If a picture is worth a thousand words, then how much is a video worth? In the case of a video entitled "To the Ends …" by Pacific Union College student Paul Kim and funded by Adventist Health International, it was worth a 40-foot container filled with necessities for a small hospital located in an African desert.
"I first saw the documentary last September," says Kregg Miller, Modesto Central church member and the owner of a residential care facility in Turlock, Calif. "I got up from viewing that film with the exact same question that every subsequent viewer to whom I’ve shown the film has asked; ‘How can I help?’"
The story, filled with miracles large and small, began with the expertise of Kim, who brought the sacrifice and needs of the Hôspital Adventiste de Béré in Tchad, Central Africa, to audiences. It wasn’t just the skill of the videographer that brought the story to life, but the incredible need and the cast, which included a former graduate of Pacific Union College, Dr. James Appel, and his bride, a nurse at the African hospital, Sarah Anderson Appel.
A skilled communicator, Appel’s e-mail letters home were widely read, but until the story of the people of the region, the patients and the hospital staff were captured on video, there had been no organized effort to help.
Miller and friends, fired up by the images presented on film and armed with a list of needs of the Béré Hospital, set about to collect those items.
"I found a medical supplier in Oakdale with a warehouse full of returned and used medical equipment and supplies," says Miller. "I called Dick Hart, the chancellor of Loma Linda University… The rest is a story of miracles, sore muscles and sweat."
Many miracles helped fill the 40-foot container. Hundreds of people became true heroes through their donations and volunteer efforts to pack the container. Miller believes the real miracle was what happened when a talented student created a dynamic video that touched him and continues to touch people.
People like Miller are catching the vision of this way to spread the Word — a way that is especially appealing to young people and could be another way to get youth involved in mission work.
"I have been sponsoring a ground-breaking video program at Modesto Adventist Academy with the precise purpose of introducing young people to the new medias as a tool for spreading the gospel," says Miller. "This film is proof positive that the concept works. It deserves more of the Church’s attention in training and sending out videographers and web designers to bring the mission story home in a way that is impossible to ignore."
