Media Engineering for the Kingdom

My journey towards a living relationship with Jesus began (in 1983) while walking across St Pauls Collegiate grounds to watch the first fifteen play against another school.  At that time I was 16.  My dream was to become an engineer.  Then a radical missionary lady spoke at Presbyterian church where I attended.  What she said changed my life forever.  I knew that I was called to live “that same life.”  After graduation from Canterbury University I worked 4 years as a design engineer then resigned and went for Bible training. I then joined WEC and arrived in France.

At that time I could never have imagined what I would be doing … I have spent 18 months learning French in France, 18 months learning Arabic in Jordan and nearly 6 years living in Morocco.  Now I work with a Christian TV station based in southern France broadcasting the gospel into North Africa and the Middle East.

My daily work is very much like the work of a design engineer, but with a few big differences.  I am part of a team of five technical geeks, all supported workers, that use MacBook Pros and specialised TV software to keep a 24/7 TV channel running.  Every 5 weeks I prepare the week’s programming for the channel. I monitor it daily and intervene if there are problems.  I also manage the channel’s web sites, coordinate its follow up teams and am developing partnerships with other organisations who are providing content that our channel broadcasts.  I work mostly in French but also regularly use Arabic.

Over the years I have come to understand that a majority of those coming to the Lord in the Muslim world come, at least in part, through media.  We are seeing a continued huge response : around 2500 people call our partner phones every month, 12000 watch our TV on the web, we think that between one and three million receive and watch our channel by satellite.  We know that at least 50 people, most of them Algerians, give their lives to Christ every month through this ministry.   I feel so privileged, so happy I persevered in my studies, so pleased that when God spoke to me one day saying “go, I will be with you” I replied “ok, I know this ain’t gonna be easy but I’m gonna do it.”