Your probably wondering what in the world is an isiikhi and isiiri? An esiikhi (isiikhi = plural) is an upright pole used in house construction. An esiiri (isiiri = plural) is a smaller pole also used in house construction. In the picture you can see a local house in the beginning stages of construction. The upright poles that make up the frame of the house are the isiikhi. The poles lying down are the isiiri. They are usually smaller poles that are used to fill in the space between the main isiikhi poles. You can see that on the right side of the house the owner has already started to fill in the smaller isiiri poles between the larger isiikhi poles. So what does this have to do with our work?
When we started teaching we told them that God’s Word is a big book. There is no way we can tell it to them in one sitting. Even in lots and lots of sittings we would not be able to. So we had to choose some main stories that would serve as a frame for the whole teaching. We likened those main stories to isiikhi, the main upright poles used in house construction. We told them that first we would go around and construct the “main frame” of the teaching with these main stories. Then, in the future, we would fill in the spaces between the main stories as we have time. It seems to have been an illustration they are able to readily understand. So this initial time of teaching (what we typically call Phase One) is just to set up a frame that we can use to fill in later with further teaching.
Here are the main isiikhi stories we started with this week. On Monday we began with an introduction to our teaching and why it was important. On Tuesday we talked about the history of God’s Word and how God used prophets to send us His Word. On Wednesday we talked about God’s character and how He reveals Himself in His Word. On Thursday we discussed the creation of the spirit world. These first few lessons tend to be more abstract but next week we will start getting a little bit further into the storyline.
Next week we will begin by telling about the creation of the world. We will cover days 1-3 on Monday, days 4-6 on Tuesday. The creation of Man will be taught on Wednesday and how Adam was placed in the garden of Eden will be taught Thursday.