As usual STS training was conducted by Billy, this time he brought along  his sister and brother in-law, Kate-Beth and Dan, who are missionaries in Hungry, they were others who were facilitators as well.

The STS training was focusing on Old Testament stories, learning the stories fromthe heart and digging out the treasures.

We still do not have Old Testament available in Dinka in South Sudan.  Being in the training is the perfect place to learn the stories and get it right.  It was safe place for people to ask question even the hard question and not feel embarrassed.

The creation stories from the first chapters of Genesis were really fun to learn, sometimes stories could be hard to learn and memorize, and many times they appear to be easy, only to find it takes time and work to master them down.  It was more fun for our translators, who were doing it from English  into Dinka or Lou.

 

 

There were so much truth to learn from these stories, The Dinka people here in Tonj have so much myth about creation stories, so these myth were straighten out.  By the time every one is really getting deep into the stories, time seems have flown by. We wished we could camp in these words discussions for days on ends

One fun aspect was new to us in this training was in the part where you retelling the stories again; you ask people to act the story while you are retelling it to them. That fact brought the entire training to so much laughter and fun.

We were seeing crazy moves being acted out, some of our participants can win Oscar trophies and some will need a lot of prayers and maybe fasting to know how to act.

 

I am glad we had the opportunity to let the participants to depart with more than 10 stories all from Genesis.  They have learned them so well and got many new treasures, for them to share with their congregation for the first time.

The participants were from 7 different areas.  This time we had a new area joining in the training from Pagol for the first time, the rest are same groups we are doing follow up  training to master the storing tool.

God is doing something amazing in Pagol, this new place. Our pastors from Tonj here went to the Pagol area and taught a STS training for a day and half in March this year. People in Pagol were so much touched by the new treasures from this new way of studying God’s word that they went and told other people in other villages, they were so encouraged, two churches were born  as direct result from STS.