Top Ten Lists (34)

Rachel and Rachel and the Worship Team

Chiang Mai Forecast

Top 10 Things We've Learned to Live with in Thailand:
    1.    Being so far from family and friends :(
    2.    100+ inside with no AC
    3.    Living beneath the CNX airport flight path, loud three legged street dogs, squawky lizards and other frequent noise intrusions
    4.    Babbling Thai with the vocabulary of a two year old
    5.    Being bare foot indoors almost all the time
    6.    Driving motorbikes on the wrong, ahem, left-side of the road
    7.    Eating rice or noodles with nearly every meal
    8.    The high cost of cheese
    9.    Getting our fresh water from a vending machine on the street corner
    10.   Locking ourselves in with padlocks every night.

A Chiang Mai Park

10 Things We Love About Being in Thailand:
    1.    Thai food every day, baby!
    2.    Motor-biking on the wrong, ahem, left-side of the road
    3.    Thai Lessons with Pii Watt our Thai tutor
    4.    Monday morning worship with Rachel & Rachel (And sometimes Peter and Kyla!)
    5.    Our International Church community at the House of Praise
    6.    Ten baht ice creams (about $.32)
    7.    Waterfalls, mountain views and tropical flowers
    8.    The King of Thailand and his good reputation for his many achievements
    9.    Friendly Thai people (The Land of Smiles!)
    10.   Working with our cool Create Colleagues from around the world.   

10 Fun Facts About our Family right now:

Michelle & Steve

    1.    Allyson and the girls will be back in the States this summer to get a new Thailand visa
    2.    Steve is about to welcome the School of Frontier Media students to Chiang Mai
    3.    Samuel just had a straight A semester at UMASS Amherst 
    4.    Rachel has joined three different worship bands
    5.    Abigail has been accepted at Grace International School and starts her sophomore year in August
    6.    Allyson just celebrated her 43rd birthday and still doesn’t look a day over 31
    7.    Steve’s doctor in Thailand reports “Your diabetes is under control. Good job!”
    8.    Steve’s sister Michelle just completed her Discipleship Training School here with us at Create International! We are really going to miss her. (That’s Michelle in the photo)
    9.    Our girls will be bringing back a friend from Falmouth for a visit to Thailand in August.
    10.    You can view a short evangelistic film that Steve directed with Create India media students earlier this year here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOV0ooR5DxM&

Abby in the Hospital

10 Praises & Prayer Requests:
    1.    Praise our Lord God for Abby’s full recovery from Typhus last month (not Typhoid Fever)
    2.    Please ask the Lord to wipe out our medical debt for Abby’s hospital stay ($1250)
    3.    Thanks be to God that the girls are able to fly home for their mandatory visa run and for the friends, family and churches that contributed to this substantial financial need
    4.    Please pray for the girl’s safety in travel and for additional funds to come in to pay for the Thai visas and the other extra expenses in the States
    5.    Praise the Lord for Abby’s acceptance into Grace International School
    6.     Please ask the Lord to provide more regular support to cover increased monthly and quarterly expenses here in Thailand including the tuition costs for our children
    7.    Praise God for the six students coming from four different continents for the School of Frontier Media (officially starting June 29th)
    8.    Pray for Steve to have great wisdom, patience and sensitivity for leading this media missions program and for the students to make the most of their experience
    9.    Pray also that Steve will feel better soon and to have the strength to endure very long work hours for the next six months (often 60+ hours/week)
    10.    Pray that many Indians in Rajasthan will come to the Lord after hearing the Gospel for the first time as they watch this new short film (link above).

Our Regional Field Director Reports (33)

Ripe for Harvest get-together 2012

We were very surprised and blessed to recently receive the following endorsement from our Regional Field Director of Ripe for Harvest in Asia. Although technically speaking we are now fully with YWAM, we still maintain a relationship with our original sending agency, mostly because they are a great bunch of people.

Dear Ministry Partners of Steve and Allyson,

My name is Steve Hines. I am the Regional Field Director of Ripe For Harvest in Asia. Part of my job is to visit all of our missionaries within this region. Although we are no longer directly responsible for them (now that they are with YWAM), I just wanted to share with you how inspired I was, recently, as my wife and I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Steve and Allyson, your missionaries serving in Thailand and other countries in Asia.

Create International: Thailand

Steve gave me permission to write to you to give you an update on their ministry. Before I go on, I want to sincerely thank you for your financial partnership with Steve and Allyson. From what we personally saw and experienced, their ministry is meeting a tremendous need as they continue to give their lives wholly for the Lord's work and the expansion of His Kingdom.

We arrived at their beautiful facility and were warmly greeted by a smiling Steve and offered coffee and cookies as we settled into our chairs. We were amazed to learn about the incredible and diverse ministry that they are a part of. Their work in teaching classes to the new volunteers in the School of Frontier Media (Create’s program to equip volunteers to be part of the worldwide missions’ movement through media) and making powerful films with life changing stories using native actors, authentic music, and in the languages of unreached people groups is truly outstanding!

Steve (Not Steve Hines)

These evangelistic films that their team (called Create International) makes are used by missionaries and local workers in many countries in their evangelistic campaigns. Media is so popular all over the world that it is a great tool for sharing the gospel! We saw their enthusiasm in their work and we can tell that they clearly enjoy the calling to which God has given them! We got a chance to view some of their latest films and hear about upcoming projects and it made us proud to be a little part of their ministry and I'm sure you are, too!

Our time spent with Steve and Allyson and their girls (Rachel and Abby - Samuel is currently in the states at the University of Massachusetts) was a blessing. We praised the Lord for the work that they are doing.

Your partnership is bringing in eternal dividends beyond anything you can imagine! If you haven't done this yet, check out their web sites at

http://7lampstands.org and www.createinternational.com

Ally at the Create International table in Cebu

Space will not allow me to share with you all that I saw and experienced during my time with Steve and Allyson, but I would like to take the liberty to bring to your attention two needs that they presently have. First, their personal financial support is down and they currently need an additional $1000/month in regular monthly support. Additionally, the girls have a visa run coming up where they will need to return to the states to get new visas for Thailand. The current estimated cost of that trip is $7900. They no longer have their funding processed with RFH so please remember to follow the YWAM instructions. Without your continued help, none of this would be possible. Steve and Allyson are pressing on for the glory of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Please prayerfully consider these two urgent needs that they have.

I hope that this short letter will be an encouragement to you. Our prayer is that you continue to partner with them through your prayers and support as they diligently spread God’s love and forgiveness to those throughout Thailand and the peoples of other nations that they are able to touch with their films and seminars.

Warmly in Christ,


Steve Hines

Ripe for Harvest 

(Steve also supplied the first three photos above taken during his visit to Chiang Mai.)

Indonesian Princesses

On Facebook Steve has been uploading one photo every day from his recent trip to Indonesia. If you are on Facebook, stop by and enjoy the virtual, ongoing tour. 

Ally's Observations & The Indonesians (Vol. 32)

Last night Create International hosted an event which invited ministries from all over the city who were encouraged hearing stories of what God is doing all over the world. We were spellbound as one missionary told us of the growth in the Mongolian church from four teenage girls in the early 90's to hundreds of thousands today. Mongolia now sends the highest percentage of missionaries per capita of any country in the world.

Another man told us about what he believes is the call on Pacific Islanders to sweep through Asia and the Muslim world. Islanders are gregarious, fun and relational: just the perfect witness type for our relational brothers and sisters in Islam. Men and women from Tonga, Samoa and the Hawaiian Islands are answering that call and bringing in the harvest.

A South African mobilizer recalled Gandhi’s famous quote regarding Christians in South Africa, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” South Africans, he said, had the opportunity to influence Gandhi for Jesus. Now workers from South Africa are being raised up with an anointing to influence the hardest, least reached people groups of India. We watched a video of men and women visibly possessed by evil spirits who mutilated their bodies and walked unscathed across a pit of coals heated to 800 degrees in a Hindu fire-walk ritual. Praise God for how he is raising up more workers to speak life and freedom into that darkness.

A speaker from the Hawaiian Islands talked about contextualization – a favorite topic here at Create! He asked us to imagine our perfect mate proposing marriage. Now imagine this unexpected follow up: “I love you,” says your perspective mate, “but I'm really embarrassed by how you dress. Here's a list of approved designers.” You catch your breath in surprise. “Mmhmm,” he continues, “and your hair. We'll have to talk about that, too.” Now you're starting to get annoyed. “One more thing. The music you listen to. Forget it. I have a selection of CDs you can choose from.” How loved do you feel now?

There is a great need to redeem and reclaim the varied cultures of the world for Christ. In many places, the enemy has hijacked the distinctive qualities of a people group: music, dance, theatre, acts of devotion. An enemy who cannot create but can only steal has set his sights on the very best reflections of God's character. We are blessed to work in a ministry that searches out the parts of a culture that defines them but also points to the uncreated Creator God who loves them and made a plan of salvation for them.

As I write this, Steve is in Indonesia doing just that for an unreached Muslim people group. This trip is an opportunity to serve God that you have made possible because of your partnership with us. Thank you for your prayers for this project, we are pleased to report that production has been going very well.

God loves these people very much and sincerely wants them to know Him as we know Him. These photos are some of the people that Steve has met in Indonesia, people longing to know God. Thank you for your faithful prayers, generous support and your timely financial contributions that continue to fund the creation of these culture-affirming, life-giving, people-saving evangelistic films. Your contributions to this work are making an eternal difference in the lives of people like these. God bless you for making a substantial, eternal difference in their lives.

Pray:

* for the peoples of Indonesia to have more opportunities to hear about Jesus

* this project is successful in sharing God’s story through this culturally-appropriate film

* that post-production will go smoothly down in Australia with our team in Perth

* local ministries will find indigenous workers to help translate the movie into other local dialects for more widespread distribution of this gospel movie

* God will send more workers to the 196 primarily Muslim remaining unreached people groups of Indonesia.

We also have some upcoming needs that we would like you to pray for. The girls in the family have to travel back to the U.S. this summer to renew our yearly visas. And to see Samuel, whom we miss a lot! At the same time, Steve will be preparing a new set of international students to go on an overseas outreach (possibly to India) for another evangelistic film project. All this travel adds up quickly and we will need several thousand dollars above our current budget to meet all these goals. Thank you for your prayerful consideration.

Bless you all and Happy Easter!

March Madness (Vol. 31)

We have entered into a very busy season here in Chiang Mai, so here is a brief newsletter to catch you up on what is going on.

India: Steve has just returned from another short teaching tour of India. He had several purposes in going, and despite a nasty cold and fever, God was with him. His trip started in the northern part of the country where he visited Brother George at the New Theological College in Derhadun. While there, Steve shared the vision of Create International in chapel, provided media resources to a local ministry, and encouraged students to expand their witness using contextual evangelistic media.

Steve then returned to our Create International center in Jaipur where he taught a week of video production on the Media DTS. It is an honor to spend time with our team in India while teaching new students how to create media tools for evangelism. The team in Jaipur is strategically positioned within a group of unreached peoples called the “Rajasthani Cluster.” This group of over 65 million people who have virtually no indigenous church will likely be the next focus for our upcoming evangelistic media outreaches. It is exciting to help prepare students to reach out right in their own backyard.

The team made a short film for Rajasthani Jaipuris as a class project and you can see it here:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=365647356788645

Call2All Philippines: Last November and December, our family had the privilege of participating in the Call2All Congress in Los Angeles. The Call2All Movement is ongoing and the congresses are held in many different places worldwide to mobilize the entire body of Christ to answer the call to the Great Commission. In Los Angeles, we were asked to head up the first ever Media Track of workshops. The need to use media and new tools in evangelism is becoming more widely recognized. Because of our team’s success in LA, we were asked to participate in the next congress in Cebu City, Philippines. So on Monday, March 12, Steve and Allyson will be away for the week at this conference to represent Create International, deliver a plenary presentation to the entire congress, and provide workshops on Media That Transforms Nations. Rachel & Abigail will remain in Chiang Mai with Steve's sister Michelle (who is loving her DTS experience here in Thailand and getting ready for her outreach to India in April.)

Indonesia Outreach: Steve's passport will barely have time to cool down from the flight from the Philippines before he is heading out again! On the 20^th of March, he heads to Indonesia for three weeks to help produce an evangelistic film for a Muslim people group. He will be joining the Perth Australia Center’s School of Frontier Media outreach production team. We will be able to share more information about this project after production is complete and we welcome your prayers for the success of this vital mission.

School of Frontier Media, Thailand: As if all this travel wasn't enough, Steve is working steadily to prepare as the leader of the next School of Frontier Media here in Chiang Mai. The school begins in late June, but there is much work to be done to process applications, contact students, invite speakers, and set up all the logistics.

Allyson & the girls: Allyson's time is split between household duties, facilitating the girls' homeschool and working in the Global Communications & Resource Office. The girls are busy being full-time students. Rachel is part of the worship teams here at our center, and Abby is learning to play the Ukulele. Slowly but surely we are getting our household furnished and supplied. We have a long list of things we could still use, probably the most pressing are air conditioners as we move into the hot season. Right now Chiang Mai is covered in a haze of smoke from crop burning that is going on in the countryside and fresh air is a real need right now.

Prayer:

Please pray for:

Protection: for us as we travel and the girls as they remain in Thailand with Michelle

Finance: air travel within Asia is certainly less expensive than flying from the States, but the costs do add up. Please pray that God would continue to supply all we need. We seek his direction before taking on any assignment and know that he is faithful to provide where he calls.

Energy: Travel, teaching, presenting and planning all take a lot of energy. Please pray that we have all we need and enjoy the times of rest as a family when required.

Health: the air quality here is actually in a state of emergency right now because of the fires and we are literally praying for rain.

Provision: to continue supplying our apartment and turning this house into a home

Favor: as we deliver a message of God’s heart for the nations to international visitors in the Philippines so they will be better equipped to use media effectively for missions

Thankfulness for all God has done to provide for us and enable us to continue this work for His namesake.

We are really excited to be so busy and happy to be doing the work that we dreamed about for years! We value you all so much and love the Facebook posts and emails when you check in with us. We are constantly thanking God for you. You are truly our partners as we try to be faithful to what God is asking of us. Thank you so much for your partnership and prayers. Bless you all!

New Year, New Jobs, New Opportunities (Vol. 30)

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.)

Prayer Changes Things (Vol. 29)

We just sent a newsletter out a few weeks ago, so this is just a brief update with important prayer points for the next few months.

Praise: God has been very faithful to us that despite continuing to be under funded, we have been provided with many necessities for our life here in Chiang Mai, Thailand. During the most recent outreach in Southern Thailand, we often witnessed God intervene and provide all we needed for our production. We are happy to have over half of the finances we need for this upcoming conference trip to the USA. Give praise to God for all he has done to keep us active in ministry here in Chiang Mai.

Bangkok flooding: Thailand is experiencing the worst flooding in 50 years because of a very wet rainy season and overflowing rivers. Unfortunately, the water has flowed south into Bangkok to get out into the Bay of Thailand. Not only are millions losing everything, hundreds have been killed and there is concern that the entire crop of rice is ruined. Rice is Thailand's greatest export and will have devastating effects on the economy. Please pray for those in charge, and those being effected, that they would come to trust the true Creator and that Thailand would recover from the flood.

Pattani Malay Outreach: .

Steve and the team recently returned from shooting an evangelistic film for a Muslim people group in the south of Thailand. Please pray post-production (editing the film) would continue to go smoothly and that through this evangelistic film many would come to know and understand the Gospel. Among the several million Pattani Malay in Thailand and Malaysia, there are only a few hundred known believers. Pray for a breakthrough in reaching these people and for the handful of faithful missionaries in that area.

Call2All Global Congress in LA: Our family has been asked by our ministry to travel to Los Angeles to participate and present at the Call2All Missions Conference. This is a very strategic meeting of missionaries from all over the world who are interested in completing the Great Commission. As a ministry we are leading the conference's first ever "Media Track" to teach and equip missionaries how to use media to increase the effectiveness of their ministries. We are excited about this opportunity and Steve is one of the event presenters sharing about cross-cultural filmmaking. We are personally short in our finances for this trip, so please pray for the provision we need. Pray for our team to find favor with new partners and to encourage and equip many missionaries there. We will need stamina, focus and unity in the long days ahead

Travel: We will leave for the conference in LA on Monday, November 21st and we will return to Thailand on December 31st. Sometime after December 5th we hope to fly to Boston for a short break to be reunited with family over the Christmas holiday. We are so excited to see Samuel most of all! Please pray for safety in travel on many long flights and layovers and for our timely arrival of our luggage. Continue to pray about our finances as we are hoping to avoid going into debt to cover the travel expenses.

Apartment: Until recently we have been living in two bedrooms in a shared house that serves as Create Thailand's main office in Chiang Mai. This has been a good arrangement during the School of Frontier Media, especially before Allyson, Rachel and Abigail arrived. Now we have rented a little apartment nearby and will be moving in just before we leave for Los Angeles. Having our own apartment will be a great blessing and we are really excited to settle in. There are a few start-up costs including purchases of appliances and furnishings that come with setting up a new home, so please pray for provision there as well. Regrettably, after signing the lease our relationship with our landlady has been unnecessarily strained over some misunderstandings. Please pray for her and for a restored relationship with us in the future. We hope to both call this place our home, and for it to serve as a place of hospitality for our Thai neighbors and missionary colleagues!

School: Through all this travel and transition, Rachel and Abby are working diligently on their homeschool. It's been a lot of work and we are frequently feeling a little discouraged and overwhelmed. Keeping on top of studies during this upcoming trip will be especially challenging. Would you please pray for encouragement and diligence for all of us? Samuel, also, is finding his Sophomore year to be very challenging so he could use prayers as well!

Thanksgiving: In this season of Thanksgiving we give thanks to God Almighty for the provision that has enabled us to achieve this calling on our lives. We know we are extraordinarily privileged to serve God in this capacity as media missionaries and we love our jobs serving the Lord full-time. We also give thanks for you: your prayers and your frequent financial contributions make it possible for us to continue this ministry. May God continue to bless your efforts to give the least reached peoples of the world an opportunity to see and hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ for themselves. Thank you for being a part of our team! Happy Thanksgiving!

Southern Thailand Production Report: Vol. 28 November 2011

Southern Thai Muslim Film Production

In the past three years, Steve has contributed to three different Create International movie productions: Buddhists (Shan 2009), Hindus (Marwari 2010) and now Muslims. We are pleased to report that principal photography is now complete on our most recent production. Through many daunting difficulties and uncertainties, our Father enabled us to produce the first-ever evangelistic film in the Southern Thai dialect, contextualized for muslims in Southern Thailand living on the Malaysian border. As a ministry this may have been the first time we ever auditioned an Imam (Muslim religious leader), or that we were invited to a village by an Imam to shoot a film about the teachings of Isa Al Masih (Jesus the Messiah). Steve was really proud of the contributions of everyone on this production, and especially the SFM students who were on our film team. The film is now in post-production where it will be edited over several months, so you will hear more about it in future. In the meantime, Steve will be publishing one photo per day on Facebook with more details about the production. Thank you again for your prayers and financial support that has enabled us to create this evangelistic film for Muslims to hear the gospel for the first time. Your support will have a direct, lasting impact on muslims in this area.

Flood of the Century

You may have seen in the news that Thailand is suffering from what is being called “The Flood of the Century.” It is certainly the worst flood in recent history, and has had very serious consequences for the whole country. Bangkok’s 12 million residents are under the imminent threat of more flood water, and many places are already below six feet of water that will likely take a month or more to recede. Supermarkets all over the country are growing bare as supply lines have been cut off due to washed out roadways. Please pray for the people of Thailand and especially relief and rescue workers and those making some very hard decisions in the days ahead.

Call2All Global Conference

In our last newsletter we wrote about the upcoming Call2All Global Congress in Los Angeles (call2all.org). Of the $10,000 we require to cover the event and travel expenses, we are pleased to report we have already received sufficient funding for our biggest expense: our roundtrip airfare from Bangkok to Los Angeles. We are now hoping for the other half of our need to cover the roundtrip tickets from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, and for Los Angeles to Boston―as well as the hotel, rental car and meal costs. Thank you for your contributions that have brought us to the halfway point and for those of you who are already contributing to the rest of our need at this time. We depart on November 21st and will need all the funding to come in before then to be credited to our account in time. Your partnership with us will allow us to reach out to many other members of international organizations prepared to use media to share the Good News to more Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims worldwide. In the new few weeks, we are editing a behind-the-scenes video that we’ll share with film professionals in Hollywood to demonstrate how we create cross-culturally relevant evangelistic films. We are also preparing our presentation to train other media missionaries to use our techniques to effectively create evangelistic films. Your prayers and financial contributions are giving us a great shot at multiplying the effectiveness of our ministry a hundredfold. Maybe more. Only God knows, yet we are excited to think about the possibility of many others joining our effort to see more of these films made in the next ten years. Thank you for joining us in this exciting time of growth and expansion for our ministry. "

I have a strong sense from the Lord that this California Congress will help bring each of us into new levels of effectiveness. Opening up possibilities that we have never seen and helping us to achieve the best results possible in our callings." Mark Anderson, President of the Call2all.

Meet Wole, an SFM Student from Nigeria:

Weeks ago while Steve was teaching scriptwriting to many international students, Wole from Nigeria really blessed him by turning in this assignment during a creative exercise. We have his permission to share it with you. Wole writes: “Larry Airington was iCool's best salesman. So, when iCool ( a budding air-conditioning company) got an opening among the Yupik (Alaskan Eskimos), they did not think twice before handing it over to Airington. It was up to Airington to figure out how to sell Eskimos on air-conditioners! That is much like what Steve had to do this week. . . . teaching Scriptwriting to students who'd rather be out in the sun all day shooting video than to spend twenty minutes writing non-stop. However, by the end of the week, Steve's preparation, masterful teaching skills, and fun-pragmatic approach paid-off―every student had 3 or 4 “air-conditioners” all purchased from Steve! Thanks Steve for making authors out of budding directors, actors, gaffers, etc. I learned something new about giving careful attention to your herds this week as I watched our Speaker Steve teach us, interact with us during lunch and dinner, listen to us, go with us to karaoke, do the dishes, etc. I think that is a powerful demonstration of Proverbs 27:23: Be sure to know the condition of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds.” Thanks again, Wole.

Go here to see Steve’s Call2All Conference presenter profile:

http://call2all.org/Groups/1000080183/Call2All/Events/Call2All_Global_Congress/Presenters/Presenters.aspx