Reflections

I have been in Spain for about 6 weeks and have about 6 weeks until I leave.  This has been a great experience. For my first time out of the United States, it has been eye opening to become immersed into the Spanish culture.

Being in Spain, the biggest struggle for me is the language barrier.  The culture is a large adjustment that I have had to learn and adapt to, from awkward moments when I learned the Spanish greeting (a kiss on each cheek) to the late meal times.

I came to work for IMM to complete an Internship as the final requirements of my Bachelor’s Degree in Recording Arts through North Central University in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

I am excited for what I have been doing here and the projects coming down the line. I have had the opportunity thus far to work with English, Spanish, Albanian, and coming up soon, Bulgarian.  It’s exciting to know that the work I’ve been doing at IMM is going to be heard by people around the world.

It’s exciting the way God is using IMM to give people around the world access to Jesus.  I’ve been told that IMM will have created content in about 17 languages this year alone. That’s amazing and truly humbling to be apart of some of those language pieces.

I am excited for the rest of my time here and for the impact that it might have on people’s lives.

by Joey Nance

Taking Time, Making Time

If there's anything that the Spanish culture is trying to inundate me with, it's this: time is their greatest ally, and it is wholeheartedly irrelevant.

Not that Spaniards don't care about where the hands are on the clock, but it's this inherent philosophy that anything can be done at anytime time -- all you have to do is want it bad enough. 

Just as a quick example, let's look at the eating habits that structure the US vs Spain.

Americans are habitual eaters, and people, in general: breakfast at 9am, lunch at noon or earlier, and the dinner rush starts promptly at 7pm or earlier. 

But for Spaniards, things are a little different. 

A small, sweet pastry and coffee when you wake up, and maybe you'll pick at something else around 11ish. You better believe no one is eating lunch before 1:30pm. Even then, it's time to rest that food and yourself for awhile and then continue on with the day. 

At around 4-5pm, you're going to get peckish, but this time you'll opt for something sweet.  You'll say to yourself, "Hey, that waffle with whipped cream looks good," and with all your heart, you'll mean it. Then you're back at it until the bell towers chime at 8pm--well, maybe 9 pm--and you'll follow through on your plan to have a light dinner of tapas with friends. Scratch that, they just called and asked if you wanted to do 10pm instead. You'll say to them, "Sure. That's fine," and with all your heart, you'll mean it. 

For me, this isn't a master class on lackadaisicalness, but an insight on making the most of your time and being flexible--or being prepared so that you can be flexible--when the time comes. It's my newly adhered to Structured-Enough-To-Be-Free™philosophy. Maybe there is something to tempering your day to be a little more stretched out. Maybe we should try to make our days in fact that, full mornings, afternoons and evenings where our lives are spread out so we can seek out everything in full. That bettering ourselves isn't just during the 9 to 5, and that the loss of our evenings isn't always tied to burnout from a hectic day, job or life.  That a daily regimen of contentment for our bodies leads to contentment in our lives, deeds and plans of action. That rest is a marker for work completed--even though there are no siestas here at IMM!--and its use is to encourage and reinvigorate an individual into achieving again with full force. And when it comes down to it, time is not our enemy, but a malleable fixture upon which we rest our good work.

So what I'm saying is eat a waffle in the middle of the day with the knowledge that being a good steward of our time is key to accomplishing great things, and that each and every morning we have been given a full day to work, achieve, and albeit, wrestle the clock into letting us rest, making it tick alongside our aspirations in gentle submission.

Many Nations and People Through IMM

Over the years, God has given me a heart for people in many places of the world.  Doing missions work in many countries, attending universities and working with people from many nations, receiving prayer and financial requests from missions organizations and missionaries all have had a deep impact on my mind.   Years ago during a missions convention, the leaders gave me an assignment of praying for Kurdish people.  Now, I can assist International (IMM) personnel who are preparing gospel videos for the Kurds.

God has used various means of getting me to focus on North Africa.  For six years, the bosses at my job were a couple from Egypt.  During my freshman year of college, I was fascinated when I met a student from Libya. I received heartbreaking prayer requests about the former conflict in Sudan.  God gave me a desire to reach Moroccan people when I went on a five country tour in Europe that was led by a Moroccan man.   When taking an AGTS missions course, I learned that many people in North Africa had been Christians before the onslaught of Islam.  At IMM, we are working on videos for people in North Africa.

Living in Germany and traveling in Europe caused me to long to see revival here.  IMM’s videos reach Europeans; this includes a movie viewed in secular theaters in Spain.The conflict in the Middle East burdens me.  Jesus said that people would think that they were doing service to God a favor by killing his followers (John 16:2).  This is happening.  What can be done besides praying?  IMM has been working to create videos in Arabic; one went viral to 2.5 million people.  Please pray that the Holy Spirit will use his word in the videos to draw people to Jesus.

Greetings from humid Madrid!

On Sunday night we had the first rain we’ve had in several months. This was refreshing not only for the earth, but I feel it was symbolic to what is happening at IMM. We were in a season of transition; we had staff retire and move to different places in ministry, so we were all doing jobs (and still do) that are not typically part of our job description.

However, that’s a good thing.

We have been stretched individually and corporately, growing in the new things God is doing through this ministry.

Right now, we have four short-term workers. They haven’t been here very long, but they have accomplished so much. We are also thankful that the Gregorys have joined IMM and the Desrosiers will be here soon. The experiences they bring to IMM will be an incredible addition to our team.

The rains have come to IMM! So far this year, we have done projects and translations in 17 languages, with plans to do translations in languages that have not yet heard the gospel.

It is truly amazing to see new things happen to find out God was working behind-the-scenes. Please continue to pray for God to give us new opportunities.

Heading to General Council

As Director of IMM, I am for the first time attending a General Council and we are also doing our annual board meeting after the event. 

The council is a gathering of pastors and church representatives from all over the USA to decide policies, celebrate, and seek God. I never thought of myself as part of the official crowd, but I find myself there now. 

I'm out of touch with the US church world after living overseas--this time for four years. Nearly 12 in total if I add them up. I'm looking forward to hearing the heartbeat of the US churches and pastors. I'm also looking forward to air conditioning! 

But it's a little like a kid's first day at a new school, I don't know how it works, and I hope people like me. The good thing is I know IMM has a lot of great stories to tell. 

Some of the current projects we're working on at IMM include stories in North African heart languages, French translations, and isolated regional dialects in Eurasia. It will be fun to talk about and it will be great to give our board an update.

If you're coming to council, please look me up. Or if you know a pastor coming, please connect me. I will plan to have some treats with me to share and some stories worth hearing. You can also send me an email (denise@imm.edu) for a meet up and I'll buy you a coffee. I'll be the one with the IMM shirt on!

Multiply

Multiplication has always been a part of God’s plan. His very first instruction to Adam and Eve was “be fruitful and multiply”. This multiplication was not only biological in nature, but spiritual as well. His intent was a world of people who would know and have fellowship with Him.  That reality was echoed in the Great Commission instruction of Jesus to his followers to make (or multiply) disciples of all nations.

What does all of that have to do with electronic media? Well, media is a powerful multiplier.

• Media multiplies missionary reach, making it possible to take the Gospel to more people in more places than ever before.
• Media multiplies missionary resources, allowing content to be repurposed and last longer through varied language production and distribution methods.
• Media multiplies missionary results, touching people where they are with truths that can transform lives.

At IMM, media is not our end in itself, but it’s a potent tool to help us multiply Good News to our generation. We are called to know God and make Him known through His son. That’s why we want to get Jesus on every screen!

Multiplying Visual Storytellers

I'm one of our IMM team located in the U.S. One of the main ways we serve is in mentoring and training emerging visual storytellers in other cultures. This is especially strategic in places where foreigners may not be able to live and serve long-term. I leave soon for a trip back to a very large and strategic Muslim country to help our more advanced students produce a new short film project. 

Our goal through multiple trainings is to help raise up a generation of filmmakers who can tell compelling visual stories and form the foundation of a Christian presence in the media culture of this overwhelmingly Muslim country. 

We have been working on story ideas this spring and will help our small group of students experience a professional film production process. We emphasize readily-available tools and culturally-appropriate methods and stories and we want to help them grow in their skills and vision for what they can do on their own. This is a partnership between our team, the local church in the country, and other volunteers and partner organizations who work together.

Please pray for a great experience for our students in learning more professional techniques to make films. Pray also for safety for our team and for our families as we are away from home. 

We shall come rejoicing! - August Production Blog

July and August have been very productive months as three wonderful interns from the U.S. have been working along side us.  I think about and pray regularly the words of Jesus from Matthew 7 where he tells us to “pray that the Lord of the Harvest would send workers to the field.” And He did that in a perfect way this summer as we worked on a number of projects:

• We assisted Gary Wilkinson with his documentary about Easter.
• We have fixed, exported, and delivered many lingering projects in other languages including Arabic, Romanian, Spanish and English.
• We did pre-production work on the “Education of Samir”, an agnostic Arab, for Arab World Ministries.
• We made strides in updating the imm.edu website to reflect who we are as well as better utilizing some social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Vimeo, including Vimeo On-Demand.
• We filmed 5 pieces for promotional use by our IMM missionaries and partners in North America and Europe.

One such piece was born out of that idea of harvest being so close to God’s heart and something that media can play a role in. My sister-in-law reminded me of an old hymn called “Bringing in the Sheaves”.

The repeating line is “We shall come rejoicing / Bringing in the sheaves.”

First, it is so important that we are indeed bringing in the sheaves and seeing a harvest. But what was reaffirmed to me by that old song was that we need to be laboring in the fields with an attitude of rejoicing and gladness for what God is doing!

Please pray for us that we would continue to be faithful to deliver the message that God has entrusted to us. In the next weeks, we are planning to film the “Education of Samir” and deliver it to the web in the Arab World. We also are working diligently to be prepared for the production of Tamar, the next installment in the Women of the Bible series.

Thank you all for your prayer and support!

A priority of thankfulnesS

Today at International Media Ministries, we are going to take some time out to be thankful. It's not thanksgiving season but we want to make it a priority from time to time to make space for appreciation.

We have team members who volunteer their time from the U.S. side of the world our virtual team members, and others who are Spain residents who give unselfishly to volunteer for our work to spread the Gospel. We recognize the sacrifice and appreciate these folks so much.

The often invisible partners of a ministry are the folks who send in money every month to sustain operations. It's not always exciting to put a check in the mail or set up an online auto pay, but it means that we can keep the studio operational and the Gospel going out in media form. These are amazing people who are so faithful and we are so thankful for each and every one.

We have other donors who come alongside a project and write a big check. The funds have to be there for the projects to go forward. Without the funds in place, we simply have to cut back. Sometimes this donation comes from a single church, or an individual, a business or an organization like Light for the Lost. They are all super important to the work.

Six of our team members have made the international move to live in Spain. While some things can happen with long distance help, it is crucial to have a team in place here in the offices for interacting with various nationals to put together projects and deliver programs. Sometimes people tease us it is like a vacation, but the reality is that we get up and go to work everyday like most the people in the U.S. We'd all rather see our families more often than we do, but we know for sure that God has called us to be here "for such a time as this" and that it is a privilege that God has brought us here.

Short term team members come in all the time for a few weeks or even for a year. It is pretty miraculous if we stop and think about it how the extra hands show up at the crucial times.  Since we have a skeleton staff at this point, we are aware that the work can't go forward without the bravery of people who will raise a short term budget or sacrifice vacation time to give us a hand.

As a person who is both a past short term IMMer and a present day missionary, I am thankful for the legacy of people who have come thru the ministry both in Belgium during the many years there and the more recent times since the move to Spain in 2004. The work of many hands and many years has resulted in a library of programs that have touched millions in nearly 70 languages across the globe.

We are thankful for all the pieces that make up IMM, the givers, the workers, the distributors...we are thankful for you!
 

The Excited Son

This last week was a busy week for the team at IMM and for our family.  We helped with the filming of a documentary about “Easter and The Last Supper”.  This is a project that the team at IMM has been prepping for the the last few weeks and our children, Robert and Reegan, were with us many of those days that prep work took place. 

Robert especially took an interest in all that was going on and was connecting the work at IMM with his bedtime stories.  The kids have been listening to “Dan and Louie” tell bible stories at night and the story of Jesus’ crucifixionhas been one they have become very familiar with.  Wednesday was a big day of shooting so we all had to be at the studio early to get things started for the day, Robert woke up at 5:45 with excitement for all that was going on.  When Robert woke up he asked if he could just stay up and watch some baseball from the USA, he and his father love baseball and enjoy doing this together.  After getting ready and heading to IMM Robert was asking his father about the days activities saying “Dad who is going to play the parts of the disciples that went off to pray with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane”.  This made Matt very happy to see Robert taking an interest in the stories from the Bible, connecting the parts of the story, and taking an interest in telling this story so that others can hear about what Jesus has done for us.

After seeing the emotion of Matt in this conversation with Robert, it made me think.  If Robert taking an interest in the things that his Father also cares about, whether it be baseball or sharing Jesus with those who don't yet know him, brings such joy.  How does our Heavenly Father feel when we want to share who he is, what His Son has done, and when we are interested in the things that he is interested in?

In Matthew 3:13-17 we see Jesus being obedient to fulfill scripture by being baptized by John the Baptist.  After Jesus is baptized the heavens open, God descends as a dove and rest on Jesus, "and a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."

I think the joy that we get to experience through family here on earth is just a glimpse of the joy that one day we will get to experience for eternity when we live life obedient to whatever it is God is asking us to do. 

Summer 2014 Production

For the time being, I am handling the coordination of all of our production activities here in Spain, as well as those that take place outside of our facilities here.

I am so thankful for two gigantic projects that are seeing the light of day.  "En Apatia" is being shown in cinemas here in Spain and choices about other distribution opportunities are being considered. Rahab, which was filmed in 2012 is nearing the end of post-production and will reach audiences this fall.

In July, a friend of IMM, Gary Wilkinson, is coming from the U.K. to film some pieces for his documentary covering the history of Easter. He hopes this piece will inform folks in many cultures about the myths, legends and traditions of this holiday, but also will ultimately point them to Jesus! He will be here for about a week beginning July 7th. Pictured below is Kerry Godwin prepping flats for the set: 

We also have a couple of short-term folks from the states coming to help with these July projects as well as to bring some of our older projects into usable mediums, so they can continue to live on and share Christ in many languages and cultures.

Please pray for IMM that people and resources will continue to faithfully appear as needed for these projects and the ones later in the year. (We are going to be doing 8 more short videos for the Arab World as well as Tamar for the “Women of the Bible” series).

I am so thankful to be a part of a wonderful team not only of producers, but also those who pray and give to see this media share Christ with those yet unreached!

"New" IMM team leaders

This is a great week at IMM. We welcome Matt Nelsen on board to the office on a regular basis. Matt and Rachel arrived last December and have been primarily in language school, even though we've asked them for help from time to time.

In addition, we are moving from a top down structure to a lead team structure. Matt is going to take the production team lead. It will be a big learning curve to sort out all the programming we have available in a variety of languages as well as organize new production that will keep us moving forward on new products. Of course this isn't all Matt will do. He's a certified professional in Final Cut Pro, so he will be very busy with editing projects also. 

Tom Khazoyan, one of our Denver team members, is going to field training requests and help coordinate as the team lead of training for the next year or so. No one on the team gets to wear just one hat. Tom also does editing and writing among other production skills. This week in fact, Tom is in Turkey doing training on guerrilla media tactics for people that don't have all the gear but want to impact their culture for Christ with video pieces. He is teaching people how to tell stories that impact hearts with the tools at their fingertips.

Henry Marsh is a team member based in the USA. He's in the process of raising a new budget and will be team leader of distribution. Pray his budget comes together soon! We really need his help. Henry will field requests for products we have and help network with other ministries to do new language versions to minister in more and more countries. Henry has already started doing liaison work with various offices or national district officials even while he's working on his budget. Henry will also be involved in training, production, marketing, and recruitment of personnel. In fact, one young man Henry talked to is coming to intern this summer.

Elena Monzon, who had a long career at American Express before joining us in Spain, has already been here a number of years and is team leader of office and operations. She also does finance and hospitality. She and her husband Guillermo, our building manager, help us to be able to put our energies into doing the video work rather than making sure the facilities are functional. This is an urgent matter of prayer--they will be leaving at the end of this year and we don't have replacements yet.

By moving these various areas off the plate of the IMM director, I will be able to focus more on expanding the support base of the ministry, communicating with donors,  and finding funds for projects. I will still be able to write scripts and do some production as well from time to time. I'm working on the script of Tamar: A Life Recovered right now.

We have a new couple starting the Missionary Training process this week too. Hallelujah! It's beautiful to see the hand of God at work in our lives bringing us together as a team.

It's interesting how God prepares us for things we don't know are coming. All our team leads and all our IMMers can look back and see how God built skills into them through job experience or hobbies that have become key components of their work today.