J and J

“Mohammed” is one of only a handful of Christians from an unreached people group called “Nomads”. There are between 5 and 10 million Nomads living in 3 countries, and 99.9% of them are Muslim. War, terrorism and persecution dominated the region for decades. Thus, life is very hard for Nomads. They are shepherds and must continually move their herds to different areas to find enough food for the animals and to avoid the severe winters. These people don’t have a written language. They preserve their customs and history by the learning and telling of stories.

Stories change a person's worldview, especially for those unable to read or write. For oral communicators, information isn’t stored in lists and propositions. Knowledge is wrapped up in human narrative and stored only in the mind. Nomads and millions of other people in the world learn from narratives their mothers and fathers tell them in the form of poems, songs and stories. They desperately need to hear about God in a way that is familiar with them.

Jimmy and Jeff met Mohammed because the Lord had given them a strong desire to live in a tough place where the gospel had never been preached before because there was little or no access to the message. After talking with StoryRunners they realized Bible storying was about the only safe way to share the gospel in these kinds of tough places because storying was such a natural part of their culture.

So they left the United States to staff a two-year Quest project with Nomads. They settled in among the Nomads, spending every waking moment with a couple of Nomad men so they could begin to learn the language and culture. They also traveled to one of the neighboring countries where Nomads live, where they met with a Bible translation team that was translating Scripture into the Nomad language and discussed how they might work together.

Mohammed moved in with Jimmy and Jeff so they could teach him Bible stories in his language. They were encouraged to hear Mohammed retelling the stories he learned and discussing them with his friends. He and two other believers (from two different areas) got together for a week of discipleship, prayer and fellowship. This was the first time this had ever happened among the Nomad people. It was a promise of the beginning of a regular gathering of believers!

“Asalam” helped them by reading the Scripture portion in the trade language, then retelling it in Nomadish. They discussed different aspects of each story – plot, characters, key terms, understandability and accuracy. Then they recorded him telling a “final” version of the story to test in the villages. After receiving feedback from the test stories they worked on perfecting the story even more, then recorded it again. Although Asalam was not a believer, it allowed him to internalize a lot of Scripture that God utilized to work on his heart.

At the end of their two-year term, 54 stories and 13 songs from Scripture had been accurately translated into the Nomad language and style and compiled onto cassette tapes. These tapes began to be broadcast on local radio, and the new local believers gave hundreds of them to friends and neighbors.

There are many other ways these stories can spread among Nomads. The goal is church planting multiplication, as Nomad churches continually plant more Nomad churches in a movement that will sweep across the entire area where they live. This set of stories will be a catalyst that the Holy Spirit uses to do His amazing work.