The story of David’s anointing teaches us a very important truth: You can’t judge a book by its cover. David seemed the least likely of Jesse’s sons to be chosen by God. But the Lord told Samuel, “Don’t judge him by the way he looks, for the Lord sees things differently than man does. For man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (I Sam. 16:7, my paraphrase). We are amazed at how much better God sees things than we do. He orchestrates events and sometimes overrides our decisions. In our quest to establish a healthy church-planting movement, we are always praying for the Spirit of God to move the right people to fill the ranks and become leaders in His work here.
During our last furlough, Laurie felt impressed to plan a vacation Bible school for our village kids. She looked at traditional VBS programs but felt they weren’t well suited for our remote tribal Gogodala people. At the same time we were exploring ways to spread the gospel more effectively among the Gogodala. We have observed that the Gogodala pass information from one generation to the next through stories. We thought, The Bible is full of stories. Why don’t we teach the people how to tell Bible stories?
After returning to PNG, we had only a few days to prepare our VBS in time for a school break. The plans started to gel, and Laurie decided on the stories of Daniel for the theme of the week. We wanted local people to tell the stories in their native tongue so the children could understand the messages clearly. But since we have only a handful of baptized church members, and not all of them are interested in telling stories, we were compelled to seek help from the community to fill the ranks. In the end, though, this turned out to be a blessing. Not only did it help local people grow in Bible knowledge as they went through the effort to learn the stories, we also saw walls of community prejudice fall as the VBS became more than just a church event.
After choosing five people whom we thought would be good storytellers, we started meeting once a week for several hours to rehearse the stories with them. Meanwhile, we looked for people willing to be teachers.
At the first rehearsal, all the storytellers came except for one. We had hoped Wasa, a well-respected man in the community, could be one of our storytellers, but he wasn’t able to come. However, his son Kimsy came to take his place. Kimsy had really wanted to be a storyteller, and since he was young and had been attending our Sabbath School and church regularly, he was perhaps a better candidate for the position.
The idea was to have a storyteller tell a story to the kids at VBS, and then they would divide into small groups. There would be one adult teacher for each group to lead a discussion, asking pertinent questions and helping the children recognize lessons and make application to their own lives. We estimated we would need 12 teachers to cover all the children. The teachers’ training would come a little later, closer to the time of the VBS.
The first storytellers’ rehearsal was a little rough as people struggled to learn their stories. We had invited some who were willing to be teachers to come to the rehearsals to get familiar with the stories. One of those was Umina, another young man who attends our church and Sabbath School regularly. Umina is quite reserved and only speaks when he has something meaningful to say. We appreciate him for his faithfulness and thorough work, but we wondered how he would handle himself in front of other people.
The second storytellers’ rehearsal went much better, and we were much encouraged. However, one storyteller still struggled with his story, which happened to be the longest one. We wondered what to do. We prayed about it, and God did something amazing. Umina approached the storyteller and offered to take responsibility for the story as well as being a teacher! This is going to be interesting, we thought to ourselves. Quiet Umina—is he really serious about this?
At the following week’s rehearsal we were anxious to see how our storytellers were coming along, especially Umina. All of them did well, but when Umina stood up to tell his story, you could have heard a pin drop. It was as if a switch had been turned on, and this shy, quiet boy suddenly became a passionate, expressive orator, skillfully holding everyone’s attention to the very end of the story.
At VBS, not only did Umina hold the kids’ attention during his story, he was like a seasoned veteran when it came to leading out in games after the classes. He showed himself to be a quiet, caring teacher who attracted adults and kids alike. We’ve known Umina for several years now but never guessed at his hidden talents. I don’t think he knew either.
We praise God for providing people with surprising talents to help make this VBS outreach a success. Just as God used David in a mighty way, we pray that he will grow Umina into a strong leader for Him among the Gogodala.
