Footbridge Films

Sorry this site has been so static. Amanda and I have been focusing our attention on our personal blog found at: Travelblog. So far our time in Africa has been great. The food in Senegal was wonderful. We were able to work closely with a team creating their video and we know that already 100 copies of the DVD have been made! In Togo it was mango season. The family we made a video for there were happy with what we could make at such short notice. We were also able to go on an adventure during our time off. You can read more about that in our travelblog. Malawi has been refreshing in several ways. First, it is English speaking!! Second, it is green and tropical… No more desert and sand and grit! I have updated the video section on this site so you can see what we covered in Southern Malawi. If you want to continue following us on our trip check out our travelblog.

Amanda and I have arrived in Senegal. At the time of writing this we have slept here three nights and seem to have finally pulled out of jet lag. Our first day was full of meetings and we even had a chance to do an interview with someone who works in the literacy department. Here is a transcription of one of the story’s she told us.

Ok, the first one is a young teenager, I would say she went to a French System school and the teacher, it was after five years this teacher said she can’t come back because she’s so stupid because she can’t learn how to read and write. And she was really discouraged so she stopped coming to school . and we managed to have some basic literacy classes in this village and Monitrace the teacher came to this young teenager and she said, you have to come and go to the class and she went, I visited the class and she was doing fine. And she said to me, look look, I can read was doing fine. And she said to me, “Look look, I can read!” And I said, yes yes! It’s good! One year later I came back and she said just ran and said to me, “look! I am not doing the bass number 2 but I am doing the bass number three. And she skipped one class , normally we have the bass one and bass two and bass three. But because she was good in bass one, she should change to bass three, and she was so excited! and she said “Look! I am not stupid! I can read, I can write in my language!” and at the end she was quite… her father said you don’t have to go in this class but she managed to do all the class and in order to have a certificate and the last day we had a big feast and she was so proud to have this certificate and she was going everywhere with this certificate and just for her self esteem it was just good and it was very happy for her just to be able to write and read and just say “I am not stupid” So it was just good!

Five days ago we received notice from the IRS that Footbridge Films is now a bona fide 501(c)(3) non-profit! Soon we will be adding info on how to contribute both online and off-line.

We will be in Malawi the last week of April. We expect to be there at least six weeks.

We will be in Togo for the first three weeks of April.

We leave for Senegal at the end of January

We were notified by the IRS that our non-profit application needed some minor changes and also needed to address an amendment that we did not know about. We are glad to know that it was only minor details that needed changing. Soon we will be official!

Peter & Amanda Shackelford are back in the La Mirada area and will be staying for several months to work on a special project. Peter is the son of missionaries Ed & Luanne Shackelford, whom we regularly support. As many of you will remember, a couple years ago Peter began a film project on behalf of our church designed to capture the ministeries of several of our missionaries. These DVDs could then be used to inform not only our church but also other (potential) supporters these missionaries may have. In a world increasingly driven by visual media, this is a great service to our missionaries and a great way to shed light on what our God, a missionary God, is doing around the world.

Having married Amanda and completed several missionary videos, they now sit on the brink of launching a non-profit organization devoted to just this kind of media-ministry to missionaries. Pray for Peter & Amanda as they assemble an organizational board and talk through logistics.

As they solidify this organization, they (and our missions committee) anticipate a proposal for filming our missionaries in Africa. Pray for the development of this proposal and for our missions committee as they consider this proposal and make decisions in response.

Amanda and I just finished The Light of the Mon People. We were able to deliver it personally to M and R as they were passing through Lansing Michigan. It was really great to see them again!!

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