VMN Today

Have you ever been excited to go on a long journey? Then you know how Dodong (front) Junjun (middle) and Jimboy (end) felt on January 5. The day before we traveled they packed their iMacs really well so that they could take them as hand luggage from Davao to Manila. However, at the airport they were not allowed to do so. We all had to accept the damper. Late at night we arrived  in Baguio City and enjoyed the good supper in Darwin Bayani’s house. The next morning all three iMacs came on very nicely. Praise the Lord!

The seminar was just tailor-made for VMN’s movie producers. They made a movie right from scratch which can soon be viewed in the VMN Webpage,http://vmn.ph/startup/start.html . Also, they learned how to record and dub. The Final Cut Studio software for the three iMacs is already in our hands and three H2 recorders will arrive at the end of January. In Baguio I also had a very good talk with the VVMI Executive Director, Colin Edwards. Phil Gioja did an excellent job teaching the native movie producers  from his own experience.

VVM and VMN plan to work more closely together in the future. Darwin Bayani gave me a number of movies they produced in the tribes in Luzon. Dodong wants to start dubbing one of them as soon as possible. Jimboy will do the Acts movie. The focus VMN has for this year is dubbing of various movies into the Cebuano language.  On the 13th of January we traveled back to Davao with thanks in our hearts for what we learned in Baguio City. Darwin and Nenett will be remembered well for their excellent catering.

VMN seemed to jump from one meeting to another in January. On the 19th twelve of us left Davao at 3 am and arrived in the village Salumping, in the Teduray tribe, at 4 pm. We felt at home in  their place.

The  next morning, after a long Bible study (2 ½ hours) the Teduray Church leaders thanked us for the projection system we gave them in 2006. They invented a new name for their ministry, the ‘projector mission’. They begged us for a second projection system because their area is too big for only one. We had to tell them that we do not have anything in the pipeline yet but that we would be praying for it. The Teduray Church Association has 156 churches at the moment.

One district leader from the Maguindanao area, where there are also many Teduray living told us the story of a pastors’ couple whose church lost interest in worship and prayer meetings. For two years the couple worshiped basically on their own. But when Johnjohn visited them and showed them their own Teduray movie the people came to life again. The unimaginable happened and many sleeping members came back to church again as well as others whom they had never spotted before. To me this sounded more like a fairytale, but who was I to doubt their report! The Teduray people are without fear when they share God’s word to ‘other-believing’ people.  Yet they are very gently in their attitude. It is so beautiful how God is using them for his Kingdom.

With a joyful heart,

Dolfi