This week, we asked our Flickr contributors to focus on missions…
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Interview with John Prichard & Jack Fairweather…
Student filmmaker, John Prichard, with missionary, Jack Fairweather. John spent his senior spring break shooting footage for a short film about Jack's ministry to street kids in the Philippines.
You don’t have to be around Jack Fairweather long to get a sense of his calling… Like most missionaries, he can’t help but tell you the stories.
John Prichard has a air of anticipation surrounding him… Starting college at the University of Colorado (Denver, not Boulder, he’s quick to point out) this fall dominates the landscape in his life.
I finally hooked up with the two of them today at the offices of LifeChange International, an organization that provides accountability and guidance to missionaries on four continents, and the conversation that we had was challenging, inspiring and engaging.
Jack got back from a four-month visit to the Philippines in May, to attend his graduation from Denver Seminary and begin raising support for a permanent mission there. He has a vision for building an entire community, 100 orphaned children and 57 impoverished families just to start, to provide these kids who live on the street with shelter, food, clothing, medical care and education, to help families without the means to care for their kids with housing and a means to become self-supporting. As he talks about it, I can’t help but get excited about the possibilities.
Jack started working with people in poverty while he was a student minister in Omaha, NE. Sensing that this was something God wanted them to pursue, he and his wife, Tammy, trained to be medics and went to the Philippines to serve people in poverty there. He tells us about an evening that he observed several young kids laying out their cardboard beds on the streets and thought, This can’t be right, in the Kingdom of God, this just can’t be right.
Kids in the Philippines end up on the street because their parents die, are unable to care for them or get duped to sell them into human trafficking scams. The child-welfare system is overwhelmed and even with other charitable organizations operating in the country, tens-of-thousands of children under the age of 12 have no homes, no family and no food to eat.
John is wearing a t-shirt that says, Give blood, play rugby, and that makes me smile. I happen to know that he plays rugby and has had his share of bumps and scrapes. He’s good-looking, athletic and smart. He articulates his ideas well and I have to continually remind myself that he just graduated from high school. I ask him why he wanted to spend his senior spring break with some of the poorest kids on the planet instead of being on the beach with the hotties. His response amazes me, Outreach is the most important thing that Christians can do, he explains, And I wanted to make the film to bring back some of the emotions of serving the poor that people here can’t even imagine.
John has built homes for the poor in Mexico as well and describes the conditions there: In Juarez, there are families that live in holes… literal holes in the ground. And as poor as they seem to us, these kids in the Philippines would seem poor to someone from Juarez… These kids in the Philippines don’t even have a hole to sleep in. Seeing the conditions in the Philippines, has changed him and given him purpose. He wants to work internationally as a filmmaker and bring attention to the conditions that exist in developing nations and challenge people to take action to help.
Jack hopes that John’s film will bring awareness to the plight of the poor and kindle a passion to serve the poor among Christians… to give a voice to the poor and to help Christians see God’s heart for those living in poverty. John wants the film to engage people emotionally and help them see that they can and should be active in making a difference in the lives of the poor.
I ask Jack about the kids and he’s ready with stories. When they went back in January, their plan was to study logistics, do some work with a clinic and NOT take-in any kids; but by the time they came home in May, they had 7 kids living with them. A Filipino friend is taking care of them while Jack and Tammy are here in the states. He talks about a little boy named Raffy, and gets a far-away look. Tammy and I will be his caregivers when we go back, he says… I suppose some things are too close to his heart to delegate…
On Monday, we’re going to share Jack’s stories about Raffy and a little girl named Joy-joy and how you can become involved in this ministry …
You can make a tax-deductible donation to Jack’s ministry through LifeChange by clicking here.
Want to see the pre-release version of John’s film? We’ll post the link later today…
Initiating Contact…
"This is Joe, let me tell you his story..." Tree by brionnasweetie2 on flickr
Do you know any missionaries… personally?
I remember the very first conversation that I ever had with a missionary… I was 11. The conversation was about Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, which had just hit theaters. He was excited about the movie and I was feeling very mature because a bona-fide grown-up was having a conversation with me.
One minute we were debating whether Darth Vader was lying about being Luke’s father… the next minute, we were talking about hand-carved jewelry from Sri Lanka and how selling it was changing the socio-economic landscape of the village where he worked.
It’s been like that with virtually every missionary that I’ve known or talked to… They simply can’t help but tell their story.
Let’s help them…
Phil Cooke observes that “branding” is the visual hook for your story (in his book, Branding Faith: Why Some Churches and Non-profits Impact Culture and Others Don’t). What a number of independent missionaries need is a branded presentation that provides audiences with a visual hook. For a skilled graphics designer, this isn’t much more than a doodle.
The other thing that could really change the impact of a missions presentation is a video or some quality photo images. We’re going to talk later in the week with a student filmmaker who has put together a brief documentary-style presentation for a missionary. I’ve seen the pre-release version of the film and it’s great. It presents the vision and mission in a powerful and engaging way that makes a great opener for the missionary’s presentation…
I mentioned poor photo quality yesterday and I wanted to touch on that again. Church groups that go on mission trips should take a photographer and let that be her designated job for the duration of the trip. I have been trawling through Flickr.com, looking for mission trip photos to invite to our Flickr Friday slideshow. There are LOTS of photos of the “people on the team” but almost never any with the missionary and very few good shots of the people being served. In other words, the photos are for the home church, not the missionary.
This is where the focus needs to change and this is the practical reason that the artist should initiate contact with the missionary. We’ve got to find out what his story is… then we’ll know which photos to take, what footage to grab, which of the people being served has a story that the missionary likes to tell in presentations.
The other reason that we need to initiate contact is spiritual… Artists have critical thoughts like, I could take a better photo than that one, often because the Holy Spirit is speaking to our hearts about a need we can fill in that person’s ministry. Initiating contact becomes a matter of obedience to God.
In the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt 25:31-46), Jesus makes it clear that once we become aware of a need, we are responsible to meet it as if it were Jesus himself in need. These missionaries that we’re talking about live that out in their daily lives and we can contribute to that work in ways that are empowering and engaging.
And remember that offering the works of our bodies as living sacrifices is our own spiritual act of worship (Rom 12:1)…
Are you getting any ideas?
Missionary Slide Shows…
"I want to tell you a story about Joe. He's the little boy on the right... the one looking at the camera... can you see him?"
Bring a missionary with a compelling story into my church for a presentation and I am almost instantly reduced to a blubbering wad of tears and snot… It doesn’t matter if they have slides or media or authentic costumes… I am drawn into the stories.
I am the exception… not the rule.
Most people, especially in the US, are over-stimulated by media. So, if the presentation is dull or too long or not visually engaging, they check out about 45 seconds into it. And we’ve all seen that mission trip picture: underexposed foreground that makes the 4 African children playing in the street 100 feet away look like tiny, black specks.
Take a quick look and go back to text-messaging your girlfriend… and totally miss the amazing story of Joe (third speck from the left) and how he came in dying from malnutrition and malaria three years ago…
Great stories + lousy media = boring presentation.
So, in the minds of church-goers there are basically 2 types of missionaries: interesting and boring. The interesting ones raise lots of money and the boring ones struggle to get the support they need to make ends meet.
Ironically, the interesting ones often get the support of a couple of rock bands who end up raising money for them so that they can keep doing the work of their ministry… But the boring ones tend to spend a third of their time going from church to church asking for support which comes in the form of pathetic, little love-offerings.
The sad thing is that the boring ones almost always have a great story to tell. They just need a little help in telling it.
And that’s where we come in…
We’re artists: photographers, graphic artists, media designers, filmmakers, songwriters, indie bands… The visual and emotional flash that these missionaries need to engage their audiences, hold their attention and get help for Joe and other kids like him… it’s just a “doodle” for us. Seriously, a day of pro-bono work from you could make the difference for a ministry that provides food for street children in India or an orphanage in Uganda.
Give Like Jesus…
They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. -The Bible, (Matt 14:20)
“Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” -Master of the Banquet, to the Bridegroom (John 2:10)
The Miracle at Cana
Jesus did a lot of miracles. When he encountered a person in need, his first response (with a few exceptions) was to meet the need. This is certainly an example that he intended us to follow. But these two miracles were special… he did something a little different… the question is, WHY?
Why did he go the extra mile at the feeding of the 5000? He had finished his presentation… If the people didn’t pack a snack for the trip home, he was not to blame. But he had compassion on them, so he fed them. But why did he feed them to their fill and leave 12 baskets of leftovers?
And why did he change the water into really, really, fine wine? The master of the banquet thought that it was time for the cheap stuff…
I’ve always kinda thought that it was because he could… It was a miracle, after all, and why not really go for broke?
Jesus was a man of purpose… He knew his destiny and everything he did moved him toward that end. In light of that, it seems unlikely that he was just playing around.
Jesus seems to be motivated by his compassion in both instances… for the hungry mob in the one and the bridegroom facing potential embarrassment in the other… So he gives them what they need…
… and a little bit more.
And I think the “little bit more” was for us, instead of them.
Give more than what’s necessary, he says to us…
And give the best you’ve got.
Any other thoughts?
