Madagascar is amazing, there is no place like it in the world. It’s nicknamed “the 8th continent”, and for good reason… it’s not like Africa! There are no indigenous lions, giraffe, elephants, or anything predatory. In fact 80% of the wildlife and plant species here are ONLY found here! 99 species of lemurs, 6 of the 8 species of giant baobab, giant chameleons. Even the people are different: austronesian descent, rice farmers, houses elevated off the ground. Even their language is different. The whole trip was more like a scene out of Survivor: Borneo than Survivor: Africa.

Our mission was to produce a documentary about 2 people groups, the Sakalava and the Antakarana, who are among the least reached in Madagascar. Both groups are steeped in ancestor worship and possession, and we studied much about the great spiritual darkness and oppression of this place before we set foot there.

The Sakalava are well known for their possession ceremonies, where the spirits of their royal ancestors literally and physically possess the people they have chosen as mediums. And possession by those spirits would be considered the good kind of possession. There are much darker spirits that are seeking people to possess as well.

The Antakarana have a strong tie to their ancestors as well. 200 years ago there were 18 kings of Madagascar, and the Merina king decided he wanted to be king over all. He sought to rule the other tribes, and he pursued the Antakarana to near extinction. For over a year the people hid in massive caves in the coastal cliffs until one day their secret location was betrayed. Forced to flee to a neighboring island, the king of the Antakarana made a vow that if he and his people made it safely across the ocean to this island, then he and his people would follow the religion of the prophet (Muhammed) forever. Today that vow is still honored, on a superficial level at least.

Our time with the Sakalava was highlighted by an overnight stay in a coastal village, where we slept in their beds and ate fish and rice with them and entertained ourselves with singing and clapping under a magnificent starlit sky.

Then we headed, via boat and bus, to the mainland capital of the Antakarana, to see their caves and meet their king and collect the necessary permission to visit their sacred island, the cultural heart of the people. The caves were immense and bat-filled, and I was struck by the great difficulty it would take for a community to live inside of them for a year. I also ate some bat for lunch, a local delicacy, which tasted not a little like a greasy tire.

With permission granted to visit their sacred island, we headed back across the open ocean in a tiny speedboat. It was just the 3 of us, AIM’s unit leader for Madagascar, the boat captain, a cook, a translator, and some food.

It was the most “David Livingstone” experience of my life. Heading to a tiny island that our mission organization has never set eyes on in its 110 year history, and quite possibly no mission organization has ever set eyes on. Meeting people who are so cut off from the other islands that they’ve met very few, if any, foreigners.

But the people there were kind enough, and especially the “prince” of the island, to let us stay in a simple banda on the most beautiful stretch of beach I have ever seen. Turquoise blue sea, powder soft sand. Anywhere else in the world and this beach would be full of high dollar hotels or beachfront homes. But here we were, with a beautiful beach to ourselves and surrounded by small villages of 20 to 50 people each.

Contrasting with the beautiful scenery was the spiritual darkness of a place that has never heard the name of Jesus. And contrasting with the beautiful scenery was a growing pain in my throat that was making it increasingly more and more difficult to eat or drink anything. By the end of our trip I was sure I had a fishbone stuck in my throat, and tried all their local remedies: spoonfuls of honey, swallowing rice balls whole. Nothing helped, and each day it got worse. If I wasn’t so far from a hospital, or any kind of health clinic, I would have found a way to get there.

By the time we had to leave this island, a wind had kicked up and the seas grew choppy. We had a 3 hour boat ride ahead of us, and a flight to catch later that day, so we had to press on, even though our boat was not large enough to be able to handle the waves very well. Minutes into the ride we were soaked and shivering. We’d crest one wave and come crashing down in the trough and get splashed over the sides by the next wave. We just prayed our camera gear stayed dry, and we had wrapped them in garbage bags in preparation.

About an hour into this, OFM’s short-termer videographer, Tana, who was sitting across the boat from me, gasped and pointed behind me. I spun around in time to see the fin of a whale, much larger than our ship, smack the water and disappear beneath the waves. This was only about 20 feet from where I was sitting. A couple seconds later the whale appeared just behind our boat, surfacing just briefly and then slipping into the choppy waves.

If only we’d had a camera out at the time!

We eventually dried out and warmed up, made our flight back to the mainland, and crashed in a hotel that night. As soon as I got within cell phone range I called a GI doctor in Kenya to see me as soon as possible. That night in the hotel we realized how tired we were, and how little sleep we’d been getting over the past 12 days. Up at sunrise (5am), walk all day in the sun, bucket showers, mosquitos, and not very restful nights in bed, between the cockroaches the size of mice and the rats the size of small dogs that seemed to be quite comfortable cohabiting with us. The unit leader woke up the last morning with a wound on his finger from a rat bite!

I got back to Kenya the day before Robbie’s 13th birthday, and not a moment too soon. If our trip would have been 1 day longer I would have had to seek emergency medical attention in Antananarivo, the capital city. I had been planning on a 4-day, father-son climb of Mt Kenya that weekend, but had to cancel it because I was too exhausted and weak from the trip and from not eating or drinking much over the previous 4 days.

The next day, Robbie’s birthday, I found myself getting a chest x-ray to rule out a fishbone in the throat, and a scheduled endoscopy. The culprit: not a fishbone, not a bat bone, but the pills I’d been taking to prevent malaria. A pill had dissolved in my throat and given me an ulcer, which was probably made much worse by the local fishbone remedies, and by continuing to take those pills. Once I stopped that, everything cleared up and today, a week later, my throat feels fine. Praise God!

All in all, we’re calling it the most extreme OFM trip ever, from the variety of wildlife to the variety of modes of transportation to the David Livingstone moments. I’m so privileged to have gotten to lead the OFM team there, and to be producing this documentary so the Church will know these people and how to love them like Jesus does.

And I still owe Robbie that trip to Mt Kenya…

Read OFM teammate Mike Delorenzo’s blog post on the trip. It’s much better written than mine!

See more photos from the trip

Working hard... on what?

It’s been a long time since I’ve worked on a film that I can talk about publicly. Here we are, the last quarter of 2011, and the only thing I can show for the past 10 months is “Build Something Beautiful“, which I shot at the beginning of 2011 in Uganda.

I’ve been busy, though. Crazy busy, producing the largest documentary OFM has done to date, which took me to countries where you have to have armed escorts, where the penalty for becoming a Christian is the most severe in the world, and where we told the story of someone who became a Christian from that community.

Talk about an armed escort!

To tell you any more about this story would endanger the person whose testimony we documented, and possibly ourselves. You’ve probably seen Kenya in the news quite a bit lately and can understand how expatriates, like ourselves and our team, have to take some reasonable precautions because Kenya is not immune or safe from these kinds of things.

I hope you’ll get a chance to see what I’ve been working on for the past 6 months, and if you email me directly I’ll send you a link, so long as you don’t repost anywhere that I was involved in this production.

Please be praying for this unnamed film, which has great potential to effect an entire generation, only through God’s help and sovereign plan of course. It’s a story that has never been told in film format, about a people group that no-one can talk publicly about, and we took seriously our responsibility to tell this story, recognizing we were uniquely positioned and placed here to do so! No-one else in the world would have the opportunity we had to produce a film like this. May God’s kingdom be established among this people forever!

That said, we must be the craziest people on earth. In the past month we’ve moved houses, entertained Andy’s parents for 2 weeks, brought bibles and a vehicle to our Maasai community, safaried across the Mara plains, made a movie, and sent Lesa to graduate school in Colorado. And the summer’s only half spent…

So where are we now?

Andy and the kids are settled in the new house in Nairobi, and Lesa is at the University of Northern Colorado finishing her final on-campus course requirements for her Masters in Theater Education.

If you live in Denver, please come hear Lesa speak at GracePoint Community Church in Littleton on July 24. She will be speaking during the Sunday School hour at 9:15, and singing and briefly sharing in the worship service at 10:30.

If you live in Northern Virginia, Lesa will be having two dessert nights while she’s there in order to see everyone and share details/answer questions about what’s been going on in Kenya with our family – complete with photos, videos, etc. If you can come to either one, that would be wonderful! Please contact the host if you plan on coming and if you want to help provide a dessert!

Wednesday, July 27: Brad and Amy Russell’s – dessert night. RSVP 703-327-4952

Saturday, July 30: Bruce and Cindy Lang’s – dessert night RSVP 703-435-6115

Sunday, July 31: Lesa will be sharing during Dulles Community Church’s worship service at 10:30.

Meanwhile, Andy has been hard at work on a 20 minute documentary that you’ll never hear/see us talk about publicly. An inspiring story, but a highly sensitive one. We hope to release it soon, and pray it makes waves across the internet in both the Christian and, uh, “non-Christian” communities. It just won’t have our names on it, for our own safety and for the safety of the more than 20 volunteers and extras who have helped to make this film possible.

If you know us personally, and would like to hear more about this film when it is released, please send us an email. And please pray for this production, for it to bear fruit for God’s kingdom in mighty and miraculous ways!

Thank you all for your love and prayers and financial support. We hope you understand the important part that you are playing in God’s kingdom by helping us to serve here in Africa. We are constantly humbled by God’s grace extending to us through you. Thank you!

God bless you all,
Andy and Lesa and kids

A video about how AIM’s health ministries impact the kingdom of God. The OFM team have been working on this video for almost 3 years now, with footage on here spanning the continent and the past 3 years. Most recently, I shot the Lake Victoria island sequences a couple weeks ago, and scored the beginning/ending of this video. My good buddy and OFM teammate, Mike Saum, wrote and produced, Ted did most of the editing and directing.

In summary, we do have some significant and immediate prayer requests:

• We have been $450/month short on support for long enough that we have exhausted our work funds and are in danger of not having enough to live on next month. Click here for specifics and to get involved.
• Tomorrow Andy is heading to Tanzania, to the islands in Lake Victoria. Pray for safe travel and for Lesa and the kids at home.
• A lot is happening with Lesa and our kids and school: broken arms, field trips, drama production at the end of this month. Click here for specifics.
• We are actively pursuing a medical project vehicle for Olepishet. Click here to read more about Olepishet and how to get involved.
• Andy is potentially going to be installed as an elder at our church, International Christian Fellowship.

Lastly, if you haven’t checked out Andy’s latest video, AIM Identity, watch it here!

Last December, OFM was commissioned by AIM’s international office to produce a video for worldwide use about AIM’s vision to see Christ-centred churches among all african peoples. Up until this point AIM had no video that spoke on an organization-wide, and world-wide basis. OFM had already identified the need for such a piece, and the commission from the international office was all the encouragement we needed to go do it.

The challenge was both broad and comprehensive. To create a video under 5 minutes in length, that could be used cross-culturally in every AIM context (from US to Brazil to Hong Kong and everywhere in between!) and would show AIM’s history, depth, and breadth of mission work, and especially that AIM is all about partnership with the African church.

We started an international brainstorming process in January, involving AIM regional media personnel from around the world. We started writing script treatments in February, by March we were storyboarding. In April we went to Northern Kenya to film the beginning and ending sequences. A few weeks later we went to Rwanda to film Bruce Rossington’s sequence and VO. We spent May and June editing, and pulling footage from the past 3 years of OFM’s archives for the montage sequences.

After taking a month off to attend my sister’s wedding in the US, I hit the deck running with developing the motion sequences throughout the film, then scored it at least 4 different ways before settling in on the current score, then colored it for about a week.

It’s the biggest collaborative effort OFM has ever pulled off, and I was privileged to get to be the producer on this project. May God be glorified in Africa and around the world by what he is doing through AIM and other organizations here in Africa.

Olepishet

Many families around here like to travel over Spring break. Some go to the Maasai Mara to watch the migration of the wildebeest. Some go to the Indian Ocean and relax on the beach. Some even squeeze in a quick trip to Europe.  Well, our idea of relaxation this Spring Break was a bit different, but still just as rewarding.  We decided this was the best opportunity for our family to invest in the tiny Maasai village of Olepishet, where Lesa had led a group of HS students in January (Click here to read “More than I thought it could be”). We packed our Land Rover to the ceiling, including extra fuel and lots of water, and drove about 5 hours, way past the end of the paved roads, crossing rivers, driving up and down steep, rocky terrain, to reach this special place in our family’s heart.

We didn’t have a big agenda, other than camping and living in the community for a few days, and exploring ways that our school, and our family specifically, could invest in the people and church here. We spent several nights, sitting around the fire, eating roast goat and talking with the people about what God is doing in this community through the local church. We felt like real missionaries for once. Hours away from the nearest wazungu (white people), no longer under the supervision or care of some senior missionary. Just us and the Maasai.

At church Lesa and I were honored with Maasai necklaces and shukas (blankets) and staffs. We left feeling more encouraged by the community there than vice versa I’m sure, and that the beginning of a new friendship had come.

A few weeks ago, the pastor and an elder from the church came and spent the weekend with us at our home in Nairobi. We continued to share experiences together and talk about what the needs of the village are that the local church is trying to meet. And how we as a family, or the school, might try to help the church meet those felt needs. One of those needs was the area of HIV/AIDS and general health training and awareness. Another was in the possibly of helping to establish a medical clinic in the village (right now it is a couple hours’ walk to the nearest clinic), the first step for this would probably be some kind of vehicle for driving people to remote clinics until a dispensary is established in Olepishet. Another possibility was in educational needs of the community and/or sponsoring the pastor/elders for further theological training. At this point, there are no outside sources of help/community development in Olepishet.  We may be the only people who are aware of these needs and who are hoping to meet them.

We’ve decided to pray on these things, and when we return in August to get together again when the school calendar allows. There is a possibility that Lesa will help lead a group there from school to do medical work 1st semester.  We thank God for the opportunity to be a part of the lives and church in this special community. Please pray with us as we seek to build this relationship and encourage the church.  As things progress, we will keep you informed of the needs of Olepishet, as any major community development projects there would require funds from outside sources.  Please be in prayer about how God may lead you in this direction.

Seussical

Upon returning from Olepishet as a family, we jumped right back into the thick of things at school. Rehearsals for “Seussical: the Musical” were in full swing, and Lesa’s cast of over 80 actors, crew, orchestra, managers, and directors kept her busy. Our whole family was busy, actually, with Andy serving as Technical Director and also playing bass guitar in the pit orchestra. Sydney had a short starring role as the elephant bird during the evening performances. And Robert and Avery pretty much think they own the theater.  The show was a huge success – the best we’ve done yet! (Did I mention that I have the best job in the world?)

OFM

Mere days after Seussical closed, Andy was traveling with the On-Field Media team, finishing production on some projects that he’d been pushing off until the show was over.

He started with a trip on AIM AIR to Marsabit and Korr, and because OFM had chartered their own airplane, he had an extra seat and the opportunity to bring Avery along. Avery was put to work, though, as a grip, best boy, and official bird chaser (or any other animal that was making noise during filming sessions).

Avery was like a celebrity everywhere he went. Small white kids are a rare sight in these parts, and Avery’s entrance onto a school in Marsabit almost caused school to close for the day as every student wanted to shake his hand, touch his hair, ask his name, and generally just crowd around him staring. At one point, Avery, surrounded by maybe 100 kids, took off running quickly across the football pitch. It startled the kids so badly that half of them screamed, only to join Avery moments later in his mad dash.

In Korr, Avery’s favorite part was riding out into our many excursions into the desert on top of the Land Cruiser. He made quick friends with Pastor David Gargule’s children, as his children had 2 things most young children here didn’t have: English and pants. He also joined in, and nearly won, a limbo contest one night at the local secondary school.

Andy greatly enjoyed having Avery along on this trip, as nothing helps a 2nd grader understand what his dad does for a job better than taking him along. Later this summer look for the new AIM Identity film, which was shot on this trip.

Days after returning from this trip, Andy took Robert up to RVA for the weekend as Andy was a guest soloist/clinician in a concert with the RVA jazz band. A few days after that and Andy was off again to Rwanda for a few days on further production for the AIM Identity film.

Transitions

The past week has been a time of intense transitions:

After 7 months of leading the OFM team, Andy’s friend and teammate Ted Rurup has returned to Kenya. Andy hands back the leadership of OFM to Ted, very thankful for the administrative burden to be lifted, but also glad for the opportunity to provide leadership when it was needed.
2 days after Ted arrived, the OFM team said goodbye to Kate Joyce, the OFM photographer for the past 17 months, as she transitioned back to the US.

We have recently transitioned into the role of leaders for the music/worship ministry at our church, International Christian Fellowship.  We have seen God’s hand in this whole process at the church and are quite pleased and honored to step into this role.  Of course, you all know that doing this brings us joy and is a huge part of who we are.  We have enjoyed getting involved in the Leadership Team of the Fellowship and look forward to helping next year as it is also in a time of transition in its structure.

Life at school has been amazing for me (Lesa) this year.  I have been on a sharp learning curve, as it had been so many years since I had been in a classroom.  I’ve finished up the year feeling pretty good about my classroom teaching and great about the shows.  Next year I will increase the number of classes I teach. I will also be overseeing all the high school worship teams for chapel, as well as teaching a few private guitar and voice lessons.  This is all a tremendous privilege and joy for me.   My rosters for next year are much fuller than this year, as I guess its gotten around that Mrs. Brown isn’t so bad after all.

These are my courses for next year:

1st semester High School: Intro to Theatre, Communications, Worship, 2 Independent Studies (Acting/Directing and Playwriting).

Middle School: 8th grade “Careers” class and 7th grade Speech

2nd semester High School: Intro to Theatre, Acting, Discipleship. Middle School: 8th grade “Careers” class and 7th grade Speech

I have been blessed by how much love God has given me for my students.  I’ve had some wonderful mentoring opportunities with many of them, and pray that these will continue with them next year (and even with the graduates over FaceBook!)  Please pray for me as I minister at school, not only to missionary kids, but also to many students from a variety of cultures (36!) and faith backgrounds.  Graduation was a bittersweet time for me.  It was such a privilege to sit amongst the faculty on the stage during the ceremony and hear about the students’ accomplishments and future plans, as well as to attend grad parties.  What an amazing group of students and what a school to get to be a part of.  But it was difficult, as some of these students have been in all four of my shows since I came to the school last year, some went with me to Olepishet for CFS, and all have grown dear to me.  I can’t imagine how I will cope with this year after year!

Summer schedule

June 1- Lesa and the kids leave for America
June 11- Lesa’s sister, Katie, gets married
June 22- Andy flies to America to join the family
July 5- Lesa starts 3 weeks of summer school at University of Northern Colorado (Masters in Theater Education)
July 31- Andy’s sister, Emily, gets married
August 1- We fly back home, to Kenya

In closing

We wish we could see you all this summer, but as it is not a furlough summer for us (and will be full of family commitments!) we are spending most of our time in Kansas and Illinois, with Lesa in Colorado for 3 weeks for grad school. Summer 2011 will be our regularly scheduled furlough, with our full circuit from Virginia to Colorado and every state in-between.

Thanks for the opportunity to be your missionaries in Africa. May God bless you richly for your prayers and financial support over the past 3 years.

In God’s grace,
Andy, Lesa, Robert, Avery, and Sydney Brown

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I sat in the dark in a semi-circle of Congelese pastors and they asked us, “Why haven’t the missionaries returned?”

“Because it’s hard,” we told them. “They hear the news of this place and they’re afraid.”

Then one of the pastors said something I can’t forget.

“In the past there were missionaries who loved us and accepted to suffer with us.”

And I wondered if the past was just that, past.

The latest film from the OFM team, and my labor of love the past 4 months while doing many other things simutaneously. I didn’t go on this trip, or do any of the camera work, or write the script. You’d think everything else would be the easy part, so why does such a project take 4 months?

• script revision
• scratch (temporary) voice over recording
• rough cut (wading through 10 hours of footage for the right clip)
• recording the voice over again with my voice
• recording the voice over again with another missionary’s voice
• recording the voice over again with the voice of the missionary (OFM team member, Mike Delorenzo), who wrote the script and I became convinced was the only voice who would make it authentic since these are his experiences and his words
• recording the voice over again with Mike with more feeling (or, mole feering as we like to say in the OFM office, [bill murray: lost in translation])
• titling (the text sequences throughout the film)
• color grading (making each shot look as best it can)
• re-recording the voice over with Mike after more script corrections came in from the central region
• and finally, I spent about a week on the soundtrack, which I made with a little 42 key keyboard and Logic Studio
• Oh yeah, I took 2 other trips (North Kenya and Lesotho) during this time.

So, you can see how finally finishing a film is kind of like giving birth. Ok, maybe I don’t really know what that’s like, but there’s a nice release and sense of accomplishment when finally finishing something that took so long to produce.

Tomorrow I’m taking the OFM team to North Africa. I’m really really excited…