This is very close to my heart.
Back in 2012 when I pioneered the Create International Discipleship Training School I contemplated for a long time how we could make our outreaches more strategic.
What I did not want to do, was to travel with my students to a location, do a drama or two... preach a message and leave. I wanted to leave something behind that would remind our audience of the message we brought.
What could we leave behind that would help them discover the truth of Jesus and the message of the Gospel long after we left.
Then I had an idea.
The bonus? I had students that could draw. I partnered with a missionary in India and during our lecture phase we emailed 10 stories back and forth while my students illustrated the stories in a CULTURAL RELEVANT way for our Indian outreach. This Hindi book still gets distributed in India. Someone came to me at a converance one time and said "Did you know your book made it to NEPAL" THE JOY !!!!!!
Fast forward 7 year on to today, I noticed one of my old Create colleagues creating a coloring book for Cambodia in her newsletter. Since I have left Create, she went on to pioneer a new arm in Create called Create Seeds - making my dream of years ago come true: Creating resources for the children when our teams go on outreach.
I contacted her. I said that I could turn her pictures into a cultureal SandBoxBible and she said: LETS TRY IT
The result?
An Interactive colouring book that can also be portrayed in a sand box.
IMPLICATION:
Our outreach teams to Cambodia can visit villages, tell the Bible stories in a very visual way in the sand, and then have the children color in the books.
The teams leave... and the villages will still have resources that REMINDS the of the Bible stories.
Because it is wood... we get away with many things. We do not need translation on paper. We do not have to worry about "skin color" We do not need to worry about being environmentally friendly.
We just need teams willing to go and tell the stories in the villages with our long term workers.
We could prepare teams here in South Africa in GAUTENG... and send you off.
If you are in this region, why don't you go and discuss this with your pastor. Cambodia is RIPE FOR THE GOSPEL and we have partners that will welcome you with open arms. It is very safe too. Apart from your airfare, it is cheap to go.
So...
why not ...
GO TO CAMBODIA ON OUTREACH in 2020
and help us distribute the colouring books and resources.