This was originally written on December 8th. It’s just taken a little while to get it posted this month:
Being the person who has their phone and internet turned off for not paying the bill, is not a part of my normal self image. In fact, I typically see myself as a good credit rating, bills-paid-on-time sort of person. So Friday when our phone suddenly stopped making outbound calls (but continued to recieve calls) I figured that our prodigal Telkom was striking again. That may require a bit of clarification. Suffice to say that we’ve had all sorts of problems with Telkom, from failed/sub-standard hardware, to service outages, to inexplicable billing. Friday morning, when the phone stopped, I thought we’d give it a bit of time and see if things resolved themselves. This was an easy decision since I don’t really like talking on the phone much. Saturday morning when the internet went out, I got a little more uncomfortable. But I figured that was just confirmation the line was messed up some where and I assumed they were working on it. However, by Sunday, when none of our neighbors were having problems and we were still without service, I picked up the phone — the cell phone — to call Telkom.
I’m not a fan of making phone calls. I don’t know why, but I have an almost irrational fear of it. Making them in German is even more scary. Often, when conversing in German, my fears are realized, and I can’t understand a word the person on the other end of the phone is saying. However, this phone conversation went fairly smoothly, and after a few attempts the Telkom representative made it clear to me that they had not received our last payment.
Virtually everything here in German is handled via electronic funds transfer. When you recieve a bill, it comes with a little yellow slip you fill out to have the funds transfered, or you can go online and transfer the funds directly from the bank. These transfers are not instant, however. They usually take 24 hours. You probably see where this is going. We’d payed the bill, but because it’s been a very challenging season for us financially, we’d paid it at the last minute. Some hiccup in the process meant that Telkom didn’t process it before the weekend, and so they shut off our service. It took until Tuesday to get our service restored.
This came at an interesting time for me, though. I don’t know if it’s a stage of culture shock, or just a lot of stress, but I’ve been finding it more difficult to really make a connection with God. I often feel like He’s terminated my service, and I don’t know why. It seems arbitrary and unfair. But when I’m really honest, I realize that my sense of disconnection isn’t coming from God, but rather it’s the result of my own actions. I rush through my devotional and prayer time to get on to “more important” things. I get angry when He leads me to some struggle or trial that’s meant to shape me into a better man, instead of leading me to the prosperity and ease I desire. The communications disconnect isn’t really God’s doing at all. It’s my own, just like our service getting interrupted because we paid the bill too late. Unlike Telkom, though, God doesn’t punatively disconnect my service, He’s always tuned in. I just can’t hear Him when I drown out his voice with my own noise.
It was a very long process getting this video done. My role in GEM’s annual conference, as well as numerous other projects kept pushing it further and further back, not to mention the scope of the material being pretty challenging to begin with. However, over the past several months, how2video.org has become the permanent home on the web for the series (even if the site is still just a place holder), I’ve gotten to work with some great new people, had a blast working with some friends, and the first and probably the most difficult instructional video is done. 
Let me know what you think.
Tags: gemstone media, howto, low budget, mission, missionaries, video
This is another video GemStone produced recently. I can’t take much credit for this one, although I wish I could, because it’s really awesome. I helped out some with pre-production and on the shoot day helping track the shots and keep things on schedule, but the brilliant artistry that sells it is all the work of my colleagues, Walt and Jim.
This is the first segment from the video series I’ve been working on. The concept is to produce a series a videos, directed at missionaries, to help them correspond with their supporters via video. The hope is that this will more deeply engage the North American audience in missions, as well as helping missionaries more effectively communicate the exciting stories from their fields. The video may still change a little bit, but this should be pretty close to what the final video will look like.
(updated with video link for RSS folks)
Tags: gemstone media, gsm, howto, low budget, mission, missionaries, training, video
A number of years ago, I was editing a video. In it a man shared his life story. He was relatively old, and there was a whole lot of footage. A personal conflict had prevented me from being able to do the recording, so I’d never met him. For several weeks, I poured my every free moment into editing his life. He had experienced some incredible hardships, but the twinkle in his eye, friendly demeanor, and the sense of who he was won me over. As I watched the story of his life again and again trimming and tightening his story, I felt I’d come to know him.
A few weeks later, I ran into him at an event. Warmly I hailed him from across the room, one friend to another, only to be greeted with a cold stare and his retreating back. I didn’t really know him. I only knew about him. I had confused knowledge with relationship.
This story came to me this week as I was thinking about Jesus. In this part of Germany, you can barely go ten steps without seeing a “Jesus.” He’s been carved from wood and stone, cast in plaster, painted, and cut from tiny shards of glass. You can find him on the sides of buildings, in any one of thousands of churches, or even on the side of the road. Almost no matter where you look there is a cold lifeless figure of Jesus. In general I attribute the best of intentions to the people that scattered Jesus’ image all over the world, but I wonder, does it really help?
Do you know Jesus? Or do you just know about him? Do you have a relationship with him or just knowledge about him? Please don’t confuse the two. Relationship with Jesus will change your life. If you don’t see the evidence of that, the little changes day by day that are radically impacting you and your choices, I would challenge you to get to know him better. It won’t necessarily make you healthy, wealthy, or wise. In fact, I think in many cases it will lead to struggle, possibly even suffering. At the same time, neither wealth nor getting our way all of the time can bring us happiness, just look at our Hollywood icons. (More people we know all about, without really knowing.) A life of virtually endless money, surrounded by sycophants who indulge their every whim, yet very few of them seem happy. What knowing Jesus can give you is better than money, better even than happiness. There is a Joy in Jesus Christ, a hope that life in the future will be better, a contentment in living where he places you that doesn’t exist anywhere else in life. Living in relationship with Jesus isn’t easy, but it is incredible!
This past week I got a chain email. I really don’t like chain letters, and determined a long time ago that no matter what the letter contained, if it pressured me in any way to send it on, I wouldn’t. As they so often are, this email was a “forward this on if you really love Jesus” email. I struggled a bit with guilty feelings about not forwarding it on. However, a question struck me and I read it through again. There was nothing in this email, nothing at all, that would reveal the character of Jesus to someone who didn’t already know him. That’s what inspired this message. I want you to know that if you reach out to Jesus he will not glare coldly and walk away. He loves you and desperately desires relationship with you. He gave up being God to come down to earth and live with all the same conflicting wants, unmet needs, passions and sufferings you experience today, and then he was brutally beaten, murdered, and he overcame death. He did this, not because he needed to, but so that he could have a relationship with you. No one else in your life will ever go to these lengths to try to know you. Don’t stare coldly and turn away. Take the opportunity of a life time. Jesus loves you.
If you want to forward this on to your friends, feel free. However, please do not include any guilt trip inducing language as though somehow punching the forward button on your email is living out the great commission.
Tags: chain letters, email, Jesus, knowledge, relationship
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