The Sound of Music, Lesa’s 9th show at our school, and the first one featuring Sydney in a major role, finished 2 weeks ago. See photos from the show and read more about the 11 weeks of rehearsal, 85 cast, crew, and orchestra, 5 sellout performances, and 1 drama teacher to rule them all.

Tonight, Andy heads to Egypt and on Monday, Iraq. He will be serving as a videographer with International Christian Concern, an organization whose mandate is getting the world to notice Christian persecution and to fight on behalf of those who are enduring this persecution. Read more about this trip, and how you can be praying for Andy, and especially for the christians from these countries.

2 days after he returns, Andy starts casting for “A Distant Boat”(working title), the first feature-length film his team has ever taken on, and with Andy as director. Andy’s team will weed through up to 400 actors in 2 days to get down to a cast of about a dozen. Watch a short video about this film project and how you can get involved.

A little under two weeks later, and the whole family will be in Amsterdam, riding the canals and checking out the Anne Franke house, on a short 1-day layover on the way to the US for furlough this summer.

Browns in Africa, Summer 2012 world tour dates:

We don’t take it lightly that there are nearly 100 people in the US and Canada who sacrifice financially, regularly, for us to serve the church in Africa, and even the church in the middle east occasionally. We are humbled and blown away every month to see who God will use to provide the $6600 it takes every month for us to live modestly and serve effectively here.

As we’ll be starting our 3rd term as missionaries in August, we are forecasting a $27,000 shortfall in our support over the next 2 year term, due to inflation and the rapidly rising cost of living here.

• Would you please be praying about joining our support team, either financially or in praying for us? 
• If you belong to a church that values missions, would you consider letting us be a part of your church’s plan to fulfill the great commission in Africa?
• Would you please be praying for our furlough? That we would find much-needed rest in a short amount of time, especially with great distances to be traveled and quality family time that needs to be spent.

Thank you for taking the time to read our update, and to pray for our family and our ministries here in Africa.

-Andy, Lesa, Robbie, Avery and Sydney Brown

Tana films a scene with our young actor, Madagascar

OFM is pretty good at making documentaries. Over the past 5 years we’ve made documentaries in a dozen African countries, bringing light to unreached people groups and bringing prayer and support to ministries.

Most of the media we produce is for a western audience, the church largely. Connecting the church around the world with what God is doing in Africa.

But a few months ago we were presented with an opportunity to do something totally different. Something almost crazy. Something so far outside our comfort zone, on a scale so large, that God had to be behind it.

The challenge was presented to us to create a film that would “bend the heart of the African church to missions.” The church in Africa is big. It’s strong in many ways. But it has traditionally been lacking in mission vision, in seeing its role in finishing the task of the great commission among Africa’s 900 unreached people groups.

As our team brainstormed how to do this, we realized we needed to do it through the form of a drama. Presenting information only goes so far, and in Africa, particularly, story-telling is the primary form of communicating values and mores.

And as we discussed what this drama would look like, we realized that a 20-minute short film wouldn’t have much effect or opportunity to spread. A truly African story, for an african audience, told in an entertaining and dramatic way, that could end up in every church in subsaharan Africa or satellite TV, or theatres. This would have to be feature length.

Our writer sequestered himself away, and with an outline of ideas by the team, cranked out a 90 page screenplay in a couple months. We started looking at Kenyan screenwriters to partner with to flavour and rewrite parts of the script with authentic dialog and characters. We started looking at actors, directors, cinematographers, and studying films being produced from Kenya and the rest of the continent.

Now we’re in the process of raising money. Lots of it, but not as much as the higher-end Kenyan films, since our salaries are already covered as we are support-raising missionaries first. And we’re hoping to find actors and crew that are Christians, believe in the value and purpose of this film and willing to not try to retire early from this film. About $125,000 is what we need.

Right now I’m in the process of casting, which I hope will take place in the few weeks between my Iraq trip and our furlough starting June 2. After we return in Kenya at the beginning of August, and assuming we’ve raised the necessary funds, I’ll jump into the end of pre-production and start directing. We’re slated for production during September, October, and part of November.

Exciting! And a little intimidating, as a director who’s never directed anything. But at least I’m married to a director…

See more about the film project here, and how you can get involved.

85 cast, crew, and orchestra

5 sellout performances

1 drama teacher to rule them all…

Our high school’s production of “The Sound of Music” took place recently over 2 weekends. It was the biggest show Lesa’s done since “The King and I“, in terms of length, numbers of students involved, size of the set, and the size of the undertaking. The show was a smashing success, and for our family was a particularly memorable experience. With Lesa as the director, Robbie playing in the orchestra, Sydney as Gretyl (the youngest Von Trap child), Avery running projection in the tech booth, and Andy running spotlight (and as technical director), it’s been an exhausting but rewarding couple of weeks leading up to opening night. The opening night was a smashing success, in everything from set to costumes to singing and acting.

 This past weekend has been a rough one, though. Friday night’s second act was nearly drowned out by a thunderous rainstorm. Sydney woke up Saturday morning with a 103 degree fever, and we quickly arranged for the other Gretyl (Lesa double cast the children’s roles for situations like this). Then, minutes before Saturday’s matinee was about to start, the piano player suffered a grand mal seizure. The cast and crew were pretty shaken and scared, and the performance had to be cancelled before it started (while Andy was desperately trying to prepare to sight-read the piano score for a 3 hour long show).

The show will resume on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday this week, with a new piano player (not Andy… someone who actually has time to practice) and hopefully Sydney back on her feet.

Our Masai friends who’ve been staying at our house this weekend must think every day is like this…

We Christians in Iraq feel that we have been left behind, and that we have nothing… from the day the US military left, Christians felt themselves in total disarray. Violence related to religious sectarianism increased. Our people have been slaughtered, massacred, and murdered, and we have nowhere to turn.”

A friend of mine works for International Christian Concern (persecution.org) and has worked on behalf of persecuted Christians in Afghanistan and Egypt and throughout the middle east.

He’s asked me to accompany him on a trip next month to Iraq, as a videographer, to tell the stories of these believers, and why nearly 2/3 of Iraq’s Christians have fled the country since the war on terror. I’ve been asked to produce videos that will end up being used for advocacy in congressional offices and for the ICC organization.

While not part of my official duties with Africa Inland Mission, I feel these are important stories to be told. The same kind of stories I feel called to tell from Africa. Just not in Africa this time.

Canon Andrew White is working to secure my visas, and the date of the trip is rapidly approaching. In the meantime, I’m looking for donations for my expenses during this trip, which will probably be less than $2000.

If you’d like to be part of helping bring awareness through video of the plight of the Iraqi church, please contact me. And please be praying for my visa to come through in time for this trip.

Maasai guys overlooking Mt Suswa caldera

This weekend (March 4, specifically) marks Avery’s 10th birthday. Tomorrow he and I will head out in our Land Cruiser, to the floor of the great Rift Valley, and then ascend a dormant volcano, Mt Suswa, where we will go caving and climbing and exploring and camping and sit around the fire cooking meat and talking man-to-little-man.

I took a similar trip with Robbie when he turned 10, which ended in a great adventure and near disastrous consequences involving a cape buffalo and a fight with a baboon.

I’ve been reflecting a lot recently on what it means to be a man. To be a dad. To be a husband. To be a follower of Christ. How I stumble all the time trying to be good at all these things, but how my identity is wrapped up in all of them. And I pray for my sons to find their identity in these things someday as well.

Which is why I like having adventures with my sons. When Robbie and I climbed 16,000 ft Mt Kenya in December, we did it for the adventure, for the lessons in persevering through something difficult, and for the discipleship time we could have when not catching our breath or passing out from exhaustion.

I hope to have a small bit of that this weekend with Avery. To laugh and sweat and get dirty and smoky and talk about the manhood that he is rapidly approaching and that his brother is awkwardly experiencing. About what it means to respect and love his sister, respect and love his mother. About what it means to find your identity in being a son of the king of the universe.

A lesson I’m still learning, day by day…

After 3 months of post-production, I finally finished “Bound to the Past”, our short film from Madagascar, based on the true stories of 2 of Madagascar’s least reach people groups.

Read more about this trip, the craziest OFM trip ever, here.

• On-Field Media
• the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
• Lesa’s first choir concert
• Robbie’s video from the top of Mt Kenya
• Avery’s broken arm
• Sydney cute as ever
• and our need for year-end donations

Robbie, Sydney, Avery on Christmas Eve

Holiday Greetings from Africa! We hope you all have had a joyful Christmas holiday and are able to spend this time slowing down, enjoying friends and family, and celebrating the incarnation of God into our world. We have certainly been using this past week to unwind and take a deep breath – our lives have literally slowed down to a halt the past few days, which has been quite lovely. Its been a full semester of activities and ministry for the whole family and we wanted to fill you in on what’s been going on with us and what is coming up. We thought we’d give more details than usual, just in case you’re interested/have some time to read! We really wanted to give you a picture of our everyday lives here in Kenya!

Andy and Lesa

Just when we think our ministry here in Kenya couldn’t be better, He refines it even further to fit who we are.

As you all well know, we tend live life at a high level of activity. Over time, we’ve begun to understand that this is how God has uniquely made us and called us to serve His people. So we don’t feel overwhelmed at all that God has us doing right now, in fact we see everything as opportunities to serve with the gifts, experience and passion that has all come from Him. Just when we think our ministry here in Kenya couldn’t be better, He refines it even further to fit who we are. Of course, it is always our challenge to balance ministry, family, and time to just BE. We see that challenge as part of His calling for our life and we look to Him for the grace and strength to fulfill our calling. So, here’s what He’s been doing in with us:

Andy on location in Madagascar

OFM: It’s been a busy semester for Andy, with a production trip to Madagascar, a 2 week trip to the US for a film festival in DC, and our latest short film that gathered more than 25,000 views and international news coverage. It’s quite humbling and occasionally frightening to be breaking new ground in frontier mission work with our films. But we trust strongly in God’s plan, and are thrilled to be entrusted with such a role in His kingdom. If you haven’t seen or heard of this latest film, please email me and I’d be glad to share it with you.

Andy and Lesa leading worship at ICF

CHURCH: Lesa and I continue to lead worship and coordinate the other worship teams at our church, International Christian Fellowship, which continues to grow and has reached our seating capacity. Please pray for Andy as an elder, as we seek how to shepherd an increasing number of new people, and how to either add a service or a second campus to our entirely volunteer-led church.

LESA’S WORK: My job changed a bit this year: I now am the Director of Music (choral and worship) and Theatre for the high school and I am helping to lead all the Fine Arts at the school (we have 8 Fine Arts teachers total for K-12).

Lesa directs "I Go To The Rock" - click to watch!

This semester the high school Drama Department put on the play, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the Vocal Music Department had two concerts in which I directed Rosslyn Singers (our auditioned choral ensemble of 35 high school students). I taught two other classes this semester as well: Introduction to Theatre and Worship 2 class, and directed the chapel Worship Teams and a new Drama Ministry Team, which devises its own student-written material for chapel. Next semester we will produce The Sound of Music in April, will have 3 choir concerts, and I’ll be teaching an Acting class and Worship 1 class.

It would all mean nothing of course if it weren’t in the context of discipling teens in their faith and mentoring them as artists and leaders.

In two weeks I’ll be leading, along with two other sponsors, a group of 18 amazing seniors to Olepishet, the Maasai village where Andy and I do development work. This will be my third time taking a high school group there and I know it will be a great experience for them. Be watching for photos and an update on the trip, what work projects we’ll be doing there, and the changed lives of students as a result of the relationships they will build with this incredible community. This is my 4th year at the school, and so have built some strong relationships with the students, walking with them through hard times, and building lots of great memories together. This is an everyday privilege and I sometimes have to pinch myself – its a dream come true!

Enjoying the view from our Land Cruiser roofrack

HOME: It’s important to both of us to leave work at work – so our work days are quite full and then we come home, switch hats, and keep going! Thankfully, so much of what Lesa does in drama and music actually includes Andy and the kids, so the productions and concerts are often a family affair! As you will read below, we have three great kids and being mom to them is a joy and an adventure! As you’ll see, we’re reaching the phase of life where our kids’ activities are increasing, so we’re finding out a bit about the whole taxi-ing thing from one activity to the next. Thankfully, most of their activities all take place on the school campus – as they attend the same school where Lesa teaches.  We are also learning about being the parents of a teenager now. Of course, we’re in denial about the fact that we’re even old enough to have a teenage child, though! As you probably know, we are in our 6th house in Kenya and have been working on making it a home (though somewhat tentatively, because we never know when we’ll have to move again). We do love our newest home, though. God has provided abundantly. We are within walking distance of the school and have neighbors who are great friends.

GRAD SCHOOL: Finally, I (Lesa) am two semesters away from finishing my Master’s degree in Theatre Education from the University of Northern Colorado. I’ve learned so much about theatre AND teaching and I can’t imagine how I taught anything before I took these classes! I will be working on my thesis over the next year and hopefully will graduate in December 2012! My thesis will focus on drama programs in the international school context. Maybe, if its good enough I’ll post it on our website… just in case you were bored and wanted a little light reading! We are so grateful to everyone who has helped us financially with the school bills. You have truly made a difference in my life and the lives of my students who I’m training for a lifetime of using their gifts and serving throughout the world.

Robbie

Robbie vs the Volcano - click to watch!

Robbie is 13 years old now, in 7th grade and is really starting to shine in his gifts and interests, which are many. He is quite a talented trombone player. He’s first chair in the 7th/8th grade band and will play as one of two trombone players for the high school production of The Sound of Music in April! He is taking private trombone lessons from a man who has his master’s degree from Juliard and obviously we are thrilled for this opportunity out here in Kenya! He ran track this year for the first time and had a few track meets around Nairobi and one overnight meet out in Kenya somewhere! He has been learning to do tech for various events in the theatre – running the spotlight for our last high school play and for the recent all-school talent show. He has six different roles in the upcoming middle school play, 30 Reasons Not to be in a Play.He is the Publicity Crew Manager for the play, as well, and has plans for some videos he’ll be making to advertise the play. He does very well in school and is very disciplined to do his homework and practice his trombone every day (we’re not exactly sure where he got this self-discipline – certainly not from us!). His biggest interest right now, though, is in writing. He is typically found in our household either with his nose in a book or on the computer, writing on one of a few novels he is currently working on. He’s quite serious about it and we’re excited to see how God will use all of these creative and technical talents in the future! Finally, he and Andy took an epic trip last week – climbing Mt. Kenya, a 16,500 foot peak. It was a few months late – a sort of “rite of passage” for his 13th birthday. Check out the video Robbie made about the climb!

Avery

Avery and his first cast in 2 years

Avery is turning 10 soon, is in 4th grade, and, as you may have heard, has another broken arm. Yes, it’s his 4th broken arm! How did he do it this time, you are probably wondering?! Answer: doing a back-flip off a swing at recess, surrounded by the entire 5th grade class shouting, “Jump! Jump! Jump!”You never know when you wake up in the morning that you’ll end up at the hospital that day with another kid with a broken bone, that’s what Andy and I always say! This is the 8th break between the two boys! It was the worst break yet, so it has actually slowed him down a bit… but not too much. This boy is like his brother in that he is very creative, but in a different way. Avery is constantly building something. Often it’s Legos, but more often than that it is with junk that he has found around the house or outside. It is a normal sound to hear him hammering outside or dragging pieces of wood around the yard. He usually is making something with a function, so he is now the family engineer. When Robbie had a recent science project for which he was to build a catapult, we were talking about it at the dinner table. Avery was silent for a moment and then said, “I know how you can build it!” He proceeded to launch into a five-minute, detailed description of exactly how to make a  catapult out of found objects. We all sat there with our jaws on the floor… the kid is smart! He does very well with his studies and finds it quite easy. He has a fantastic teacher (who happens to be married to Sydney’s teacher!) and loves school. He is very observant and helpful: cooking with me in the kitchen, finding lost stuff, helping Sydney with whatever she is trying to do, helping a babysitter know what to do, etc. Avery takes piano lessons and also plays inter-mural sports every chance he gets. So far this year he has participated in soccer (football, as its called here!) and softball. His favorite sport, though, is running. The most important day of the year for him is Sports Day, which is coming up on January 21st. Last year he won every running event he was in! Watch for the video of this year’s event (and pray that his cast is off by then!!) He full of energy and is truly a joy!

Sydney

Sydney, cute as ever

Sydney is 7 years old and in 1st grade. We can hardly believe how big she is getting – she was only 2 when we moved to Kenya! Her strongest characteristic is still her personality. I often hear, “Oh, you’re Sydney’s mom!” from people who have taught her in Sunday School or substituted in her class. She is friendly, active, enthusiastic, bubbly, and bright. She thinks she owns all of my students, and therefore pretty much knows every high school student on campus – and they, of course, know her. She’s starting to read more and more (took her a while, because socializing was always more important!) and loves her class and her teacher. She is also beginning to shine in her gifts and interests. Last year she took ballet from one of my students and really loved it. All summer she fervently prayed for a ballet teacher to come, since my student had graduated. Not surprisingly, in answer to her prayer, an official ballet studio (The Royal Ballet Academy!) was opened up in August near our house, and so she has begun “official” ballet classes. This is in the British system of dance, so at the end of each term they have to do an exam in order to move on to the next level. This next term will be the first time she will do an exam. We are amazed this opportunity has come up because we really wanted her to take dance but had figured it just wouldn’t happen here in Nairobi. It is a constant reminder that God is a big God and can do anything! She is also taking piano lessons and is really starting to take off with it. She has begun to do a lot of playing worship songs by ear, which thrills her parents, of course!

Year-End Giving and Support Status

Reminder:

Dec 31st postmark

for 2011 tax deduction

Give here:

It is always part of the challenge of living in Africa as missionaries that we have to trust God for our finances. Though sometimes we let ourselves get worried, He shows us over and over again that He will provide. We have no doubt that He will do so again. The world economy, as you know, has been crazy. The rising costs of fuel, food, and utilities affect us just like it does you. It is hard for us to have to ask our supporters to continue to give and to consider giving more, when we know that you are also tightening your belts. Nevertheless, we know that it is part of how God does His kingdom work and we trust that if He calls you to give to missions, He will also provide for you abundantly. We are currently very under-supported and our funds our dwindling. We need new monthly supporters and we need large gifts in order to continue our work here. We have a furlough next summer (see below) where we will hopefully gain new supporters and churches. For now, we are asking if you would prayerfully consider giving a year-end gift (post-marked by December 31st for your own tax purposes) and/or beginning to support us monthly in 2012, if you aren’t already. It is solely through friends and family like you that we are able to stay here and continue the work God has for us. It is a sacrifice for you, we know, and we are so humbled and grateful for all of you that give so faithfully. OH, in case you didn’t know, our mission has moved its head-quarters to Peachtree City, Georgia.

Next Summer

We are currently working on our schedule for next summer, when we’ll be in the States for furlough. We plan on visiting all of our churches and trying to see as many of our individual supporters as possible. We’ll let you know the specifics as soon as we know it, but at this point the rough plan is to start in Virginia, travel our way south, and then over to the mid-West. We’ll end up in Michigan at the end of July for a wedding. Then, back to Kenya for the start of the school year at the beginning of August!

In Christ,

Andy, Lesa, Robbie, Avery, and Sydney

Robbie narrates his journey with dad to the highest mountain in Kenya, and the 2nd highest point in Africa: Mt Kenya.