Although UNESCO reported in 2003 that almost 80% of adults worldwide can read, that statement is open to challenge. It depends on literacy statistics provided by each member nation of the United Nations. Furthermore, it allows every country's government to decide for itself how to determine who is literate. Malaysia, for instance, counts anyone age 10 or over who has ever enrolled in school as being literate. Other countries simply ask people if they are literate; many people say that they are, even though their reading skills may be too limited to handle text from the Bible. Many people who can write their name and read a simple sentence qualify as literate for census purposes, but they cannot read unfamiliar or lengthy materials with understanding. Their values are not changed by what they read.

In assessing the orality of a people group, it is important to keep in mind that literacy rates often vary greatly from one group to another within a single nation. Minority language groups, many of whom are unreached peoples, are less likely to be literate. Many of them have little interest in becoming literate. Those who intend to work with unreached people groups would be wise to be skeptical of governmental literacy statistics when it comes to functional literacy.

Missions groups such as the International Mission Board (Southern Baptist Convention), Scriptures In Use and others have developed materials on understanding orality and oral cultures. A selection of these is available at www.chronologicalbiblestorying. com. The annotated bibliography included with this document also suggests a wide array of resources for learning more about orality.

After developing a basic understanding of orality, literate missionaries and ministers then need to learn effective oral communication styles which are culturally relevant. In general, there is a cluster of features that oral learners have in common in processing information. They most readily process information that is concrete and sequential, and which is presented in a highly relational context. Other aspects of an effective communication style for a particular oral culture may be discovered by careful observation and participation in the life of the community.

Using culturally appropriate oral forms improves the impact of the message. Oral learners "enter" the story and as they absorb sensory data they live the story in the present tense-seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and feeling what the persons in the story are experiencing. They hang reality on these sensory experiences. This happened when "Fatima," an immigrant who had never been to school, attended a class to learn French.13 As a part of the French class, she heard the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. At the end of the story Fatima said, "That's a true story."

The teacher asked, "What do you mean?"

Fatima replied, "God made Abraham a promise and Abraham didn't have the faith to wait for God. He acted on his own. And look at all the trouble that came to that family. It happens all the time. People don't have the faith to wait for God. They act on their own and they get into trouble just like Abraham did. It's a true story."

Fatima vicariously lived the story. Without prompting from the teacher, she melded the story's experiences with her experiences. The right cultural form enabled the truth to flow unimpeded into her life.

Having identified the communication forms that the culture uses, it is then crucial that ministries use the existing oral communication forms that the culture already uses (i.e.: story, music, drama, poetry, dance, proverbs, etc.) There are many examples of the impact of Bible stories when time and freedom of expression are both given in order to develop a culturally sensitive storying strategy.

One such example of the effectiveness and reproducibility of using music in orality and storying strategies comes from southeastern Africa:

13 This account is from Annette Hall. When a name is introduced within quote marks, this is an indication that this is a pseudonym. In this and some other subsequent instances, names of local workers and in some cases the people group names in the stories and case studies of this paper are not actual names. The names are changed in order to protect the security of these workers. The events told in the stories and case studies are actual events recounted or confirmed by the participants in the 2004 Lausanne Forum Issue Group on "Making Disciples of Oral Learners."