Jam-packed, Overflowing: NRB#15

Back in February, Storly and I had a quick, jam-packed, overflowing visit with thousands of fellow Christian communicators at National Religious Broadcasters annual Convention in Nashville, Tennessee. And it was fabulous! It was my fifth Convention, and it's become one of the highlights of the year.

Why? Because it's a great reminder, a great encouragement and a great time to get better equipped and connected, to strive for excellence in our craft - of communicating the good news of Jesus through media - so that many people will hear the clear and compelling message, and will respond.

It's exciting to meet others in the same 'business', and to hear how God is using different ministries in so many powerful ways.

With the switch of the convention to four weekdays (instead of part-weekend), and our kids needing to be in school, we were really glad that Storly's mom could come from New York and stay with the girls so we could be away for one night, and one whole day (till 2 a.m. the next day!) at the convention.

Though there's a ton of opportunities to go to training seminars and general sessions, our focus at NRB has become meeting with people and ministries we are already, or are working towards collaborating with in some way, whether it's in programming, in promoting 4VEH among potential supporters, in documenting the impact of 4VEH's ministry, in training, in getting resources, equipment, tools to make the ministry more effective. Despite the tight schedule, we crammed in a bunch of meetings, over coffee, lunch, dinner, in between conference sessions and visits to the large exhibition hall.

Always on a tight budget, I don't usually go for any extras, but really loved the women's breakfast event. It was an honor to hear Meriam Ibrahim speak (she was sentenced to death in Sudan for being a Christian, gave birth in prison in shackles, was finally released). She asked us to pray for so many like her around the world who are being persecuted. Inspiring & challenging.

Also loved hearing Janet Parshall (host of weekday program on Moody Radio, In the Market with Janet Parshall, that I listen to a lot) speak about prayer.

We always look out for our friends at Faith Radio, based in Montgomery, Alabama, who in addition to their own local audiences, are partnering with us to bless English-speaking and English-learning listeners in Cap-Haitien through their broadcasts via 4VEH.  Here's us with Billy Irvin, Director of Ministry Relations at Faith Radio, and yes, he is more than a foot taller than me!

And below is the Faith Radio team in action at their booth - always a busy place. Bob Crittenden at the mic, interviewing Joni Eareckson Tada, Wiley Boswell, the engineer (in blue) and Billy.

Then a planning meeting with Ron Harris, president of MEDIAlliance International, who links Christian broadcasters in the United States with those in various places around the world (like us in Haiti) to grow the impact of Christian broadcasting and the Gospel of Christ. We first met Ron a few years ago, and I had the pleasure of hosting him and our good friend Tim Whitehead of Galcom International (who make our solar radios) on an evangelism & radio distribution visit to Haiti in 2011. Ron is helping us at 4VEH host a media training seminar this summer.

And below, taking pictures of people taking pictures of people taking pictures of people taking pictures. Crazy things happens when communicators get together. 

Fantastic to see the good folks at Galcom and MegaVoice (below), doing amazing things with solar, radio and audio technologies so that ministries like us can use reliable, effective tools to deliver the Gospel to people.

We first met Dianne Becker, an award-winning documentary producer, when she came to Haiti accompanied by the fabulous Sharon Mishler, to film for Radio 4VEH. I was in the morning-sickness stages of early pregnancy with Esther, and so didn't get to go out with Dianne :( 

Dianne produced this video for Radio 4VEH, and we're talking with her about documenting the impact of 4VEH ministry again. 

We also picked her brains on a few other things in the visual world, but more on that later.

Storly in the exhibition hall

Then we got to meet another redhead (always a blessing!). Barb Dowling and I have worked together before, but we've never actually met. Barb works with Faith FM in Kitchener, Ontario, and went on a Resounding Hope solar radios trip to Haiti, and shared some great stories on Faith FM on her return. When our family visited the team at Faith FM, Barb was away. So, it was great to meet in person, and to work on plans to share the Resounding Hope initiative again with the Faith FM audience.

And no photos, but we had a great meeting with ministry partners at TWR (Trans World Radio). Always good to share our 'how God moved us to the US' story, how He connected us with TWR (Storly is the Creole producer of TWR's Thru the Bible radio series) and to share needs, plans and dreams for the future at 4VEH.

One of the biggest impressions we've had over the years at NRB is that we go with this list of needs, burdens, things beyond our knowledge/understanding/training/reach, things we need help on, that we're struggling with, and as we talk with people, we hear "we can help you with that". That's the real beauty of gathering thousands of Christian communicators into the same space for a few days, the "we're together in this mission". Powerful stuff.

And on a final note, Storly didn't believe there's a sofa in the ladies restrooms at Gaylord Opryland Convention Center. But there is!