SUMMER 2012

This has been a tough couple of months. Christel and I have been hard at work on lots of big projects, for Christel it was catching up on the regional accounting, while I was shooting, editing and produc-ing the evangelistic Peruvian film, Chitachay. For both of us it has been exhausting. In the final few weeks of the film production I was spending a average of 16 hours a day in the editing room, as it was, the project was only finished a mere 2 days be-fore it’s opening night in Lima. The shoot itself required over a month away from home in Arequipa, and now that it’s over it seems odd to be back to normal working hours.

During this process my family also went through a tough time; my Uncle Steve fell suddenly ill while I was away in Peru and a month after, passed away. As always hap-pens when you lose someone close to you, it brought death home to us again in a way we don’t usually have to think about. Life is fragile, and tragedy is only ever a heartbeat away for any of us.

I worked this last week in Bue-nos Aires, Argentina and on a free day, visited the famous cemetery garden of Recoleta. This cemetery is like a gigantic city of the dead, elaborate tombs and family crypts which are built to hold the dead until the day of their Resurrection, going back to the 1700‘s. The cemetery is filled with interesting imagery about death and what it means. The art-work ranges from the quaint to the disturbing, from the ancient Egyp-tian gods to the Catholic saints, and everything in between.

Jesus describes death in a unique way, characterized particular-ly when speaking to the disciples of their dear friend Lazarus’ demise by saying, “Our friend Lazarus has fall-en asleep, but I go to awaken him.” (John 11:11) Sleeping is a beautiful image for death, but is it really like that? Why is there so much pain and sorrow if it’s just like taking a nap? What do you say about the victims of the recent Buenos Aires metro train wreck? That those 49 people who were killed as their brakeless train was pulverized against a build-ing, simply fell asleep?

But Jesus didn’t just say that Lazarus had fallen asleep, He said that He also went to go wake him up... Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life! Jesus is saying that we don’t need to fear death any more than we need to fear falling asleep night after night! For all of us who have lost people we care about, the news of the Resurrection can seem like a far off hope. Jesus says, “I am coming soon,” and we say, “when??” But as Abraham trusted in God’s promises even when he couldn’t see where or when or how God would keep them, we can trust that Christ has risen, and that He will come and wake us up as well, when we finally fall asleep and rest from our constant labor. It’s incred-ible to think that only a few month’s ago my uncle could have been reading this very newsletter, but now he is with his Savior that we all so desperately wait to see with our new eyes, to touch with our new hands, and to follow with new strength. Death is near, but in Christ we have everlasting life now, today.

I was pretty nervous. Month’s of hard work were about to go up on screen before our first audi-ence in Lima, Peru. Together with the Peru team I spent the day getting ready, sorting through the thousands of copies of Bible studies and posters we had produced, adjusting the projector lens until we had a monster 40 ft. wide HD image. When the title sequence came up in the dark-ened theater, I had a lot of mixed feelings, my part in this project is done, now it’s up to the team in Peru to use it and it’s Bible Studies to maximum effect. It’s an incredible relief, but I’m sad to see it done just the same... Of course it didn’t last long, after the premiere in Lima I had to hop on another plane to Buenos Aires, Argentina to follow up on another film project of mine from earlier. As you may recall from earlier newsletters, the seminary in Argentina is celebrating 70 years and I went to participate, show my documentary and set up the seminary with a new digital classroom for theolog-ical education online around Latin America. The new system is essentially a miniaturized TV station that the seminary can you to live broadcast their classes on the internet for students in

NOW SHOWING

Guatemala, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Colom-bia, Peru, Spain, Venezuela and more. The trip went re-ally well and we are really excited to see that Chitachay is now being used in several countries for evangelism. (we shared the project at a summit in Buenos Aires of South American Lutheran churches).

ENGLISH IS BACK Since we left Panama we haven’t been involved in any English based outreach, but with the help of our friend Katie Lane who came to spend 2 months with us here, we were able to launch a new English club in Santiago!

We call it “Branch Out” because it’s a place for people to branch out and meet new people, we have “Branch Out” every tuesday night, but unlike in Panama, these are not classes, but rather a club for practising your English by playing games, having conversations and analyzing music and movies in English.

The point of Branch Out is to get to know people in our community from something that is simple for us to offer and involves social interaction. So far we’ve had an average of 10 dominicans at our events, and we’re really excited to see where God will take it!

Please keep Branch Out and the people who we are meeting in your prayers. We are finally getting to know people in the community near our church location and it’s exciting to see that already bearing fruit, it’s been a challenge to keep coming up with new events every Tuesday however that are engag-ing, exciting, and new!

If you have any suggestions as well for group games or ideas for Branch Out, please let us know as well, we’re always on the lookout for new short vid-eos that are in English that are simple to understand but funny/intriguing etc. to discuss.

WHAT JAMES IS WORKING ON This Bible Study series will be used by our missions here in the Dominican Republic as well as around the region as a follow up to confirmation studies. The series covers all 4 gospel accounts in chronological order. The materials are actually very old, originally from the Lutheran Hour many years ago, I am redesigning and reformatting them as well as making them available digitally for people to download and use wherever they are.

BIBLE STUDY SERIES

In the Lutheran church we use an ancient liturgy that has more than 2000 years of history and tradition, while this is rich and valuable for the church, it can be hard for new members to understand and appreciate fully. We produced a one page (2 sided) version of the liturgy with color coded symbols, these symbols represent each part of the liturgy and it’s meaning and function. The laminated liturgies are accompanied by large wall posters which explain each part of the liturgy to members who want to understand better what each element of the service means. There are 4 posters for now, an introduction to the purpose and function of worship, a poster on Confession and Absolution, a poster on the Ministry of the Word, and a poster on the Ministry of the Sacraments.

Our friend and colleague Anthony DiLiberto is starting a mercy center for street kids in Lima, Peru, as part of the overall strategy for mission in Peru. I’ve been working with him to develop their overall branding as an “organization” including this logo, based off of the andean fortress architecture for the mercy centers, named “Mighty Fortress”. Besides that we designed some new materials to look for funding within Peru, such as brochures, etc.

NEW LITURGIES WITH TEACHING TOOLS

PERU MERCY CENTER BRANDING AND LOCALFUNDRAISING MATERIALS

LITURGICAL ARTWORK FOR WORSHIP SPACES IN SANTIAGOWe currently are renting out a small space above an automotive parts workshop for worship services in Santiago. The problem with this is that on it’s own the building doesn’t communicate much about who we are or what we believe. Now that we have many visitors coming into the building for different activities such as Branch Out, the congregation has decided to decorate the interior with some liturgical artwork.

I am currently developing some ideas for how to com-municate our faith in a modern and clear way through the interior design of the building. Right now one of the leading ideas for an altarpiece is a photomosaic of Jesus made from portrait photos of people around the city. We could get these photos by doing a workshop with kids from the neighborhood on photography in their own community.

The mission team and its support structure here in the Domini-can Republic is pretty complicated. We have a huge variety of different activities and people working towards the same com-mon goal. I was assigned to encompass this reality in a short (6 minutes!) video to help people who support the Dominican Re-public mission to understand how this works and who does what. The video was a real challenge, trying to get things into the time limit and condense complex information into a simple and easy to understand series of images.

Ultimately it worked out, the video was shown at the South Wis-consin district convention (a major supporter of the work in the Dominican Republic) and will soon be available on the internet for others to see as well.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC MINI DOCUMENTARY