Abar and Liberty, a young Mwinika couple, got to know the Gospel for the first time in 2011 when Phil and Francois taught through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation for the first time in the Mwinika people group. Last year Abar volunteered to teach new believers to read and write in eMwinika so that they will be able to read the translated Word of God. He worked closely with Nadia for a year. I have seen him grow in all aspects, but especially spiritually, to a place where he answered God’s call to go where no one has gone before…
In this photo, Abar, Liberty and their two children stand in front of their new house with a “sunbox” given by a believer in South Africa to help to charge their phone and give light at night.
Abar and Liberty moved into a Marevone community about 3 hours north of us during this last week. He immediately started with the Literacy teaching and will commence with the Bible teaching next week. (He plans to do 3 afternoons Literacy, 2 afternoons Bible teaching per week). In this photo: we are on our way to Alana’s villages, helping Abar and Liberty with their move.
And this is how it all started… The Mwinika church was invited by this community to come and teach God’s Word. Alana, who’s mother was a witchdoctor, came to our village for a visit and started to attend the daily Chronological Bible teaching. She was amazed to learn the truth about God for the first time in her life and asked for the translated portions of the Bible as well as recordings of the lessons when she returned home. Soon she came back with a long list of people who started to gather together to listen to the recordings: they invited us to come to their village to teach!
The new class of Literacy students, all very eager to learn to read and write! The first day more than 50 people arrived. They heard that Abar moved in and came for the Bible teaching! Abar explained that the Bible teaching will start only in a few weeks’ time.
Francois did an introduction, showing the students what a difference reading the Word of God in their own language makes! He first asked a religious leader to read Genesis 3:15 from the Word in the original Hebrew. No-one could read it! Then Francois asked him to read the same portion of Scripture, but in their “religious” language. He could sound out the words, but they have no meaning to him or any of the other people there! Lastly Francois asked him to read Gen 3:15 from the Mwinika translation… The people sat up and listened! This they can understand! There was a buzz of voices as the religious leader finished reading. Everyone was elated! From there, it took very little to motivate the students to learn…
I (Nadia) did the first weeks’ pre-literacy teaching over the weekend. The students worked so hard! They truly are very motivated and learned quickly. I enjoyed working with this group of 18 students!
May the Lord bless these students to not only learn to read and write, but most of all, to meet their Saviour soon through the Bible teaching!