Chronological Bible Storying

Last month Jeremy and Susan, who teach tribal peoples in Peru, came to Temuco to teach Storying to 3 families working with the Mapuche. The Mapuche culture is in transition. The older people can’t read or write. Adults may have an elementary school education, at best, while today many youth are given university scholarships. This means that most adults are incapable of understanding the Bible, while the youth are not being discipled by their leaders. One leader asked how we might help them overcome the lack of depth in the Mapuche churches.

The church and missionaries have always used literary methods with the Mapuche. By our standards they just don’t measure-up because Mapuches have an oral culture. They learn by telling stories of real life situations and seeing things modeled, not by reading.

They don’t understand abstract or logical reasoning that we have been taught in schools. A man we know could not visualize his community on a map and tell us where we are. When we jump around the Bible explaining concepts like sin, holiness, or justification they just don’t understand. It is like describing all the parts of a butterfly, and expecting someone to visualize its beauty and how it flies.

Jerry is developing a story-set especially for the Mapuche, which targets their traditional beliefs, sins, and problems. We need to train others in the method. Jan has been using storying with the children for over a year with very good success.

- Jerry & Jan, Chile