I’m such a sentimental sap for stories about people getting switched on to God’s redemption story. It’s so easy for me to get callous toward the Gospel since I spend so much of my life teaching it, studying it, translating it and just generally dissecting the Word instead of letting it soak in. But then you read a story of simple faith and just kind of gulp.
Nora McNamara is one of those strange kinds of missionaries that you’re not quite sure what she does but she’s pretty convinced that it is a good thing. Like missionary veterinarians. I always wonder about those people. Nora is a “storying facilitator” in West Africa. She has a nice looking blog with smart stories and clear photos (Typepad not Blogspot, thank heavens). Her blog is called mmm-BELLY-may Days and it is a chick blog par excellence with birds, flowers, cats and body care products. But again, there’s this great story. See if you can read it without getting a lump in your throat: Storyteller.
[...] Telling: (Thanks: Lingamish) . . . Erwin McManus says it better than I do, though: “The beautiful thing about film, and I [...]
Gulp. Thanks David.
On the contrary, thank you. Unless you were just making the story up. Storytellers do that, I’ve heard.
My best “storyable” moment came in our first term when I presented a real Nyungwe believer with a copy of Luke 1 hot off the press and asked him what he thought. He looked at it for a while and I had visions of him saying “Now God speaks my language” or something like that which I could put in my next prayer letter. Instead he handed it back to me and said (in Portuguese), “Está.” Meaning: “It is.” I wasn’t quite sure how to tweak that story and make it sound inspiring so I’ve just kept it to myself. Until today.
Great story-I hope that I’ll have ones like that when the mmm-BELLY-may Scriptures start appearing in print. Of course, they’ll probably say “Toe,” also meaning “it is.” Not inspiring, but maybe good for a laugh?
Yes, it is a true story. I even have it on tape, since I’m recording the testing sessions. Really handy when people cooperate and give us nice quotes, isn’t it?