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by Dayna Wycliffe Singapore, along with trainers from another Wycliffe entity, has been conducting workshops regularly to train storying facilitators in Singapore, and the sessions are currently being held online due to COVID-19 restrictions. This workshop is a part of an initiative to train and equip people with the skills to craft oral Bible stories in colloquial Chinese dialects (and even in Singlish!) Through this, Wycliffe Singapore aims to improve dialect speakers’ access to Bible stories, even if they cannot read or understand the Bible in English or Mandarin well. This workshop had participants who were Cantonese and Hokkien speakers as well. Dayna attended the “Oral Bible Storytelling” workshop organised by Wycliffe in December 2021. She shares with us what she has learnt and what went on during the workshop! “Being someone whose heart language is English, attending the workshop which was mainly conducted in Chinese was rather challenging. However, with understanding trainers and participants, I was able to overcome my fear of speaking in Chinese in a large group of people!” What went on during the workshop: As we had smaller breakout sessions with groupmates who spoke in similar dialects, we were able to bounce ideas off each other and help one another whenever we had any difficulties translating the story into our preferred dialects. During the first session of the workshop, we learned about how to translate the Bible into Mandarin through storytelling, where we took part in activities such as identifying our target audience, how we wanted to communicate the Bible stories with them, and what prior knowledge of the Bible they might have. We also discussed why someone might need us to explain the Bible in a story format to understand the Bible better. We explored John 8:1-11 and tried to translate the passage into a dialect that we are able to understand. We thought about each character in the story, how they felt, what they were doing at that time, and what their thoughts were so that we could translate their feelings into our stories. We then did a storyboard activity with the entire group, where we illustrated John 8:1-11 through simple drawings and used the storyboard to help us tell the story in our own dialects. During the second session, we also discussed who else we could share the story with, as well as some action steps on what to do next after we had shared the story with others. We then had to do a voice recording of ourselves retelling the story in our preferred dialects, which we are then able to use as a future reference for ourselves. Reflecting upon the workshop... Throughout the 2 days of the workshop, here are 3 things that I learned: Translating the Bible into another language, even one that we are comfortable with, can be rather challenging as we need to ensure that none of the important points of the Bible is missing or interpreted wrongly. Listening to the traditional style of Bible passages being read out orally can make it difficult to understand, as some Biblical terms were difficult to translate, and can further confuse the one listening to the story. Working together in small groups of people who shared similar language knowledge helped a lot in allowing us to deepen our understanding of certain terms used in the Bible. Bouncing ideas off each other helped us better translate the passage into something easier to understand for those listening to our stories. We also took this opportunity to gather some responses from other participants and asked them some questions. 1. How was your overall experience attending the workshop? Participant S: “It was good to go through the process of being in the shoes of people who prefer hearing and talking, rather than reading. I see the place for oral storytelling of the gospel and God's word in many languages, such as dialects.” Participant T: “The overall experience was interesting as there were a few new experiences for me. It was my first attempt to do storying in a colloquial second language.” 2. What were some challenges you faced during the workshop? Participant S: “Poor memory and lack of vocabulary for the target language.” Participant T: “The challenge was the repositioning of myself to a totally new perspective of a person who heard of the faith for the first time.” 3. How did you overcome these challenges? Participant S: “Kudos to my supportive group members and the facilitators who addressed issues as they arise.” Participant T: “The guidance from the facilitator and the discussions allowed me to listen and learn, especially in the interpretation of certain words.” 4. Would you recommend this workshop to your friends/family? Participant S: “If I know of anyone wanting to learn to share the gospel or do outreach in dialects.” Participant T: “Yes, I would recommend this workshop, as it helps not only to do oral storying technically, it also helps one to facilitate meaningful discussion and relate it in very practical ways which go beyond literacy and age boundary.” 5. Final comments Participant S: “Overall, thank God for the course. I have benefitted. I have one clear story to tell my grandmother the next time I visit if the opportunity arises.” More on oral storying: Would You Like to Hear a Story? Crafting Stories -- Reflect, Internalise, Tell Behind the Scenes: Storying Part II

Stories from the Field, 4 July 2023 How do you start reaching out to an unreached people group (UPG) who have hardly heard the gospel? Saifon is a member of Wycliffe Thailand who serves and works among an unreached people group in South Thailand. She shared about her efforts to mobilise Thai churches to get involved with cross-cultural missions within their own country. In the south of Thailand, there are fewer Thais than in the central part of the country. This UPG forms a majority in this region. Most of these people have never heard the gospel. There are very few Christians among this people group, so outsiders must make the effort if this community is to be reached. Saifon’s effervescent and infectious enthusiasm came through as she emphasised the importance of trusting God when embarking on the “Mission Impossible” of reaching out to a UPG. She acknowledged that it can be hard and difficult, but she continues to pray for God to move in the people’s hearts. She said that our role is to pray and obey, and then “Mission Impossible” becomes “Mission Possible”! She shared some of the strategies she has used to reach UPGs, especially among the younger generations. 1. Kindness During the Covid pandemic when there were needs within the community, she and some other Christians helped to distribute useful items to the needy. After making friends with a few people, she managed to hold a few Bible studies. However, they had to stop when some of them caught Covid, and the studies were not resumed. They also taught English to the children when schools were closed, until schools reopened two months later. She has also arranged Christmas parties over the past three years. She continues to stay in contact with the friends she has made while looking for other opportunities to reach out to this community. 2. Schools Through two members of the local church who are from this community, she has helped arrange for a volunteer English teacher to teach in the local school. This is much appreciated by the school and the community. The pastor of a local church also started a soccer club for the school children. Saifon continues to encourage the local church to pray towards eventually planting a church in this community. 3. Social media Saifon has set up social media channels (website, Facebook, Insta) with materials contextualised for this group. She writes the content, and a group of students helps her with the design and uploading of the materials. She regards this as “broad sowing” of the seed of the gospel, and in 2022, her website garnered 71,000 views! 4. Prayer network She has also started a website with articles and materials about this group, targeted at Thai Christians and others who have a heart for this UPG. She wants to encourage Thai Christians to pray for the people, and local churches to back this outreach movement. She hopes that Thai Christians will regard this UPG as their “neighbours”. 5. Discovery trips Saifon has also led trips for small groups to explore the area, meet the people and experience the culture. She hopes that this will encourage them to be more engaged in praying for this UPG and supporting the work among them. Prayer points: Pray for the local churches to get involved in the outreach to this UPG. Pray that God will work through the social media channels to reach out to the community and also the churches. Pray for wisdom as she seeks ways to work with this community and with the local churches.

by Jim Killam, Wycliffe Global Alliance Imagine a Scripture engagement tool that could quickly answer any Bible question accurately, in many languages, and point to resources. A GPT (generative pretrained transformer) works with giant databases of information to generate words, images, code and more in response to prompts entered by the user. General-knowledge GPTs can already answer questions about the Bible based on what they’ve been fed from the Internet. Bible-specific GPTs are under development right now, too ( here is a prominent example ). All of which raises some red flags. What if the user asks a bad question? ( What does the book of Leviticus say about AI? ) Or what if it’s a good question but the GPT has been fed data that includes serious theological errors? Adam Graber, digital theology consultant and cohost of the Device & Virtue podcast, wrestled with these questions during the recent Missional AI Summit. First, he paraphrased N.T. Wright in stating the purpose of Bible engagement: To connect with God and have his Word permeate our entire being. To be inwardly equipped for the church’s outward mission in the world. Designed and used well, he said, Bible GPTs could play a significant role in that process—but not if used out of order. “God speaks first. Not the Internet and not us,” Graber said. “Our work is to feed on God’s Word, and to use that food for energy and for mission.” As an example, he said, a Bible GPT user could ask, “With John 5, what questions or issues does this passage ask me to wrestle with?” “And it keeps me in this position of Bible engagement, not Bible replacement,” Graber said. “It keeps the GPT in the role of supplement, and not substitute.” Designers will need to design for that sort of practice, he said. “I think we need to align our systems to the purposes of Bible engagement. Bible GPTs won’t rise to the intentions of designers. They will fall to the habits of users. As designers we need to ask, does the system default to Bible engagement or GPT engagement? Does the system encourage connections and reflections with God himself? Does the system make it easier for users to love God and to feed on his Word? How do we stay aligned with that purpose of connecting with God, being transformed by that interaction and being equipped for mission?” That’s about much more than simply the AI super-version of Googling for answers to Bible questions—a practice Graber believes can inhibit spiritual growth. Bible knowledge has value, but knowledge alone does not necessarily engage people with God. “It’s failing to allow us to digest Scripture, to connect with God, to be transformed by that interaction and to be equipped for the mission,” he said. What’s in? What’s out? One key question facing designers of Bible GPTs is, which Bible-resource writings go into a database? Which are left out, and why? How will denominational differences be accounted for? How to make sure that diverse Christian voices from different cultures are included? “Whoever has the most content in the database is going to have the most visibility,” Graber said. “The prolific Methodists are going to have more visibility than the quiet Mennonites. The loudest traditions actually pull the average in their direction. And it becomes a popularity contest, if it wasn’t already.” Graber’s message was less about specific solutions and more about encouraging AI developers to think proactively about them—or the church worldwide could reap the consequences. “But if we’re clear and conscientious about how we design Bible GPTs, I think the potential opportunities can be incredible,” he said. “And I believe that the best-designed Bible GPTs will be those that encourage and enable Christians to connect with God to transform them and equip them for mission.” Reproduced with permission from Wycliffe Global Alliance

With non-written forms of information such as audio and video becoming more and more prevalent, does every language still need a written Bible? For many of us who take literacy and a written Bible for granted, our instinctive answer would probably be “Of course!”. Historically, much of the Scriptures, especially the Old Testament, was initially passed down through oral tradition. It was only later, when literacy became more widespread, that the Scriptures began to be recorded and disseminated in writing. As ancient civilisations developed, writing systems were devised. Initially, these were only to record texts that were considered important enough to be preserved accurately for reference and study. This was an improvement over relying on the memories of specially trained people whose major role was to act as record-keepers for their communities. Now that we have the means to accurately record and preserve audio and video, are there any benefits of writing down texts, such as the Scriptures? Here are a few: Writers have time to deliberate over word choice (and many/most audio and video scripts would be first written and edited before recording). Written texts can be corrected and edited more easily (e.g., using a ‘global change’). Readers are more easily able to scan back and forth within a text, and to study, compare, and interpret at their leisure. Written texts are less technology-dependent for access! Beyond these benefits, it has been observed that a language community often has a higher view of their own language once it can be written down and they have written materials in their language. This usually boosts their pride in their cultural identity. Translating the Bible in an Unwritten Language Are there languages without a writing system? Yes, there are! There are still many languages, often those of minority ethnic groups, which are entirely oral and have no established writing system or orthography. An orthography is a system for representing a language in written form, and includes the symbols that represent the sounds as well as the rules that govern how the symbols are arranged when written down (e.g., word breaks, punctuation, diacritics, capitalisation, hyphenation, etc.). To translate the Bible into a language without an orthography, an Oral Bible Translation (OBT) method can be used. This avoids having to first devise an orthography, then teach the people to read and write their own language, and so provides the Scriptures to the people more quickly. However, even if an oral method of translation is preferred, at least some members of the translation team would need a way to write down the text to make it easier to correct and revise. So, if the language has no writing system, one of the first needs is to devise an orthography. And eventually, some of the believers will probably want to have a text version to read and study. How do you devise an orthography? Several factors have to be considered when designing an orthography : Government policies, e.g., a certain type of script may be mandated. Type of script, e.g., character-based, alphabet-based, phonetic, etc. Ease of learning and use, e.g., it should represent all sounds of the language with symbols that are easy to distinguish and write. Ease of transferring literacy skills to other languages the reader would want to read, e.g., similar to the national language. Acceptability to the target readers who may regard a specific type of script as prestigious. Practical issues, e.g., ease of word-processing on computers and printing. As you can see, this is not an easy task! A whole team comprising different specialist skillsets such as linguistics, literacy, font design, IT, etc. is needed. So if you have the skills to contribute to orthography design, and want to help get God’s word written for those who want to read it in their own language, contact us ! Links to articles about OBT: Oral Bible Translation Moves to the Forefront Through a Consultant’s Eyes: A Glimpse of Oral Bible Translation

by Jim Killam, Wycliffe Global Alliance In his keynote address at the recent Global Missional AI Summit, SIL data scientist Dan Whitenack showed a photo familiar to anyone who has ever been around Bible translation: a translator at a project site working on a laptop, using Paratext. Then he showed a picture representing fears of how artificial intelligence will change Bible translation. The photo showed a room full of supercomputers, with no humans in sight. This, he said, does not represent the future of Bible translation aided by AI. “It will not be a computer popping out a Bible,” Whitenack said. “It will look more like this.” And he showed the original picture again — “A Bible translator doing Bible translation with new, advanced tools that come along beside translators and consultants and help them.” Big themes The summit, held 12-14 April at Wycliffe USA in Orlando, Florida, brought together Christians working on the future of AI as it relates to the global church. Sponsors included SIL , Every Tribe Every Nation ‘s Innovation Lab, Biblica , American Bible Society , Global Media Outreach and Christian Vision Global . During a week when it was easy to get lost among futuristic thinking, tech jargon and Star Wars references, these were some recurring themes: AI could drastically reduce the time needed to translate a high-quality Bible — maybe by more than half. It could serve as a valuable assistant before, during and after language projects. It could allow translators to see past their own cultural contexts in translating Scripture. AI also could benefit the church with well-designed Scripture engagement tools stocked with incredible amounts of data, offering vast resources in many languages. AI also could cause deep spiritual damage, leaving thousands of languages behind and enabling poorly designed Scripture engagement tools, which could leave Christians lazy and confused with mangled theology. Kind of like a library with no librarians and with all of the books on the floor. Christians need to be involved in developing AI platforms and their underlying ethics. If we are not, these systems could be inherently biased against a biblical view of the world. A reliable guide Elizabeth Robar, founder and director of Cambridge Digital Bible Research , sees AI’s potential to be a reliable guide, pointing translators and consultants to the most-useful resources, quickly. The ideal tool, she said, will be “fully aware of a translation team’s workflow and available resources.” For example, it would know which resources translators commonly consult after drafting. It would be aware of other teams’ related work. And it could make recommendations on how to modify workflow for greater efficiency. “During drafting, the ideal system would be able to look over the shoulder of a translator and provide prompts for necessary decisions,” she said. For instance, it could ask questions during the lookup and checking processes. “If we have an analysis of a text, say, the message of a Psalm, is that message being drawn out?” she said. “These are the emotions that should happen. Do you see that happening in your text? In some ways, this is having a virtual translation consultant.” But always, she emphasised, the technology serves the human translation team – not the other way around. In fact, AI could be built right into a future version of Paratext, which then would serve as the central source that links all of those resources. More ways AI can help SIL’s Whitenack mentioned more things AI will be able to do. Help optimise the order in which books and verses are translated. Rather than simply beginning with chapter 1, verse 1 of a book, for instance, a “golden path” emerges as keywords and phrases are translated. With each subsequent verse and chapter, AI assistance will get better. Give suggestions. As the user is typing and working in a certain verse, they get a pop-up suggestion for translation or reference, based on previous work. This is similar to what Microsoft Word or Google already do, but optimised for Bible translators and embedded in Paratext. Better, faster lookup systems. Whitenack likes the term “copilot” because “it implies that there’s a pilot. There’s still a human at the (controls).” “Translators are good at translating,” he said. “They do this all day long. … But then they get to a point of, What is an ephod? And then it’s just a blocker. They have to stop and search through maybe 17 panes of different resources. So we want a better lookup system for that.” For instance: a translator could ask: “Why didn’t Jonah want to go to Ninevah?” A copilot system under development gives an accurate answer and citation—in this case, the Tyndale Study Notes. Developers envision a near future when AI can translate resources like this into many languages. Pairing existing quality assessment methods with AI. “Radiologists are already being paired with image analyzers to help analyse medical imagery and make diagnoses,” he said. “We should be able to do a parallel thing with AI pair reviewers, where we are able to pick apart a draft and understand various qualities about that draft, missing or added information, clarity or naturalness issues.” Digital publishing and Scripture engagement in many languages simultaneously on websites and social media pages. SIL is working on a chat platform called M2, in which an organisation could add numerous languages to the same bot (which “chats” with the user — like many retail or travel websites do). “This is a foundation for interacting with many different language communities without the operational burden of having to clone 33 bots, connect all the data analytics together, copy all the rules over, manage all the translations,” Whitenack said. “All of that is taken care of here. So you can quickly create a bot that you can run on 33 different Facebook pages, engaging people in 33 languages.” More about SIL’s AI work Reproduced with permission from Wycliffe Global Alliance

Stories from the Field, 2 May 2023 Speaker: Wendy Phung Wendy has served in Thailand and Myanmar since 2007, in a variety of different roles. In response to the need for trauma healing due to the Covid pandemic and other recent events in the region, she joined SIL and the Trauma Healing Institute in 2020 and has been facilitating Bible-based trauma healing groups since then. How Do You Heal a Wounded Heart? When hearts are overwhelmed with intense fear, hopelessness, and horrors, they can be severely wounded. These hurts can hinder them from seeking God, receiving the Word of God, or engaging with the community. Wounded hearts are held captive by the events that caused their trauma, and relive their experiences over and over again. Sadly, most wounded hearts retreat to lonely and dark places. Some people use drugs and alcohol to escape their pain. Some release their hurts by hurting other people. Many times, they find it difficult to engage in their communities as they tend to be jumpy, angry, and quarrelsome. What they need is a safe space for their wounded hearts to take refuge, but often, they may not find such a place. Our society tells us that men are supposed to be strong and keep their feelings to themselves. Christians are not supposed to dwell on their heartbreaking experiences. Well-meaning advice may be: “Pray, and you’ll be okay.” Others advise them to forget the past and move on. In a Zoom event held in May, Wendy Phung shared about Healing the Wounds of Trauma , a resource widely used around the world, developed by a group of Bible translators, pastors, counsellors, and African evangelists in 2001. The book comprises six core lessons which explore these pressing questions: If God loves us, why do we suffer? What are the wounds of the heart? What can help our hearts’ wounds heal? What happens when someone is grieving? How do we bring our pain to Jesus? How can we forgive others? The aim of these questions is to help the wounded hearts find their healing in God and the Bible. They also help the wounded understand and build their identity in Christ. The book has been translated and adapted into 157 languages so as to reach more cultures, and translation into even more languages is ongoing. Wendy highlighted that an important part of the healing process was to be honest about heart wounds. The Bible teaches us to express our feelings openly just as Jesus, Peter, Hannah and the psalmists poured out their feelings in prayer and laments. A wounded heart can never heal on its own. And so, Wendy described how participating in healing groups enables those who are hurt to openly express their tiredness, sadness, irritability, and even worse traumas. These groups are a safe space where the wounded can do all the talking they need to. But more importantly, it is where their wounded hearts can receive help and support, reconnect with God through his Word, and find healing.

Why did God eventually destroy Nineveh? Nahum 1:14: “The Lord has given a command concerning you, Nineveh: ‘You will have no descendants to bear your name. I will destroy the images and idols that are in the temple of your gods. I will prepare your grave, for you are vile.’” Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria, an ancient Mesopotamian civilisation located in present-day Iraq. Rich and powerful, the Assyrians were also known for their cruelty and idolatry. God demonstrated his mercy to the Ninevites by sending Jonah to preach repentance to them (around 760 BCE). At that time, they responded to Jonah’s message, repented, and were saved from destruction. However, the Ninevites did not remain faithful to God, and various prophets, including Nahum, prophesied that they would one day face judgement. Nineveh eventually fell to the Babylonians in 612 BCE, a reminder that while God is merciful, he is also just.

Victor* and Linda* are members of Wycliffe Singapore based in Canada, working on the Bible translation software, TBTA (The Bible Translator’s Assistant). The TBTA team currently comprises about 25 people, mostly part-time, from Canada, US, UK, New Zealand, Singapore, Philippines and, soon, Australia. A few volunteers started work on the project about 12 years ago, but a concerted effort was launched 2 years ago in concert with Wycliffe Bible Translators. We asked them to share about their work. What is TBTA and How Does It Work? TBTA is a computer software that aims to help speed up the process of Bible translation. It does this by combining templates of the text of the Bible with grammatical analysis of the target language to produce a good first draft. This draft is then edited and polished by mother tongue translators (MTTs, native speakers of the target language) for naturalness before testing and eventual publication. The process can be divided into roughly 4 stages: Stage 1: Prepare templates for the text of the Bible. Linda and her team prepare these templates which express the meaning of the Bible text using simple words. This makes it easier to translate the meaning into a target language. They also put in detailed linguistic information. For example, in Acts 8:22, the word “repent” is explicated as: You (Simon)(imp) change your (Simon’s) thoughts and your (Simon’s) actions [so that your (Simon’s) thoughts and your (Simon’s) actions please God ]. All these explicated words and sentences are checked by a translation consultant to make sure that the templates remain true to the original text. Victor and his team then encode all the linguistic information for each word in the TBTA program database. About 35% of the templates have already been completed. The New Testament books that have been completed include the gospels and Colossians, with Acts targeted to be done by end-2023. The Old Testament books completed include Genesis, Exodus, Proverbs, Ruth, Jonah and several others. The aim is to complete the templates for all the 66 books of the Bible in the next two-and-a-half years. Once prepared, these templates can then be used with any target language. [Stages 2-4 will have to be done for each target language.] Stage 2: Analyse the grammar of each target language, and compile a lexicon of words found in the Bible. A team, usually comprising a linguist and a MTT, will use everyday sentences to work out the grammar rules of the language. They also compile a lexicon of all the words that are used in the Bible. These grammar rules and vocabulary items are then also entered into the TBTA program. This is already being done for some languages. At present, 24 languages of wider communication (LWCs) have been identified, such as Tagalog, Indonesian Malay, Hindi, Swahili and Khmer. The grammar rules of these LWCs can be tweaked relatively easily for groups of related languages, speeding up the process even more. Stage 3: Generate first drafts. TBTA will produce first drafts using the templates, the grammar rules and the lexicon. At first, the linguist will continue to add to and fine tune the grammar rules of the target language. Eventually, TBTA should be able to generate good drafts without any additional assistance from the linguist. Stage 4: Edit and polish the drafts. The first drafts are edited and polished by the MTTs to make them sound natural. This will also involve various rounds of testing and consultant checking before eventual publication. Sounds Good, but How Well Does It Work? Initial tests with groups of translators have shown that the first drafts produced by TBTA are as good as those produced by experienced MTTs. The MTTs were relieved from the work of producing the initial drafts, and so were able to focus on community testing and naturalness. Ayta Mag-indi, Philippines: The Tagalog grammar rules were tweaked for use with this language. TBTA then produced drafts for the books of Jonah and Ruth. Pastor Dino Abuque, an Ayta Mag-indi translator, said, “[Before TBTA] we would translate the word of God from Tagalog into our language, and it was a long process. Not like now where right away it is in our language and we just have to make it good.” Hear this project: https://youtu.be/GI27Ifo_4dM Gichuka, Kenya : After a few months of online grammatical analysis, the TBTA team visited the MTTs on the field to test run the TBTA generation of a Bible passage. TBTA generated a draft that was so good that Jacob Njagi, a Kenyan Bible translator with 20 years’ experience and who has used other computer-aided translation tools, was amazed. He said that the generated text was “far beyond a first draft”. He judged it to be 90-95% accurate! Hear what Jacob Njagi said: https://youtu.be/q3Xa_n5vNtw A Gichuka MTT (left) working remotely with a TBTA team member (right) on grammatical analysis. (Photo: https://alltheword.org/ ) Key Benefits of TBTA Reduces the time needed to complete Bible translation for language groups still waiting for God’s Word in their heart language. Enables the MTTs to work more independently. Reduces translation consultants’ workload, enabling translated materials to be consultant checked and published more quickly. In the future, TBTA could be used to help create other materials in minority languages such as literacy tools and health booklets. Victor and Linda’s Future Plans? Victor and Linda are open, when the right time comes, to move on to work on a grammatical analysis of one of the identified LWCs or some other language that is in need of translation. They have some knowledge of one of the identified LWCs, so that is a possible future assignment. Victor completed a Master of Arts in Linguistics at the Canadian Institute of Linguistics to be equipped for Bible translation. Linda* pursued a Certificate in Biblical Studies with a focus on Biblical languages (Hebrew and Greek) at Trinity Western University. They live and work in Canada with their teenage son who is attending a local public school. *Not the real names. Related articles: Innovation for Minority Languages: The Bible Translator’s Assistant Wycliffe Canada leads software development to speed Bible translation

Storying Training for Sunday School Teachers (February-April 2023) You probably hear and tell stories every day. Young or old, adults or children, we all tell and retell all sorts of things. Some of these stories may be very ordinary, while others may be about things that are important to us. Some stories should be told as accurately as possible because they tell of things that are of great importance. These are also the stories that need to be told clearly to avoid misunderstanding and misinterpretation. Are there benefits to telling stories orally, as opposed to writing them down? Certainly, the written word is more permanent, and can be edited and revised until the author is satisfied that it conveys the information clearly and accurately. However, reading a written story does not have the intimacy of hearing someone tell the story in person. Telling a story orally becomes a shared experience between the teller and the listener. And listening to stories told orally may be preferred by many people, including non-believers and children. What about Bible stories? How should we pass them on? Romans 10:17 says, "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." The messages of Bible stories are so great that they must be told and retold. Not only do these stories need to be told naturally, clearly and accurately, but they need to be told repeatedly and across generations, because they carry life and power, for they are the very Word of God. Reading stories directly from the Bible is of course one way, but the written word is more formal than the spoken word and may not sound as natural. This past February and March, Wycliffe Singapore organised a four-part training to help Sunday School teachers, who regularly tell stories to their students, level up their story crafting and storytelling skills. Honestly, though, all of us would benefit from improving our storytelling skills – pastors, missionaries, cell leaders, and parents. After all, isn't it also the commission of every Christian to tell stories about God? Here are some points I learned during the training: Firstly, listen to the Bible story, preferably in different available translations, and then try to retell it. After retelling it, internalise the story by taking it into your heart and remembering the details you think are important. You can then interact with the story by creating a storyboard or acting out the story. Secondly, keep in mind who your audience is. Will you be telling it to a group of 3-year-olds, or a group of adults? How much do they already know or understand? What ideas do they already have about the people or the circumstances of the story? Try to identify the parts or words that your audience may not be familiar with, such as places and names in the Bible. You can also think about what additional background information or explanation your audience may need, and how much they are able to understand. After thinking these things through, you can begin to build the story, deciding which parts you think need to be kept or removed, replaced, explained, etc. while staying true to the main messages in the story. Thirdly, ask yourself some important questions: What do you like about the story? Which parts of the story do you have problems with? What can you learn from the story? What are some practical applications of the story? It is important that you, as the storyteller, first learn from the story and allow the Word of God to impact your own heart before telling the story to others. If you want to improve your storytelling skills even more, you can join with others to form a Storying Fellowship Group and work on crafting, internalising and telling your stories together!

Who was Asherah, and what were Asherah poles? Micah 5:14: “I will uproot from among you your Asherah poles when I demolish your cities.” Asherah was a goddess of fertility worshipped by the Canaanite tribes. The Israelites were strictly warned in Exodus 34:13 to “cut down their (the Canaanite’s) Asherah poles” when they entered the Promised Land. However, the worship of Asherah persisted, and warnings were issued repeatedly, with 40 mentions of Asherah in the Bible! Asherah was usually portrayed by a carved tree trunk planted in the ground, hence the name “Asherah pole”. They were often placed on hilltops or in woods, sometimes referred to as “high places” or “sacred groves”. Smaller figurines were placed on altars in homes and worshipped as well. Despite countless warnings from the prophets and the actions of a few God-fearing kings, Israel never completely eliminated the worship of Asherah, and this idolatry was one of the sins for which Israel was judged and exiled.