One of Julie's deepest desires in coming to Ukarumpa has been to share new media resources designed to be easily used by the translators themselves. Julie's title at JAARS is Media Resource Developer. For the past two years, she's been part of a team at JAARS VMS (Vernacular Media Services) that has developed three computer DVDs containing thousands of photographs taken during the filming of the JESUS and Genesis films. The VMS team combined these with Bible story texts. Simple Bible story videos can be produced using the pictures and recording the text in a local language together with the easy-to-use software (PhotoStory3) included on the DVDs. Julie has taken every opportunity to describe these tools when talking to translators; and there has been some individual interest, but little opportunity to actually demonstrate them. No chance to share this publically in a group setting had come along, until yesterday.
I stood in the back while Julie gave a lively presentation sharing a sample Bible story video and a brief video showing how easy it is to put one together in a local language. It's like "low-hanging fruit" --easily within reach.
Two observations...
Presenting information using multimedia is very effective for gaining the audience's focus and understanding. Of course, that's the whole point of VMS.
What was really, really, really wonderful was to see the entire class, including the facilitator, physically sit up straight, and to sense the level of energy and interest double when they saw the 2 minute and 42 second recorded demonstration on how to use these resources to develop their own multimedia Bible stories. This is exactly the vision the Lord gave the VMS team back home. Praise God for directing VMS every step of the way and for providing all that was needed to develop tools that can be used to reach hearts with God's life-changing Word.
Julie received many positive comments during the break and the DVDs that she had on hand for purchase were basically all sold on the spot. I joked about holding an auction, selling the limited number of DVDs to the highest bidder. I know that more will need to be sent to Ukarumpa from JAARS.
There is training here in PNG to help equip new translators. These translators will be going to remote locations to start Bible translation projects with people who cannot read their own language and whose languages have never been written down. Unexpectedly, early this week Julie was asked if she would share a short presentation about VMS resources during their workshop on Thursday. (We learned later the same day that the VMS team back home had been praying for this exact opportunity!) The class consisted of seven new translation teams, 11 people in all, including several from Asian cultures. With help from her co-workers back at JAARS, we collected some brief video samples, including a short demo showing how simple it is to use the software tools included on the DVDs.
I stood in the back while Julie gave a lively presentation sharing a sample Bible story video and a brief video showing how easy it is to put one together in a local language. It's like "low-hanging fruit" --easily within reach.Presenting information using multimedia is very effective for gaining the audience's focus and understanding. Of course, that's the whole point of VMS.
What was really, really, really wonderful was to see the entire class, including the facilitator, physically sit up straight, and to sense the level of energy and interest double when they saw the 2 minute and 42 second recorded demonstration on how to use these resources to develop their own multimedia Bible stories. This is exactly the vision the Lord gave the VMS team back home. Praise God for directing VMS every step of the way and for providing all that was needed to develop tools that can be used to reach hearts with God's life-changing Word.
Julie received many positive comments during the break and the DVDs that she had on hand for purchase were basically all sold on the spot. I joked about holding an auction, selling the limited number of DVDs to the highest bidder. I know that more will need to be sent to Ukarumpa from JAARS.
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