Lunaba Radio Drama - uncondensed
From SPARK
Brief Summary
This uncondensed version of the Lunaba* Radio Drama case history gives valuable details about the creation of radio dramas for an African language group. The radio programs teach how Christians have resolved common everyday problems by doing what God teaches in the Bible. The local people have taken ownership and are beginning to use their own creativity. See and use the following outline of contents.
Contents
Introduction
What was done
Rationale
Results
- Expansion of the Project
- Listener Response
- Why does this work?
- The idea spreads to neighboring languages
- Chronological Bible Stories and Scripture Readings on Radio and Cassette
- Scripture in Song
Conclusion
Introduction
In western Africa, where I have worked for the past eleven years, almost every family has a radio, and it is very often on. This is especially the case if there is a mother-tongue program to be heard. I was assigned to promote the use of the Scriptures among the Lunaba,[1] people. Several million people speak Lunaba as a first language and even more as a second language.
I had begun my work as a literacy specialist with a people group in a central African country who were largely Christian, and some had been interested in learning to read the New Testament when it was published. The literacy team worked with over a hundred local churches to train teachers and encourage the development of literacy programs in each church. That program is still ongoing.
When I began working with the Lunaba people, I planned to work in literacy there, too. The Lunaba New Testament had been dedicated in the 1990s, but the Lunaba people were not motivated to learn to read. They were merchants of another predominant religion who saw little use for reading in their daily experience. My language tutor participated in a drama group in her church, and I began to see a more effective way of interesting the Lunaba people in accessing Scripture.
Rather than use my preferred means of communication, print, the Lunaba drama team chose to use oral means of communication. People who do not read do not have to cross the literacy hurdle to have access to Scripture when it is presented in oral form. I currently work with a team of scriptwriters, actors, and actresses to promote the use of the translated Scriptures through culturally-appropriate radio, cassettes, plays, and music. We make a half-hour radio play each week. I work with a team of 14 actors, actresses, and scriptwriters. In each story someone has a difficulty. A friend or neighbor says something like, “You aren't the first person to have this difficulty. May I tell you a story from God's Word about someone who had the same difficulty?” In this way, we try to show how the Bible is relevant to everyday life. This idea is based on Wayne Dye's thesis[1]that people respond to the Scriptures in proportion to their conviction that they are relevant to everyday life.
Key Factors: Why did we choose radio theater?
- The Lunaba people are 99% of another major religion. Conditions are not hostile to Christianity.
- The Lunaba New Testament was published in the 90's and the Old Testament is underway.
- The Lunaba are primarily oral communicators. According to the Ethnologue[1], the literacy rate in the first language is below 1%, and the literacy rate in the second language is 15% to 25%. Percentage of women with no education is 80% (Demographic and Health Surveys, 2001).
- Most people do not have motivation to become literate because the Lunaba people are merchants and farmers. Literacy is not a necessary skill for their lives, and so an oral approach best suits the culture. An oral approach will probably best suit the culture for the foreseeable future.
- Theater is a valued art and entertainment form.
- Storytelling with a moral is a valued form of imparting wisdom and entertainment.
- Radio can speak to the large territory over which the Lunaba people live.
What was done
Scriptwriters
Lunaba has three scriptwriters, who are also actors. They have a good grasp of the written language and the Word of God, and have learned with practice how to apply the Word to daily life situations. We still have some pretty lively discussions at rehearsals as Christianity confronts culture, trying to find the most appropriate ways to make the Bible practical to real life.
At one recent rehearsal, our play's theme was the husband-wife relationship. Both had sinned against each other. In the original script, the two heard some verses from a friend about how they were supposed to treat each other, said “we'll do that,” and the narrator said “and they all lived happily ever after.” Reading this, I said, “I don't believe the narrator! Show me how their relationship is affected by the Word of God.” The author decided the wife needed to apologize to the husband. We discussed the draft version at rehearsal. The cast had an easy time with the wife apologizing to the husband, but they had a very hard time with my suggestion of the husband apologizing to the wife. “That would never happen!” someone exclaimed. We had a discussion about whether biblically, that needed to happen and ought to happen, whether or not it ever did happen in typical life the way things are. You could see the lights going on in their minds. “He might be able to apologize to her if they were alone and no one else heard it,” they decided. In the end, we had the couple really reconcile, both apologizing to the other and changing their behavior toward each other.
A neighboring language group with a similar radio program has one scriptwriter. It is best if there are two or more scriptwriters who can read each others' scripts and help each other develop their ideas, or a few wise people who can give feedback. Ideally they should be able to type their scripts on a computer. When I was working with only one scriptwriter, she and I sat side by side. I typed her ideas, which was great for my early language learning – it was like taking huge amounts of dictation. We shaped the story line together. Dialoguing with someone else is very helpful for a new scriptwriter.
The programs
In every story there is:
- An introduction where the narrator or storyteller greets the audience and introduces the subject of today's story without telling the story. Greetings are very important to develop a relationship with the audience. The storyteller should only give a “fish hook” to interest the audience in what will come next. He should not say what will happen in the scene; otherwise, why listen to the scene if you already know what will happen? The narrator also introduces each scene in the same way. Culturally-appropriate instrumental music is mixed behind the narration to distinguish between the storyteller and the scene.
- Problem: Through several scenes, develop a problem from daily life with interesting characters. Some stories are humorous, others sad. The events need to touch felt needs or interests of the audience. All characters should be given culturally appropriate names.
- The Word of God: One of the characters tells a Bible story to his friends which shows them the answer to their difficulty. This should not be a monologue. The listeners should intervene and make comments and ask questions as appropriate. The characters listening need to react. How might this story touch listeners in this culture? What might they approve of in it? What objections to the Word of God might arise in the mind of listeners from this culture? How can these be answered by the storyteller?
- Application: The concluding scene or scenes should show how this story's theme can be put into practice to make a difference in the life of at least one character.
- A conclusion: The narrator may tell a little bit about what happens to the characters after that, sum up what has been learned, read a related Scripture verse, or sing a song related to the theme of the story. He or she should tell listeners when to listen again and say goodbye. The entire cast may wish to say goodbye. These greetings and leave-takings help develop a relationship between the listening audience and the cast.
The program typically begins something like this:
- “Our theater group greets you. Today our play is going to be about what's truly valuable.”
For this moment to happen, three scriptwriters have been developing a new story line showing the relevance of the Word of God to Lunaba life. Fourteen actors and actresses have been rehearsing their scripts, improvising, and acting. We record and sound edit the play on the computer. Then we send the finished recording off to the various radio stations. The radio stations take the Scriptures more places than we could ever go by foot. Almost every Lunaba family has a radio, and it is very often on, so radio provides a tremendous open door for the Scriptures to be heard.
Radio spots air the week prior to invite people to listen. A greeting and clip of the play are followed by, “If you would like to hear the rest of this story, please tune in at...” Another spot at the end of the half-hour play tells listeners where to buy Scripture portions and other books in their language.
Teaching recordists and sound editors
The three scriptwriters have also learned to record and sound edit the programs together. This was the hardest aspect of the project for me to relinquish, because I thought it was too difficult and technical, but my Lunaba coworkers learned by observation.
In the West, we like written instructions. My Lunaba coworkers like to learn by watching, with short oral explanations. After they have watched me do something a number of times, they feel ready to do it themselves. They learned how to record by watching me record. They learned computer sound editing by sitting beside me watching me sound edit. When we needed a sound effect they went out and looked for it with a little portable minidisk recorder. They record local sound effects and also have a series of sound effects CDs to make the programs more involving. They like to be shown new concepts more than to have concepts explained. When they have understood by observation, they are ready to begin trying themselves.
Distribution
- 26 or more half-hour programs per year are produced and each program is re-aired after six months to fill one half-hour slot each week. Stations which grant more than a half-hour per week use more re-runs.
- These programs air on 56 radio stations. (Some have donated free air time; the average price is $7 per half-hour.) We aim to get time slots where people are likely to be listening, such as Sunday evening at 8:30 PM right after the local news.
Rationale
Why the theater format?
We want to show that the Scriptures are relevant to Lunaba life situations. Wayne Dye wrote his PhD thesis, The Bible translation strategy, on this question: Of all the factors affecting response to the Gospel, which is the most crucial? He identified the factors which enhance or deter success in translation programs. He concluded from studying fifteen translation programs that “people respond to the Gospel in proportion to their conviction that God and His Word are relevant to the concerns of daily life.” Wayne Dye writes that a translator or a local believer can help bring this conviction to someone by applying the Good News in everyday encounters to maximize personal relevance (p. 61).
This was the idea behind our radio plays, to show how the Gospel is worked out in life situations. We air thirty-minute radio plays. In each story someone has a difficulty. A Christian friend or neighbor listens to his friend, and tells him that he is not the first person to have this difficulty. He shares a Bible story with his friend, which shows him the answer to his difficulty.
Retaining your culture while becoming a Christian
Generally the Lunaba people feel that to be Lunaba is to be of another predominant religion. They are often shocked to learn that there is a Lunaba church. We aim to show through our radio plays that it is possible to be both Lunaba and Christian, and that Christianity meets the needs of Lunaba life.
Initially our first scriptwriter wanted to name every Christian character in her plays with a western name like Jonathan, and give only characters of the predominant religion Lunaba names like Abdoulaye. But we decided to always give our Christian characters truly Lunaba names, like Abdoulaye, to help communicate that it is possible to be both Lunaba and Christian. Becoming a Christian does not equate ceasing to be Lunaba. We want to clearly communicate that one does not have to convert cultures or languages in order to convert religions.
Letting people know how a Christian leads their daily life can be as important as sharing the salvation message. Other information is not really heard until they know these answers: how they will raise their children and go through major life transitions if they become Christians. They need to know their funeral will be all right. We wrote one play about a Christian funeral in which a lot of people attended the Christian's funeral, because being buried respectfully is very important to the Lunaba people. We wanted to show that Christians could do a funeral right.
Theater is a culturally relevant form in which to communicate new truths from the Word of God. Radio makes theater accessible to a much broader audience than print media or live performances.
Results
Expansion of the Project
We started out airing our program on one station three years ago. We expanded 18 months ago to nine stations, and to 56 stations today. The Lord has arranged for every one of those stations with “coincidences” and unexpected contacts which have shown us His hand. The station director in one town talked to a station director in the second largest city in the country. The normal price was the equivalent of $70 a half-hour, but our town's station director negotiated this down to $7 a half-hour for us. He came back and presented us the deal already virtually done. Another station in that city heard our program on the first station, and contacted me offering to play our program three times a week for free. I delivered the programs and heard one playing on that station later that same day, beautifully clear. Listeners have told us, “Where do you get all this wisdom from?” “Your teaching is good. We like your stories.” “No one better greet Awa when she is listening to your program. She doesn't want to miss a word.”
One day I caught a ride up to the capital city with a missionary who said he was attending a radio conference. “I didn't know there was a radio conference. Can I go too?” He replied, “Why not?” The Lord used that chance occurrence to get our program on 20 more stations during that conference. We had been especially been praying to get on in another capital city, but we didn't seem to be able to find a radio contact there. The presenter at the radio conference introduced various dignitaries and announced M. le Ministre de la Radio Chretienne without saying his name. I raced toward him during a break, and he got our programs on four Christian stations and one secular station.
My African colleagues branched out into live theater in the community. I was petrified. I know how many hours we spend editing out all of the mistakes in their recordings, and I was sure that live, they would be error-prone. But surprisingly they were brilliant. They were funnier than they have ever been before, but still had a Scriptural message to each one. A script that takes us a half-hour to perform on the radio took an hour to perform live. They needed more time to bring out props and act out events visually which happened more quickly on the radio without visuals. But at a community event with five hundred people intent on a good time, no one in the audience seemed to object to the length. The actors performed three plays over two nights on the themes of AIDS, greed, and forgiveness to attentive audiences. They did another performance this past weekend, and told me on the phone, “It went great! Thanks for your prayers! People really enjoyed it. They want us to keep doing live theater regularly.” Even though their live performances reach a smaller audience than their radio performances, their live performances have the advantage of interaction with the audiences.
The Lunaba even tried their hand at their first video, working with a missionary from another mission. They hope to be on television soon, or at least on popular and cheap VCDs. We thank the Lord for “expanding our territory.” This ministry will only be blessed if we continue to grow as Christians. As we expand, I asked them to also go deeper in their relationships to Christ, because our work will only be blessed to the extent we walk closely with Him.
Listener Response
Some of the bus drivers in the capital play our radio plays in the public buses so all the passengers hear them. The radio station in the capital says our plays are the most popular program they air. Radio drama seems to be fulfilling a Lunaba felt need for entertainment. The audience is more receptive to hear the Scriptures after becoming interested in a cultural story, often a humorous or sad one.
In one play about forgiveness, a woman refuses to forgive her neighbors when their son spills 2000 cfa worth of her sauce and breaks the dish. Then she ends up needing forgiveness from the same neighbors after her son accidentally injures their daughter when trying to kill a bird in a tree. A neighbor intervenes and tells the parable of the unforgiving servant, and both families forgive each other. After listening to that play, one lady said that she stopped quarreling with her husband's other wife.
In another program Awa asks Bintu to write a letter for her because she can't write. In the letter, Awa asks her brother for money because her husband works gathering frogs and that doesn't provide for the needs of their family. Awa asks Bintu to keep this a secret. Bintu doesn't keep Awa's secret and eventually it gets back to Awa's husband Tahiru. Tahiru is angry with her for spreading their secret around, but forgives her. Awa's friend Fanta says, “See, you should have accepted when I asked you to come to literacy class. By now you could have been writing your own letters and no one could learn your secrets. You would be able to read God's Word too.” Fanta counsels Awa to respect her husband regardless of his profession. Awa goes to literacy class and learns to read. Awa is able to help her daughter with her homework and read her children a Bible story.
We began airing these radio plays on the FM Christian station in the capital for eight dollars for a half an hour, with a potential listening audience of a million people. They say the plays are their most popular program. The format seems to be easier for people to accept than a didactic teaching or preaching style. We have heard comments such as, “You Christians do good work. I'm still another religion, but I enjoy listening to your plays.”
The plays are now airing on 55 FM radio stations and one shortwave station which reaches all of western Africa. Our production center is in a village working at a Christian radio station with a good recording studio, which has graciously allowed us to record there.
Why does this work?
- These programs address issues of their lives that are felt needs.
- People do have a felt need for entertainment and enjoy stories with moral lessons and this provides us with an open door into their culture to let them hear Scripture.
- It's non-confrontive.
- It speaks to people in a culturally relevant way.
- It attains a wide audience.
Through our Lunaba radio theater we are trying to communicate the message of the Bible in familiar forms. Both funny plays and tearjerkers seem to be the most heavily requested stories when people buy cassette copies of our radio plays. Plays that provoke a strong emotional response, joy or sorrow, seem to be the ones that people remember the most. Most of our listeners probably would not even begin to listen to a Christian sermon, but they're quite happy to pay attention to half an hour of theater, even though our plays always contain Christian characters who share Bible stories. Our message, which probably would not have been heeded if it came knocking at the front door, seems to slip in quite acceptably through the back door, after our listeners have become interested in a story.
Another team could adapt our scripts to its own cultural context. But be forewarned: it is a lot of work and requires someone on the team who can edit recordings on a computer. Don't try to do this on live radio; send in an edited recording, because it takes a lot of editing to sound professional!
The idea spreads to neighboring languages
A neighboring language group produce 13 half-hour programs per year which are re-aired every three months to fill one half-hour each week of the year. These programs air on three radio stations. They observed what we were doing and started doing likewise.
While many Scripture Use projects may find it too daunting to create a program every week, producing thirteen a year like this language group did is a feasible goal alongside other activities of translation and literacy in a project that has some consultant-checked Scriptures.
Chronological Bible Stories and Scripture Readings on Radio and Cassette
Some language groups do not have the resources to develop radio theater, but can take a few days to record their Scripture on cassette. We made cassettes of the Gospel of Mark in another related language. We had only two readers alternating chapters back and forth, one man and one woman. The one who was not reading the chapter read the section titles. We added a few songs at the beginning and end. The translators later told us:
- “When we got back to our village, we played a copy of the first Mark cassette for our house helper Mariyam. After work she bought the first cassette and I gave her the second one. She went home and listened to them over and over again until the batteries in her cassette player died well after midnight. She told us she would very much like to become a Christian, but that her husband wouldn't like it. Her husband told her to stop playing those cassettes. Then he changed his mind and said he'd like to listen to them too. He is still thinking about what he heard.”
We are encouraged hearing that someone listened to the Gospel of Mark over and over again until after midnight.
In addition to the plays, we recently edited together a second series of Lunaba radio programs that tell key Bible stories in order, from the book of Genesis through the book of Acts. After each story there are comprehension and discussion questions, with pauses for the listeners to talk about their answers. Large numbers of cassettes with these stories have been played in many Lunaba courtyards. Recordings can be as valid of a means of Scripture publication as books can be.
Scripture in Song
Often we hear it said that music is a universal language, but actually every culture has its unique musical style just as every people has its own language. Ethnomusicology workshops allow local people to write their own Christian songs, putting Scripture into song and putting worship into song. Workshops for local Christian musical composers allow people to sing in a style they are familiar with instead of only translating words to Western tunes which may sound odd to their musical sensibilities.
We held a workshop with ethnomusicologist Dr. Roberta King in which six language groups composed its own cassette of new Christian music, each in its own ethnic style. Each group was encouraged to base each song on a passage of Scripture, and to tie all the songs together around a theme. In our Lunaba group, we decided to use the theme of God's love for us and our love for God, because the Lunaba musicians felt this was the most key concept to communicate to the Lunaba. Their religious book does not speak of God loving us and of us loving God, so each song took up different aspects of this important theme.
This is the same sort of music you could hear a local religious leader using to teach his disciples with. It sounds like Lunaba music, but it carries the Christian message in a container more familiar to Lunaba ears than western hymns would be. We often finish our Lunaba radio plays with one or two of these songs.
Conclusion
Herbert Klem[1] wrote in his book Oral Communication of the Scriptures: “If we learn to provide instruction in Bible knowledge within the communicational structures used by the majority of the people, we will improve our potential for reaching the masses with the Word of God, and also improve the ability of the people to identify with the Christian message in order to receive Christ into their hearts and lives. For purposes of evangelism and leading converts into a better working knowledge of the Word of God, indigenous oral communications will more effectively reach the great majority of the people than written presentations. It is urgent that the Christians of Africa be encouraged to study, appreciate and make skillful use of indigenous techniques to reach their own people. Rather than inhibit or resist this use of African cultural patterns in evangelism, missions need to accept, appreciate, and encourage work with these media!”
Publishing orally by radio or cassette is a useful strategy along with publishing print materials in oral cultures where a small percentage are literate. In ancient Israel as well, only 5% of the Israelites are estimated to have been literate. There needs to be a literate segment of the society to preserve the Word, but even when it is not a large portion of the population, the others may still have access to the Scriptures by listening. The book of Revelation seems to have that model in mind when it says, “Blessed is the one who reads and those who hear” (Revelation 1:3)
We know that Faith comes through hearing the Word of Christ (Romans 10:17). We know God can do “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Eph. 3:20). Let us use all of our creativity in imagining how we can best present the Word of God to oral cultures in ways they can most readily understand.
Bibliography
* Pseudonym
