The Vision -
Dr. Wes Stafford, President of Compassion International, has said, "The Church is God's Plan A to serve the world; He has no Plan B." I couldn't agree more. Nothing in this world could excite me more than seeing God's people unite in loving Christ and serving the world. In a nut shell: I want to see "those of Jesus Christ" (Phil 2:21) united in Christ.
This project is about building toward that goal. In my own life, God has used the stories of missions, His work around the globe, to challenge and grow my relationships with Him. By being involved in His work I realized His power to heal, to save, to change peoples lives. I saw this as He brought new people to faith in Jesus, healed wounds physical and spiritual, and did all this through broken people who were changed by Him too. Hearing and being part of these kinds of stories change my heart. It made me realize that the Church is Gods plan to serve this world and missions is God's plan to prepare the church for that service. As believers enter into his work and become part of it new members are brought in, but also those already saved grow closer to Him. I think Aslan said it best in The Last Battle, "Come further up, come further in!" This is the Invitation Christ makes to us in missions.
And that is my part, to give the invitation, to encourage others to go deeper. I call myself a Visual Story Teller. Simply put I let people see what they didn't know they missed. My goal in this project is to tell the story of God's work in Africa, and through these stories I want to give the people of Jesus Christ the opportunity to be engaged in missions, to accept the invitation to "Come further up, come further in."
The Plan -
The simple version is "Tell the story of what God is doing in Africa." But how do you do you do that?
The first part is to find the story. I plan to travel to Africa and over the course of two years travel to 15 different countries. While I'm traveling, I will be staying, living, and working with World Venture missionaries and helping tell the stories of their lives and work. By being in close proximity to the people that God is using to touch and change lives in Africa, I will have immediate access to those stories.
Now to tell those stories. The plan is to present the stories as 5-7 minute documentaries about what is being done; as well as 30 second to 1 minute video job descriptions that will
highlight the variety of skills and people that are needed. There are always problems and complications with any production. Scheduling, weather, technical issues, and a myriad of other problems complicate even the multi-million dollar budgets of Hollywood story tellers. Now imagine one person dealing with those issues in a third world country where electricity is unreliable at best and any number of different languages is spoken amongst deep cultural divides, and you can begin to imagine the challenges that I will face while producing these stories. But I have one thing that Hollywood doesn't. The master Storyteller is my Executive Producer. I am confident that as I am faithful to follow, the Lord will lead and guide me in telling His story.
The last part of any production is distribution. Thanks to the marvel of information technology, it has never been easier to share these stories from Africa with friends and supporters in the US and around the world. As I am able to I will upload these videos to the internet and through a network of supporters and friends, start spreading the stories across social media channels such as Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, and Twitter.
The Details -
Where: My first destination will be World Venture Headquarters, Colorado, USA. I will have a one month internship with the communications team at World Venture. I will be working out an last minute details and arranging scripts, visas, schedules, and scouting stories.
From there I will travel to Kankan, Guinea, in West Africa. Using this location as a home base of sorts, I will travel out to the surrounding countries to begin production.
When: In February, I hope to begin the Internship with World Venture and then Travel to Guinea in March. Before I can do this I must 100% of my financial support raised.
How: $3900 per month - These costs will cover my housing, visas, travel, and equipment that will be needed for production over the two year trip.
$12,000 - in one time gifts is needed to procure equipment and flights to Africa.
Many details are still being formed and I continue to trust the Lord that He will reveal to me each step that is necessary as I continue in this project. Please check back here for more details as they become available, or sign up for the newsletter to receive email updates.
