The Light Bulb Comes On

Host Home

We have been traveling to Sirraphie Village each Tuesday night for the last month and a half.  During our visit to the village, we have been meeting in one of the villager’s home to teach English and stories about the Father.  Each week we have had anywhere from 10-20 high school-aged kids to adults.  With the Father’s help, we are building relationships with the people of this village and strengthening our language learning because they speak almost no English. 

Posing for a quick shot (National Partner, village kid, L)

Our group is gathering

Some come on bikes, some walk, some hitch a ride

Coming for the first time

On a typical night, we begin by teaching some English words and sentences.  We try to tie our English lesson into building an understanding of the Word and how to live life as a child of the Father.  Right now, we are concentrating on giving thanks to the Father for things.  This has been very difficult for them as they don’t understand what the Father does for them and who He is.  We are slowly see progress in this.  After our English lesson, we transition into our story time.  We teach some vocabulary words in English and then translated them into their language for complete understanding.  We also read the story in English so they can hear it in our language as well.  Our national partner plays a large role in this part of the night because she will then teach the story in their language and have discussion and questions about the story.  We couldn’t do it without her help! 

Snapshot with a few members of the group while we wait for more to come

J gathering up the guys

Each week during the story time, we ask if there are any questions or anything about the story that they don’t understand.  Up to this night, no one has ever had much to say, but this past Tuesday they began asking questions.  The story this week was about how the Father created different languages and why during the Tower of Babel.  They had several questions, which shows they are beginning to think about our stories.  They wanted to know when the Father’s birthday was, who was His Father, and when did there start to be different religions in the world, and what language the Father spoke.  What great questions!  It was so fun to share all these answers with them.  We also had three new people come this week so we were excited to see people are still coming to check out what we are doing in this village. 

Studying the story

Taking notes

The guys being silly

Doing anything to keep cool!