I’m very privileged to be working with James Gillett and the rest of the crew at Ireland Outreach International. I have a few upcoming projects that I’m most excited about. One is a documentary video about the people and activities at The Haven Of Hope, near Jos, Nigera. I’d like to do both twenty minute and one hour versions of that video. The other project is a series of training DVDs for Christian leaders in Africa who want to become correctors in the Emmaus Correspondence School. This will likely total sixteen hours of training and will span eight DVDs. These are huge projects that will realistically take the better part of a year to finish. So it begins!

Ireland Outreach was instrumental in building a combined medical clinic and Bible college near Jos, Nigeria called The Haven Of Hope. The project began in 2002 and is still under construction although the medical services and Bible instruction are already well underway. I have been asked to make a video documenting the activity at The Haven Of Hope, primarily to show to our supporters. I hope that the resulting documentary will help people to appreciate what is happening in Nigeria and to give God thanks for what he is doing through those at the Haven.

While I’m admittedly most excited about doing the documentary about the Haven, the training video for the Emmaus Correctors might have a further-reaching impact. When Jim travels through various english speaking countries in Africa, one of his primary activities seems to be to teach these training workshops. Many Christian leaders in Africa are keen to use materials such as the Emmaus courses but lack the relational, administrative and technical know-how to get such an effort going. Jim provides them with instruction and further resources and support. Sixteen hours is lots of training and it takes lots of time to travel from city to city and set up these workshops. Our goal with this project is to capture the essence of the workshop by shooting at several live presentations of the material and editing it into sixteen hours that form a cohesive whole. The resulting set of DVDs can be sent via post wherever and whenever they are needed.

These projects will require trips to three (perhaps more) countries in Africa and, as it stands now, we (Brian, Jim, and myself) are scheduled to get on the plane towards the end of February — probably on the twentieth. I’m still in the process of getting all the gear together that I’ll need to accomplish the shoot, and the postproduction work — I’ll be writing about how that is going shortly.