Tom Boomershine with Fr. Jose Palakeel of Kerala, India
Personal Delivery from Kerala, India
Storykeepers Translation for Indian Christians
GoTell celebrated July 4, 2012 with a visit from our good friend Fr. Jose Palakeel of Kerala, India. Fr. Jose was in the States to present a paper at a conference on Communication and Theology held in Santa Clara, CA. He came for a three-day visit with us in Dayton and brought his newly produced 4-DVD set with Guidebook of “The Storykeepers” presented in both English and Malayalam, a common language in the state of Kerala. Fr. Jose did the translation and produced the resource for distribution among Indian Christians.
Fr. Jose had a vision for this work when we introduced him to “The Storykeepers” during his sabbatical year in Dayton in 2008 which he has now brought to fruition. We congratulate Fr. Jose for this accomplishment and are delighted that Indian children will now have access to this wonderful animated resource of Gospel stories set in the exciting days of the early church.
For more about the introduction of “The Storykeepers” in India click here http://syromalabarcatechetics.org/news_detail.php?id=16.
Storytelling Down Under
News from an Aussie storyteller
GoTell loves to pass on such good news as follows from Sarah Agnew. We also recommend joining the Facebook group for the Network of Biblical Storytellers where she posted this entry, click here for more info about the group or to join.
“Sarah Tells Stories” is the name of my storytelling ministry here in Adelaide, South Australia, and it’s starting to gain some momentum, with telling the story for the Installation (commissioning) of the next President of the Uniting Church in Australia in July, a visit to Perth on the West Coast of Australia in August for storytelling events and workshops, and a new flier (https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-W8yND-07old3l3eTlJVlhzM2s) with which I hope to invite and encourage congregations and other community groups to engage in the art of storytelling; not to mention beginning a post-grad course (Honours, which doesn’t exist in the USA I’ve heard) in biblical studies, exploring performance hermeneutics next semester. Your prayerful support for me and other storytellers in Australia is deeply valued as we engage in this ministry of story sharing together all over the world. May God continue to bless you in your various storytelling adventures.
Posted on the Facebook page of the Network of Biblical Storytellers. Used with permission.
Sacred Storytelling for “Men in Blue”
Horizon Academy for Inmates to Launch in August 2012
For almost a year GoTell has been part of a small group led by retired United Methodist Bishop C. Joseph Sprague exploring the viability of launching an academic program of interfaith studies at Marion Correctional Institution, a medium security state prison in Ohio. Our interest in participating in this program has been to provide training in biblical storytelling. Because the program is interfaith, we will also explore stories from the Koran and have named our course “Sacred Storytelling.”
Since last September our small group of “outsiders” have met in planning sessions by ourselves as well as together with inmates who will participate in the program. These “men in blue” (so-named because of the blue shirts they wear) are all graduates of the Horizon Prison Ministry program. In one joint planning session GoTell led a storytelling workshop on the parable of The Good Samaritan to give both our team and the men in blue a sample of what we proposed. The workshop was well received, so we developed our course as part of the Horizon Academy.
The Horizon Academy will be an extension of the one-year Horizon program for inmates who successfully graduated and desire more in-depth educational experience. The Horizon Academy will begin on August 20 with the GoTell course on Sacred Storytelling.
Sacred Storytelling is a course based on three foundational understandings:
1. The Bible and the Koran were composed to be learned by heart and recited in community.
2. God’s purpose as revealed in sacred stories is to form a global community of peace, justice and reconciliation.
3. The pedagogy of peace is based on interactive learning and telling sacred stories as a way of life.
The purpose of the course is to introduce the foundational dimensions of sacred storytelling which include:
1. Learning and telling sacred stories by heart
2. Studying sacred stories in their original historical context
3. Exploring the range of connections between contemporary experience and sacred stories
4. Experimenting with the ways in which sacred storytelling can be a transformational process in the community
Two other courses are being offered this Fall and three more will be offered in the Winter during this pilot program of the Horizon Academy.
