A Time for Teaching as Well as Preaching in Ecuador

This week requires much time and effort for the preparation of both a Wednesday evening Bible Class, Overview on the New Testament, and an eight lesson Confirmation School, which will begin Friday evening.

In an effort to make the lessons more meaningful, the teaching strategy has evolved from simply speaking and being translated to including as many visuals with Spanish captions as practicable. We can all imagine looking at a PowerPoint presentation in a language we don't understand and which has only words. Pictures are worth a thousand words and help keep the student focused. Although so far in Bible Class and the Congregation Days, the students have been taking notes and marking their Bibles. The next level is to include more text in Spanish.

Two indigenous youth are eager to hear and read the presentation in their own language.

 

As an example. The Apostles Creed can be found online in Spanish. Luther's explanation to each article can also be found online, but in English.  The same goes with the Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandants. Microsoft's translate feature has been used to create Spanish text from English, although probably not perfectly.

Another option might be other people. Walt contacted his amigo-ystava in Finland, Raimo Osteberg to find out whether or not he had a set of drawings for each petition of the Lord's Prayer. He didn't. So the next option is free online pictures. They will need to be good enough. In some cases they don't fit as well as might be hoped, but they are usable.

To make copies for schedules or handouts for Confirmation School we need to go to a cabina, which is a small store that has a desktop computer or maybe even a few and Internet access. First you transfer your files to a flash drive and head to the cabina. They are common so you don't usually need to walk far. Once there you then need to rent a computer. It's cheap. Then load up your file and 'print' it and examine it. For additional copies, you then find a Xerox or equivalent either at the cabina or hopefully close by.

At one store, Walt selected five copies and hit print. The cost was $5. Why so much? One they had color in them. Two, the vendor said it was an "impression" and not a copy so you pay more. Maybe it was because I was a foreigner too. If I had 'printed' one "impression" and brought it to a store with a Xerox to copy, the price would have been $0.05/copy.

So you can see from the above description that some of the efficiencies and conveniences we have in preparing a Bible Class lesson in the States or Finland require time consuming additional steps in Ecuador.

It seems apparent that there is a strong need for teaching the Word in Ecuador. The people can be engaged and are willing to ask questions and have discussion. They get to ask "why?". On future mission trips the ministers could bring ready made PowerPoint presentations in Spanish with them. Have your notes in English in 'Presenter's View."

Walt and Avis