Media Missionary Focus

Reality Is More Than What You Think! (Trying To Keep Up With God's Timing)

Reality seems to consistently outpace my expectations. I just spent some time on the phone last night catching up on how things are going with media ministries back in Cambodia, and my thought was “Wow!”

We have been very fortunate to be able to work in partnership with another missionary there from the Australian Assemblies of God named Rebecca Williams. She has been a HUGE help in numerous ways. Let me tell you a bit of the story of our movie project / production company.

I was first approached in 2003 about doing an evangelistic film in Cambodia. I was on a trip to the Philippines working with Asia Pacific Media Ministries (APMM) and I sat down for an afternoon with two of APMM’s key guys, Bill Snider and Jeff Gregory, and an independent missionary/film maker named Steve Cadd and they shared with me about a project they had first tried in Mongolia. They had partnered with the local church to help them produce an evangelistic film, and they had provided the funding and equipment and training for the project, then when it was finished they left the equipment with the people they had trained so that, theoretically, they would have the a functioning Christian production company, including state of the art equipment and trained personnel and a commercially viable movie that would help fund the next project and get the ball rolling to provide the church with a long term voice in the media industry. The jury was still out in some respects on the Mongolia project (it wasn’t yet clear if there would be an ongoing company or not), but they wanted to take the lessons they had learned there and move on to another country and try it again, and they were interested in Cambodia.

Honestly I was somewhat skeptical. Any time you start giving away thousands of dollars in equipment, etc there is a huge potential for problems. I told them of my concerns and about problems that had occurred in Cambodia in the past when something as simple as a musical instrument had been given to someone, but I said I would check with some other missionaries and church leaders to get their reactions. Most of the people I talked to shared my concerns. But when I got to Rebecca and we started talking about it, we came up with a solution that seemed to address many of our concerns; we would take a music production company that she was in the process of setting up and expand it to include a video production arm as well (check previous post for more details on some of the issues we were looking at). So, to make a long story short, I have been working with her and her team to help them facilitate their video production work, and we are in the middle of the film project (training and script writing with filming scheduled for January and February).

The “Wow” factor comes from where they are as a company. The goal was that the film would really help to put them into an industry leading position and help them to begin developing a reputation for quality work. Well, they have jumped right over the film step and are ALREADY starting to take a lead in the industry! Since I left they have started a youth oriented radio program and are in the final stages of starting up a weekly TV show as well. Both of these shows use music and musicians to address social issues and to show how we should address them according to Biblical principles (this fits in perfectly with the company’s goal of using their position in media work and pop culture to give them a platform and voice from which they can then plant an inner city church aimed at Cambodia’s inner-city youth). Now they also just were contracted to direct the TV coverage of Cambodia’s three day water festival in October! This is the biggest event in the Cambodian calendar and coverage goes out to surrounding countries as well! This is HUGE! They are already being seen as being in the top of their field! As for long term impact, this means they are already becoming a commercially viable company, so they will be able to continue to be salt and light in the community, and give a media voice to the church, without outside funding. They are already becoming an indigenous, self supporting Christian entity! In addition, they are quickly gaining a reputation for quality work so that when the movie is released, or when they do concerts or other projects, people will be ready and willing to listen and see what they are saying and doing; it gives them credibility and an existing relationship with their target audience that will allow them to effectively share the gospel!

So all this means that the company is light years ahead of where I thought they would be! Like most things that God is involved in, he operates on His own timetable. Sometimes that means we have to wait for Him and His timing to be right, and sometimes it means we are just trying to keep up with what He is already doing!

posted by Troy In Cambodia @ 9:29 PM