Running

Plo remembered screams, even more than running. Mom and dad left before dawn. He played at the creek with friends. Just after first light, shouts and shots erupted from the village above. He ran up the bank, crawled beneath the house and peered out between bamboo stilts. Soldiers appeared, a long, green line oozing from between jungle trees. More shots, many shots cracked thorn sharp beating rhythm for the chorus of screams.

New smoke, bullet smoke spread evil vapor that stung eyes and nose. Coordinated squads broke from the main line, spread between houses and bunched fleeing villagers into a swelling herd. Some escaped. Most were caught. Methodically, the soldiers culled old folks with single shots, drug young women off by hair or hand, and pushed the able-bodied into a dense knot. Fortunate resistors received bullet or bayonet. Others drew special attention - skulls mashed flat by rifle butt or drenched with boiling water until scalp and skin peeled away.

Concealed behind the duck pen under the house, Plo watched. Helpless disbelief froze his eyes open and nailed him in place. Finally, shrieking’s sheer weight ejected him backwards from cover, propelled him over the bank and down the path.

The Open Library for Local Learning Communities (OL3C) is a large project that MAFLT has been asked to take a major role in by Wycliffe / SIL (Gary Simons, Chief Research Officer), Shell books (Mike Trainum, CEO), and ARCA Associates (Peter Clark, CEO). The purpose of the project is to facilitate the development and distribution of SALT, LIGHT, and Multilingual Learning Resources for limited literate education needs around the world. Several documents and audio sessions are attached to explain the project by the key initiators from Wycliffe and ARCA and Shellbooks.

The first attached document #1 gives an introduction to the OL3C project with an early initial proposal. By the end of the three year project the following four outcomes are expected:

Ron Frost with Barnabas came through our Nampa office last year to discuss with us opportunities that he has with a new Bible school being started in Rwanda. We discussed many things, including that we are concerned about the quality of teaching and that we can help institutions and ministries grow in their ability to develop curriculums that better fit their goals for their courses and programs.

Anyway, we did not hear much from him after that, though he did say that he was pleasantly surprised when we interacted with him about these educational things rather than just discuss our digital resources and technical solutions that were looking for problems.

I spoke with him yesterday and in that conversation he spoke quite animatedly that "the orientation in Nampa we really useful and that it had really stuck" with him. Later in the conversation he said, "I have stumbled into some synergy that is valuable," referring to the LT team. He was especially encouraged by the orality dimension of LT and is intrigued about future possibilities with that for his own ministry.

MAF-LT Orality Specialist, Regina Manley, directed an STS Story-Telling workshop in the southern California mountains near Lake Arrowhead.  The Calvary Chapel Conference Center in Twin Peaks provided beautiful meeting rooms among the pines.  This workshop had the unusual advantage of being hosted by MAF-LT Director, Richard & Patricia Morris. 

The 5-day workshop that ran from 20-24 July, equipped new practitioners and sharpened instructor's skills.   Local pastors, a missionary family from Kazakhstan, a FedEx pilot, and San Bernardino teachers were among those who participated.

Zambian pastor, Michael Mutale, writes to MAF-LT's Mike Holman,

Mike,

Am fine. I have been doing trainings. I had a group of pastors who had interest in Digital library and we had a good time together.

Please do pray for me as I go next week out to meet 60 pastors from the North western part of Zambia.

Please do check some of the testimonies from the brothers here. I will send more testimonies.

Thank you for everything.

Michael

(click 'Read more' for pictures and testimonies)