Oral tradition becomes a Bible teaching method in Peru.

Peru (MNN)–Oral tradition is defined as a statement, belief, legend, or custom that is handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth.

Often used in lieu of a written language, it serves as the vehicle to teach culture, history, morals and custom. Using that theory, The Seed Company’s Asheninka project in Peru has moved into a process called “Chronological Bible Storying”. The Seed Company’s Parke Brown explains. “We’ve been translating 65 stories from the Bible into their language, oral stories that can be shared around the community, in sort of a traditional story-telling format that will present the Gospel of Christ.”

Already the church is growing in part due to these efforts and the hope is that through partnerships this same method will open more doors. Brown, again: “The goal here is that we can get the Gospel to these people quicker than trying to translate the entire New Testament right away. That’s a process that takes a lot of time and so even though we hope to have that done in a set number of years, that’s still a number of years that people won’t have key Bible stories in front of them.”

More than 32,000 Asheninka people live in the jungle of central Peru. They are one of the largest people groups in the Amazon basin, and speak several distinct variations of the Asheninka language. Four of those are part of this project: Pichis, Apurucayali, Ucayali-Yurua, and Perene.

The Seed Company’s driving mission is translate the Scriptures into the heart language of people groups still without God’s Word, by engaging the prayer support, mission alliances, consultants, and resources needed to enable national translators to complete Bible translation projects.