By Kerry Corliss*

DELHI, India–When Kacee Dallion* and Lindy Alleger* agreed to stay in a home with an Indian family to begin learning the family’s language, they really did not know what to expect.

Learning to take bucket baths, adjusting to living with little personal space, and trying to understand the new language filled their first days.

Indian women listen to Bible stories and discuss how they can apply them in their lives as witnesses for Christ.

As they began to understand their new language more, they had many chances to observe and hear the interactions of the Indian women in their host household as well as the family’s interactions with their neighbors. The family members hosting them were Christians, but the fruit of God’s Spirit did not seem evident in their lives. Instead, bickering and gossip marked their lives. As the months passed, the behavior of the host family consistently disappointed Alleger and Dallion. The Indian women were sisters in the faith, but they did not seem to have the joy in their lives that would draw others to Christ.

After moving into their own apartment, Alleger and Dallion continued to learn language from and spend time with this family. They eventually realized that, even though these women sat in church every Sunday, the speaker there did not present the message in a way that nonliterate women could easily comprehend it. If the Indian women could not understand the message, then how could they apply it and pass it on?

Alleger and Dallion had been sharing simple Bible stories as a part of their language learning. In the beginning, this amounted to just four to five lines per story. However, as their language improved, they continued to gather the women from their host family and from the neighborhood into groups to tell them more stories. They challenged the Indian women with stories from the Book of Acts, and the women began to understand what it meant to be the church. Through the stories, they realized that they were the church.

Indian women listen to Bible stories and discuss how they can apply them in their lives as witnesses for Christ.

So Alleger and Dallion challenged the women to share with other neighbors. Each week, they taught the women a new story, starting with creation. At first, the Indian women were reluctant; they had never been church in this way. But with practice, starting by telling the stories within their homes, the women became bolder in sharing with neighbors. Alleger and Dallion gave the women a recording of the Bible stories in their language so they could learn to tell the stories as a group by listening to the recorded stories. The women would listen several times, discuss the story, and then practice telling it. When they gathered again, those who had told the story during the week shared how that experience had gone. The women also prayed for one another.

Soon God’s Spirit impressed upon the Indian women that they should be praying for their neighbors. They began a second meeting each week that focused on prayer. Their neighbors came asking for prayer, which provided the women with even more opportunities to share God’s Word.

As these Christian women began to understand God’s Word, their lives were transformed. Instead of bickering, there was support. If one person was lacking in food or medicines, the others shared what they had. They helped take care of one another’s children. The message, communicated in such a way that they could readily understand it and pass it on, changed the women from Sunday morning observers into a full-time family of faith committed to transforming their community.

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*Name changed. Kacee Dallion is from Florida, and Lindy Alleger is from California. They both recently served two years as journeymen with the Southern Baptist International Mission Board.