Bible Stories to Reach West Africa

Thank you so much for your generosity to this ministry and the people in Togo and Mali God calls us to equip to reach their nations. Your prayers and sacrificial giving offer the gospel to 17 people groups in their own languages and in a way they can understand. Your gifts provide StoryTogether Bible training, giving Christian leaders across the region renewed access to God’s Word.

A Bible storying explosion! We continue to see fruit in this method of evangelism and discipleship training. Because of this fruit, the Togo Baptist Convention has commissioned a national training for all Togolese Baptist pastors, church leaders, and their wives. It is exciting to see the convention invigorated by evangelism! Now, we must train new leaders to teach these workshops across the country.

An older pastor with an advanced theology degree attended our last training. He said, “Since I graduated from school, I have attended many different courses and trainings, but this course in storytelling is by far the most practical, simple, and effective for all environments.”

The latest training in the northern part of Togo trained 39 people. These participants shared gospel conversations with 144 local people and saw four people accept Christ during the two evangelism outings!

We are so thankful for you, our partners, who make this project possible. Your sacrificial gifts and intercession are truly transforming lives as we partner together to solve the world’s greatest problem, lostness.

God is multiplying His kingdom across West Africa through your support of Bible storying workshops in countries such as Mali, Burkina Faso, and Togo. Long-term workers are training believers to evangelize by sharing Bible stories crafted into their language and cultural storytelling style. God has used your gifts to this project to draw hundreds of West African into His kingdom.

The Living Word of God Transforms Lives
A young Malinke man, Sandy,* from Mali attended one of these training workshops. Like over 4 million other Malinke people, Sandy had no Bible in his own language. Living in a Muslim country and with no access to Scripture, Sandy had never been discipled. When he attended the workshops, he engaged the God’s Word like never before. He also spent time with godly African men like David,* the workshop leader, for the first time in his life.

After two years of learning from these men in iron-sharpens-iron discipleship, Sandy “wasn’t the same person,” a believer in his region said. His level of understanding and application of the Scripture transformed him completely. He now works with new Christians in his region, discipling them as he was discipled by David.

New Hope Trauma Healing
Recently, David led Trauma Healing training in Burkina Faso. Each trainee was required to have a small group in place before starting the training to ensure they would use the material when they returned home. From the original 27 women who attended the conference, 212 women have now participated in trauma healing small groups. Time and time again, women have asked their small group leaders, “How did you know this training was just for me?”

After she received the training in a small group, God put someone on Sarah’s* heart who needed to hear the good news of God’s love in the context of trauma healing. The woman had lost her husband to COVID, and her daughter had been recently injured in a gold mining accident. Sarah went to the woman and shared what she had learned. As she walked the woman through the stories from New Hope trauma healing, the woman accepted Christ as her Savior and is now asking to join Sarah at church.

Participants act out the story of raising Lazarus.

Testimony
Anna, a long-term worker in West Africa shared this story of God’s transforming power: “As we were working with Phil* to translate the story of Peter at Pentecost, he mentioned sharing a recently translated Bible story with his church, and many people responded to the gospel.

“I discovered that the location of Phil’s church was among a people group who are very opposed to other religions, especially Christianity. I asked him, ‘How did you reach people in this area who are so opposed to the gospel?’ David quickly answered, ‘We told them the stories you taught us.’”

God is at Work
Participants from four language groups attended the Bible storying training, and each team recorded 41 stories. They shared the stories in their home villages and towns and a new church was planted! Throughout this project, we trained multiple levels of trainers, and each trainer is disciplining others.

Prayer Requests:

• Pray that each person we trained will implement their training in their communities.
• Pray that other Christians in the region will be open to utilizing storying to share the gospel with their own people.

*Names changed for security