Orality Journal Volume 3, Number 1, 2014 | Page 43

Mobilizing the Story of His Glory 41 Mobilizing the Story of His Glory (Part II) by Keith Williams Keith Williams spent ten years serving as a church planter in Asia before launching Mobile Advance, a ministry of WEC International. Keith also serves on the steering team of the Mobile Ministry Forum (MMF). Introduction Farida was in a very bad way. What we first thought to be a fast moving cancer turned out, in the end, to be a case of a young woman trying to starve herself or her unborn baby to death. It is hard to judge her too harshly, though, as both she and her unborn child would likely die at the hands of some relative in order to preserve her tribe’s honor once her extra-marital pregnancy became known. In the Lord’s foreknowledge, Farida’s pregnancy came to light and the cries for her death were raised. In the midst of all this our small team felt the Lord’s call to push back against the centuries-old tradition that called for Farida’s death. We shared the Biblical story of the woman caught in adultery with those who angrily cried out for Farida’s blood. Our team had a fairly high level of fluency in the local language, and we did our best to help the townspeople both experience and understand the story. I don’t know if it was a lack of fluency or storytelling ability, or the logic of the people, which said that if one sheep had a disease it was better for it to be killed than for the whole herd to be infected, but in the end our efforts fell on deaf ears. Every day Farida drew closer to a vengeful execution. A year prior we had begun experimenting with loading clips of the JESUS Film onto our mobile phones and sharing them with the people around us. Recognizing that the JESUS Film’s sister film, Magdalena: Released from Shame, included a powerful video portrayal of the story of the woman caught in adultery, we moved quickly to get that clip onto our phones and began sharing it with friends, neighbors and community leaders. I can’t say exactly what made the difference. It could have been a number of things, but it felt like the tone of our conversations began to shift after we started showing that clip. Something about the video seemed to strike a chord in viewers’ hearts. I am grateful that today, years later, Farida and her beautiful daughter are alive and well and that she now knows a peace that