Kenya Mission

No, I didn’t just step off a plane from Africa with a memory stick full of pictures from the bush. I wished I had gone on the mission trip members of my church took last October. Our brothers in Kenya desperately need our help. Have you seen the news lately about the prolonged drought plaguing the country? Just to today I read the headline “U.N. facing severe food shortage in Kenya” (A.P.). News like that makes me realize how important my new video project here in the states is to those who need a miracle.

My priest handed me two DVD’s loaded with raw video from the church’s first mission trip to Kenya. “Can you make us a video to show our supporters how their contributions were used? We also want to use the video to recruit new supporters and participants for the next mission trip.” This would not be an easy task. All I have is a DVD full of amateur video and a CD packed with photographs. No problem.

I am an artist. Nothing in this world gives me as much joy as taking raw materials and working them into a beautiful creation for everyone to enjoy. I started my task by watching every frame of hand held video on the two hour DVD. The events on tape gave me an idea of how I should formulate a begging, middle, and ending to the story. Next, I needed sound to glue the video together and move the viewer through the story. Most producers write a script and have a voice talent track the story. I believed I had a better idea. Why not have the people in the video tell the story of why they went and why they need to go again? I devised a list of questions fitting my script outline to ask the folks I saw doing God’s work in the raw video. Now I’m in the process of editing the raw video together with the interviews to make a final product.

I’m enjoying playing the role of Producer and Editor. I wished I could have been on the ground in Kenya to gather the images too, but hopefully that addition to my job titles will come soon enough. The video I have has lots of good natural sound and we all know the other stuff can be fixed in the computer. For now I am happy God blessed me with a talent my church can use to help those in need. Someday I hope to leave news behind to travel the world documenting Christians working in the mission field. Imagine using my God given talent to work for the big man himself. Could there be a better job than that?



These pictures are of the Massai men the mission team visited on the trip. The Massai are nomadic cattlemen who are natives of western Africa. The Massai man in the top photo had six wives, forty to fifty children and several hundred head of cattle. A wealthy fellow by Massai standards. The man in black below is Father Dan Whitt. He is my priest and the leader of the mission trips. If you are interested in the work I or my church is doing in Kenya, please send me an e-mail and I can send you a copy of the video and a newsletter about our work.

This post was previously posted on Colonel Corn's Camera in March of 2006.