The women's group has enjoyed coloring pictures to use to teach their children the Bible stories they are learning.

Over the years we have ministered in Malawi, we have enjoyed teaching the Bible chronologically. It is so uplifting to see how God reveals His character through all the stories of the Old Testament. People learn about the only true God, and through that, about His Holiness, our own fallenness and the need for salvation that came through Christ Jesus.

Storytelling is very effective among those who cannot read. As we know, physical activity re-enforces anything we have learned. And as I home-schooled our own children for many years, raising them with picture books, it occurred to me that the local mothers could also use picture books to teach their children.

I printed out some basic line drawings with a program from New Tribes Mission for each story I was telling the women at their Bible study. I gave every woman a folder, some colouring pens and taught them to file the story pictures.

We had great fun, showing each other our coloured-in pictures the next week. We had purple Abrahams and pink donkeys… but the aim was that the women would eventually have a picture Bible with which to re-tell these stories to their children and neighbours. And they enthusiastically did, bringing even more women to the Bible studies!

After a while some developed problems with the storage of their files: rats nibbled at the paper, or it got wet or accidentally burned. So I gave each woman a plastic folder for storage. And, in a typical African way, it has to be carried on the head!