof and walls from the rain!

P & P
Praise for:
* Heather and Gina (new story-crafters) have had a lot of time to work on stories- and we’ve been getting a lot of stories recorded and tested.
* People telling stories that we don’t even know about!
* Precious continues to see how God is different from her god.
* The positive feedback we’ve had from the workshop- and the excitement about having another one (April 17-18!)

Prayer for:
* Robin’s trip to the capitol- she is taking a trip there for a few days to rest and meet a friend.
* Connections with Heather (story-crafter) and her family- I’m planning to spend at least one night at her home while Robin is away.
* Our consultant – who has been busy doing ‘on-site’ checks for other storying projects as well as trying to check all of our stories- pray that she has time, energy and wisdom as she returns to the states and continues checking stories J
* Kahani people- that they would see the Truth.

Til All Have Heard,

~ Elizabeth