by Juliana Rowe

continued from Part 1

Part 2 - The Mission Begins

Since the Bishop would be away during my visit, he put Janet in touch with the Reverend Norman Grigg, Chairman of the Methodist Church and member of the Council of Churches. With my travel plans in place for May 1-8, Janet scheduled meetings for me with the contacts she had made on my behalf.

All the churches in the area knew of NOBS and my visit because a pulpit notice had been sent to them prior to my arrival.

I traveled to Freetown, my hometown, where I stayed a week and then took a two-hour flight to The Gambia on a NOBS mission -- to help people learn and tell biblical stories. On arrival in Banjul late Tuesday night, I hit the ground running.

At 8:30 a.m. we were in a Lutheran church for a Wednesday morning communion service. The Bishop's wife is pastor of that church. I was later to find out that she was also the daughter of one of my drama school colleagues -- a lovely woman, now deceased, who nurtured me as a young African student away from home in a college in London. At the end of the service she invited me to speak about NOBS and my mission to The Gambia.

The membership comprised mostly of people of Sierra Leonean heritage. Incidentally, Sierra Leone and The Gambia have strong cultural and historical ties. Although it was my first visit to the country I felt very much at home, especially when the audience at this Lutheran church service spoke in Krio, my mother tongue. They gave me a warm welcome and many promised to attend the workshop the following Saturday.

I did not have to do a hard sell of NOBS as most of those present had visited the NOBS Web site and had a pretty good idea of what we were all about. I explained that my mission was to prepare the way for NOBS members to bring the art of biblical storytelling to The Gambia in 2008. I also had to explain what I wished to accomplish during my stay.

View Larger Map

This service was followed by three other meetings. The most important was the one in the evening with six members of The Gambia Christian Council who represented the Anglican and Methodist churches and the Bible Society.

I had met with the Catholic Representative, Father Edu in the afternoon. He was very receptive and invited me to speak to his class of student teachers at Brikama College the following day. As the Reverend Grigg opened the meeting with a word of prayer, I invited the Lord to put the right words into my mouth and for the Holy Spirit to be with me.

As most of the attendees were clergy and officers in the church, who were always looking for ways to enliven their services, I explained how the NOBS way of telling a Bible story would get and hold the attention of members of their congregation. When I demonstrated the reading of a story, followed by a telling of the same story, a powerful point was driven home. From then on, they wanted to know more and how they themselves could learn to tell Bible stories. I told them about the workshop that was planned for them on Saturday and asked that they encourage all the clergy and laity in their churches to attend.

I came away from the meeting feeling that the Lord had planted some seeds in the hearts of all present. There were more meetings on Thursday, ending with a workshop at Brikama College for students of Father Edu's class. The students were receptive and eager to participate. There were about 30 in the class. Quite a number of them attended the workshop on Saturday.

Earlier that day I had promised Pastor Forbes of Abiding Word Ministries, to whom I had told a story, that I would attend his communion servce at 7:00 that evening. So, after the two-hour drive to and from Brikama College, I went to fulfill that promise. This church had also received the pulpit notice so when he introduced me at the beginning of the service, everyone knew who I was. He told them about the power of the story I had told to him earlier that day.

He then, without warning, invited me to come up and tell the same story to the congregation. He went on to invite them to the Saturday workshop. I was grateful for the opportunity to share the power of a 'story told' with the congregation. At the end of the extremely lively service, members individually expressed their appreciation for the experience and promised to be at the workshop.

We spent Friday preparing for the workshop, checking the hall, meeting with the caterers, and making copies of workshop material for distribution.

< Part 1 | Part 3 >