First Week

Well, I have just finished my first week here at Trans World Radio.  I drove in last Friday and met up with Chris, who I met in Nashville at the National Religious Broadcasters convention and who introduced me to TWR.  He and his wife warmly welcomed me and took me out to dinner.  

I took the weekend to get situated and explored a little bit of the Raleigh area.  It’s beautiful here, tall thick trees crowding together wherever there’s a place to grow.  To a Nebraska boy who’s used the wide open plains, it can be a little disorienting, even claustrophobic.  Thank you Mom and Dad for the GPS system.

Monday, I was thrown right into the mix.  We started the day out with devotions, I met a lot of different people, had a tour of the building, all immediately followed by me having to film the president of TWR, Lauren Libby.  It all went fine though, he is a very personable man (and also a midwestern, a Kansan born and raised).  He has just begun his service with the organization after finishing with the Navigators, and has been traveling the world getting to know the people of TWR. Everyone is real excited with his arrival and his vision for the future.

I spent the rest of the week getting oriented, learning tons of information about TWR.  It is quite the ministry with a real unique approach to sharing the gospel.  Radio may be seem old hat in our American culture, but everywhere else in the world it’s still a powerful medium.  There are numerous stories of how churches have started from one radio handed out by TWR.  People listened to the daily programs and practical teachings in their own language and learned about God, and quickly small groups and even churches start forming around one little radio.

With my supervisor, David, we started into what they were looking for in video content.  One of the videos I will be making is a short piece informing donors about the rusting of their radio towers on the island of Bonaire.  There are huge salt farms in Bonaire and the salt in the air is causing the towers to rust very quickly.  They need to raise money to fix these towers or they may be in danger of collapsing.  That would be a huge problem, both financially and in their ministry, because these towers send out TWR’s radio programs all over South America and Cuba, preaching the Gospel daily.  Other videos I will be making include creating a library of stock footage and a recruitment video for a missionary convention in St. Louis.

Everyone here has been really great.  They are very warm and welcoming and I have had my fair share of free meals.  I even got to go out for barbeque with Lauren Libby.  It’s great to hear all these people’s stories; most of them have spent a lot of time in the missions field.  They have been all over: Guam, Singapore, Swaziland, and Bonaire, just to name a few.  It’s been quite an experiential week.  I even went to a Brad Paisley concert with an Austrian girl who is here for just one week.  She had never even heard of Brad Paisley, but she really enjoyed it!

Thanks again for all your support, both financially and through your prayers.  I leave this coming Thursday, the 11th of June, to go to Venezuela and Bonaire for 10 days.  Please keep me in your prayers because I will be traveling alone to unfamiliar territory.  Also pray that the shoots go well and I’m able to gather all the footage that is needed.  

Thank you so much again and God Bless!  I’ll be writing again shortly and probably from another country.