I got some great footage of the kids we work with talking about Jesus. They all understand him a little differently. Junior's account of Jesus included his "superpowers," and sounded like a comic book, complete with Jesus busting out of a locked cave. I'll edit the video and you can see for yourself.
This morning I spent more time with Bayo Otiti, who has ongoing dialogue with the Muslim community in Clarkston, and is making unbelievable headway with Somali and Ethiopian men. We shot our conversation on video and were careful about lighting and sound, so it should make for a great short when I edit it.
A big focus of our work is empowering immigrants like Bayo and Junior to embrace and share the gospel with their own people groups.
This video will be a tool for Bayo to begin raising funds and fighting sex slavery in his home country of Nigeria. Junior's account of Jesus will be put together with dozens of others to call American churches to invest in the international community.
Ian - do you think most of your refugees can read and write, or is there a good percentage of oral learners?
ReplyDeleteWe basically work with three groups. The first are the children of latino immigrants. They typically go to public schools and are about as literate as other low-income kids in America.
ReplyDeleteThe second are adult refugees, and even the ones who read and write well have a hard time with idioms. Oral communication is usually the best way to go because it's more effective in dealing with literacy and cultural obstacles.
The third group is the children of refugees. They are a lot like the latino kids, except the public schools they attend are way more difficult because they tend to teach the bare minimum to get the kids to the next grade. One of my main goals is to help the kids who are able and willing to learn, but can't because they need more personal attention.