Kicking off 2012, Steve was promoted here at Create International Thailand. He likes to say “More responsibility, longer hours, same pay.” As the new leader of the School of Frontier Media, Create International’s flagship training program now in its sixteenth year, Steve is enthusiastically preparing for a June 29th start of school date and actively recruiting international students. You will certainly be hearing more about this training program from us in the future.In the meantime, both Allyson and Steve work in the Create International’s Global Communications and Resource Centre, which is a team designed to serve the rest of our international teams worldwide. Allyson is currently working on an Evangelistic Toolkit video that can be used by short-term missionaries to increase their effective witness to Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims. Meanwhile, Steve is working with Barry from Canada to finalize the Marwari evangelistic film that was begun back in 2010. Time flies when you are making movies. The girls are up to their eyeballs with homeschool with Northstar Academy and adjusting very well to life in Chiang Mai. Rachel is happily participating in the worship band here at the base, and Abigail has put the most effort into the tasteful decor of her bedroom. Rachel actually just celebrated her 17th birthday here, marking Thailand as the third country in which she has celebrated her birthday. Can you name the other two?
February 14th through the 28th, Steve will again return to the Create International: India Centre in Jaipur to provide video production training to international students. Steve really loves being able to work closely with the Create India team in what has become a regular invitation to come and teach. Gratefully, the trip’s overall expense is greatly reduced for 2012 due to our current proximity to India. No more red-eye flights halfway around the world. Please pray for Steve’s journey that he will make the most of every opportunity to teach, encourage, bless and strategize about future evangelistic film projects with the team in India. A very large percentage of the evangelistic films we hope to produce before 2020 are for people groups in India, so you may hear a lot about trips there in the years ahead.Looking back, we’d like to thank everyone who made special contributions in the last quarter of 2011 that helped finance our trip to the Call2All Conference in Los Angeles and our brief Christmas break in Massachusetts. We were so grateful to be home with family over the holidays and especially to spend some time with Samuel. We miss him every day and often our biggest challenge is living so far away from someone we love so much. Samuel is doing very well in his Sophomore year at UMASS Amherst, and recently resolved a bad roommate situation that was causing him undo stress. Unfortunately, his car is deteriorating rapidly. We are prayerfully hoping another car can be provided for Samuel sooner than later, and we believe in a God of miracles.
The Call2All Conference was of great strategic importance to Create International, and we are pleased to report that it was a great success.Our hope was to share our vision for reaching unreached peoples through media to other missions organizations so that the work of our ministry would be multiplied around the world. We saw a number of groups come forward who accepted responsibility to create evangelistic films for a number of unreached peoples around the world. We are already seeing the fruit of the 20/20 Vision firsthand.
With millions of people isolated from the gospel today, without churches, Bibles and even missionaries, it’s become increasingly important to use media to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. After nearly a quarter century, Create International has realized we can’t do this alone if want to achieve our goals and see the world come to Christ in our lifetime. The 20/20 Vision is an attempt to share our expertise, vision and mission with like-minded people willing to use all possible means to share the gospel with those who otherwise would not hear. Thank you for being a part of the 20/20 Vision and making it possible for us to share this crucial message in Los Angeles last year. We will have many more opportunities to share this vision in the future and are grateful for your prayers to continue this work.
Lastly, you may have seen photos online lately and wondered why Steve’s sister is here with us in Thailand. Michelle has joined us for the next three months as a student on the first ever Create International Discipleship Training School (CiDTS). We are thrilled to have her here and we are doing our best to be good hosts. We spent two action-packed days together in Bangkok on our way back to Chiang Mai from Boston, and gave Michelle a proper introduction to Thailand, including a tour of the Grand Palace. Lord willing, we will continue to show here the more auspicious local attractions so stay tuned for the virtual tour. We are doing our best to find the most affordable or free fun we can have locally! If you would like to be the next friend or family member to visit us, just let us know. (Although we think our friends the Johnsons will win since they have probably already booked their tickets to be here in March.)
