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It’s exciting to report that we are in the midst of working on ‘My Last Day on Earth’ – our 9 minute long pilot film for the Jesus anime project. This is a first strategic example of re-using the dialog recordings from the gospel of Luke (on which the JESUS film is based) to retell the story of Jesus. This story is about Jesus’ crucifixion, but retells it from the vantage of one of the thieves that was crucified with Jesus. This visual style was chosen because of how ‘mainstream’ it is for teenagers, college students and young professionals worldwide.

Right now we have a little team working on this project that ranges from the West Coast, the West Coast and England! Praise God for modern technologies that make a global task like this possible. We will be working on the ‘story reel’ for the next few months.

To make a story reel, an artist first makes quick sketches of how the story will be told. These rough drawings are then brought into a computer and edited together with computer graphics, music and sound effects so that the Director can craft and fine tune how the story is told. The images are gradually refined and manipulated until the Director feels it gives a good idea of how the story will be told.

Here in Orlando, we are doing the editing and augmenting some of the scenes with 3D models we have made of Jerusalem and the Antonia Fortress (where the trial and scourging of Jesus took place). I must say that I for the first time in my life I have a much deeper understanding of the geography and some of the details of what it must have been like to march through Jerusalem through Golgotha that day.

Once this story reel is done, it will be our main tool in getting bids from studios in Japan or Korea to do the animation. We will also use it to show the film we intend to make and raise the funding to produce it as well as the follow-up tools that will be needed in our initial testing ground in Europe.

Family Update:
Alex and Aimee had another ‘Black Belts for Christ’ tournament, this time in Jacksonville, FL. They both brough home some first and second place trophies and had a good time with the friends they have come to know in this sport. They have also been busy at school with projects and band (Alex continues to play Clarinet this year – and this is Aimee’s first year playing Flute).

This has been the week of winter colds. By last Monday everybody was sick except for Irv (please continue to pray for his good health!). We have had an unusually cold winter as we’re sure you can relate to. In our case, our mango tree bloomed in January, and then had all of it’s leaves frozen off by two successive frosts. Weird weather!

Reaching the Nations Among Us:
The Jesus Film Project is so big that we often don’t know all of the things going on. One new ministry initiative we learned about this month has a website: www.ReachingTheNationsAmongUs.org . They have developed several 16-language versions of the JESUS film. Their goal is to get a copy of one of these DVD’s into every immigrant family home in the United States through a friend or acquaintance. Visit the website and find out how you or your church can get copies of these DVD’s to impact the immigrant families in your community. Many of them are from countries closed to the gospel.

Thank you so much for your prayers for our family, notes and faithful gifts that allow us to stay engaged in this work full time. We count it a great privilege to be your partners in bringing the good news of the gospel to the next generation!

Serving Our Lord with You,

preview clip from My Last Day story reel

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- for us to walk with the Lord daily as a family
- for Nan’s brother Ned as he battles cancer, for strength as he starts an experimental regimen.
- for creativity and wisdom for Ovi as he draws the storyboard artwork.
- for Krystal and Katherine, volunteers here in Orlando, who are doing the 3D work to improve some of the scenes and take some of the burden off of Ovi.
- for Barry as he works in England and advises us on evenings and weekends
- for Irv as he does editing, management and 3D work to help the story reel come together.
- for the funding that will be needed to produce this film once the story reel is done.

Irv & Nan

Click here to see the full-size version of our Christmas 2008 letter.

In the course of this last month, it was very encouraging to meet John Beckett by telephone as part of a project we are working on to get the JESUS film into Flash video on on the Internet. John is a businessman in Ohio that God has greatly blessed as John has sought to honor God in his business practices. But John's passion goes beyond his business - it's seeking the Lord and His kingdom. Several years ago he worked with the Global Media Outreach ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ to write his life story and put it onto the Internet. Since then John has seen over a million people visit his page . The website has a place for people to indicate if they've made a spiritual decision for Christ and John has seen nearly 1 in 8 people visiting his page make such a decision and receive follow up help. Praie God! We look forward to helping John with his vision to add media to his website to more effectively minister to people that are searching for answers to Life's Greatest Question!

My Story

by Irv Klaschus

We were best friends; neighbors. I don’t even remember what made me so mad at my friend. I just remember feeling rage as my childish blows beat down on his neck and shoulders. It felt both good to express my anger and horrible that I was so out of control. I ran home horrified at what I had done.

Even now as I relate that story, it doesn’t seem to fit with the picture of a little boy that was trying to be good. I had grown up in a home where we read the Bible daily, talked about Jesus and went to church 3 times a week. I knew a lot about Jesus from parents that lived humbly and prayed sincerely. They prayed like they were talking to a friend. What was wrong with me? Why wasn’t it getting to my heart?

It wasn’t until I was 12 at a Christian summer camp that it made sense one night. I don’t even remember what the speaker said as we sat around the campfire. I only remember that the words he shared from the Bible that night started to grip me at a very deep level. Hearing these words made me aware that God was completely and morally perfect; what the Bible calls holy. I knew that I was not holy because of wrong things I had done; something the Bible calls sin. My sins meant that when I died I could not be with God in heaven.

I prayed a simple prayer that night, thanking God for providing a way I could be forgiven through what Jesus had done for me. I invited Him to be the boss of my life. I didn’t hear angels sing or see lightning flash, but I knew that something had changed in my life. I had moved from knowledge about God to a relationship with God.

After that night I began to slowly see changes in my life that I had longed for. I began to view prayer as a conversation with a person that loved me. Instead of viewing going to church as a duty, it was now a place that helped me get to know God, this person that already knew me. I was learning about God along with people that were also on the same journey. The Bible was starting to become personal and meaningful to me. God was using it to change me and to give purpose to my life.

One of the most wonderful parts of my new relationship with God was coming to understand that He wanted to use my interests and passions. I’ve even seen Jesus use things like my interest in computers and films in a way that is incredibly fulfilling for me and a blessing for other people. I have so much to learn, but now the desire and power to change doesn’t come from me – I’m discovering it in the context of a relationship with God.
If you would like to know more about a personal relationship with God click here

Click here to see the full-size version of our Christmas 2007 letter.

It was great to see so many friends and prayer partners at the MVC missionary conference and mission's fair! Thank you all for stopping by to say hi. Several people asked about some of the short films I was showing. Some of them aren't available yet, but as soon as they are I will post information here about how you can get them. Several of them are available at www.damah.com. You can even see some of them online. In particular, make sure to watch 'The Limited'. The Damah festival runs every year and then a 'best of show' DVD is made available each year. 'The Limited' is available on the Volume One DVD. The theme is 'Spiritual Experience in Film' so not all of the short films are from a Christian worldview. But every year there seem to be at least a couple of gems on each DVD. I'll post some of my best picks and why here on the website.

This is the start of an update to our web page. There is some saying to the effect that "the cobbler's own children go without shoes...". Things have been so busy that I haven't spent much time on our web page, partly because I first started it with technology from 10 years ago.

Things have become much more dynamic now, and I want to take advantage of a few of the developments that better fulfill the dream we had for our web page: that it would be very dynamic and reflective of what is going on in our life and ministry. But this only happens if the tools of updating a website are super easy to use. Hopefully I am fulfilling that now for our familiy and the ability to update it easily. Check back often to see how we are doing. We consider your prayer partnership vital to doing this work and we would love to have the privilege to pray for you as well!

Irv