Uganda jumps aboard Bible storytelling programme for schools

Uganda is the latest African country to join our expanding Open the Book programme that takes Bible storytelling into schools.

Uganda joins Kenya and Ghana in Africa as well as countries in Europe, Latin America and the Middle East that are joining a ministry that has regularly been reaching more than one million children in England and Wales.

Dramatising the Bible in schools is a great way of introducing children to Jesus and it’s thanks to the prayerful support of people such as yourself that it’s been so amazingly successful.

In Open the Book, volunteers form teams and go into schools to not only share Bible stories but invite children to join in the dramatisations themselves.

Pastor Simon starts OtB Uganda

The interest from Uganda stemmed from a Bible Society supporter in England who had been involved in church work in the East African country.

He told Pastor Simon, from a rural church in Uganda about Open the Book. The next day Pastor Simon met with our Bible Society colleagues in Uganda and the day after five volunteers were in an online Open the Book training session with other Storytellers from around the world.

Angela Lopez Branco, who heads Open the Book International, said, ‘The enthusiasm (of the Ugandan team) was amazing. You could feel God at work! One day these people were told about Open the Book, and less than 24 hours later they were improvising the David and Goliath story in a training session!’

The Bible Society in Uganda will continue to liaise with Pastor Simon to develop a pilot Open the Book programme there.

Thanks to the kind giving of Bible Society supporters, Open the Book volunteer Storytellers in all the countries involved are trained and fully equipped with Bibles and Scripture storybooks. They are given advice on how to set up and run Open the Book projects in their own countries, adapting resources to take into account and respect local culture.

The aim is to have Open the Book in every region of the world within five years – and in the long-term to open the Bible for every child, regardless of context, culture or language.

Angela is determined to tackle the most challenging places first. ‘It would be easy to roll out Open the Book in places like America and Canada, where English is the main language and the context is similar to ours,’ she said. ‘But we want to test how it works in translation, in a Muslim-majority nation, among children with disabilities in Latin America. If we can get it right, we can reach so many children who don’t know God.’

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