Man Devotes Year To Faith, Filmmaking
By now, the holiday season has been pretty much reduced to fruitcake crumbs and the college football championship.
But when Chris Shipley spent time with his parents in Moscow for Christmas, he could reflect on the past few months and the diverse languages in which he has heard “Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy.”
Since August, Shipley’s job has been the story of Jesus Christ. He is taking part in a project, sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ International, to translate a film on the life of Christ, called The Jesus Film, into 673 languages. The movie is being used in evangelical ministries worldwide.
Shipley graduated from the University of Idaho a year ago with a degree in economics and finance. Since no career choice had forcefully suggested itself during his undergraduate days, when Shipley heard a presentation on the film project at Moscow’s Nazarene Church, “I thought, ‘I’m going to give this a shot,”’ he said.
“I had graduated from school. I can see the world and work for the Lord.”
He decided to devote a year to the endeavor.
After training in Orlando, Fla., Shipley began serving as something akin to a Hollywood field producer. He has worked in Indonesia and the Solomon Islands, and he has trips planned to Taiwan and Bangladesh. Local actors interpret the film for a Jesus Film technical crew. The crew records them, then manipulates the film’s existing video with computers to bring the words and the images onscreen as close into alignment as possible.
Shipley’s role is to make all that happens when it is supposed to and the way it is supposed to.
“It’s very polar,” he says of the job. “One minute you’re in some very dynamic situations in the country. You’ve got to get the recording done. You’re dealing with people who don’t speak your language. You’ve got to make sure your team is fed, the actors show up and the recording is done. And you’ve got to keep everybody safe.”
“You have to spend time with the local people. There is no attitude that ‘the Americans are here, step aside.’ But there’s a whole lot of hurry up and wait, too.”
He has decided that when his year is up next summer, he’ll be happy to move on to other challenges.
“Doing media stuff is not my gig,” he said.
But the experience “is really kind of an acid test for my faith,” he said. “Is this for real? Am I actually enthusiastic about it? If not, doing this would kill you.”
For a guy whose widest travel had been to Tijuana, Mexico, Shipley learned other useful lessons through his contacts with different cultures for the film.
“Anybody who wants to do this has got to have a positive attitude,” he says. “There’s no other way you can do this and survive. Also, you’ve got to be flexible. You could be staying in a five-star hotel or in a place with dirt floors.”
Indonesians, Shipley says, exemplified the good attitude.
“Their circumstances don’t bring down their attitude. They’re always positive, always cheerful, even though their lifestyle might be considered subpar from ours.”
Solomon Islanders taught him to be flexible.
“Everything there is ‘No worries, man.’ Even when our studio got broken into. They are extremely laid back.”
For two weeks in Indonesia, after team members were made violently ill by adventurously sampling the local cuisine, Shipley confined his diet “to Power Bars and rice.”
But the job has also offered highlights, like touring Australia and visiting Guadalcanal, where he was able to clamber over moldering military equipment left from the invasion in World War II.
The year is costing Shipley $14,000. His parents promised to underwrite him, “but they said ‘Hey, you’ve got to make up some slack.”’ He has obtained pledges and one-time contributions from friends, but says he could still use more. To inquire about making donations, Shipley’s office can be reached in Orlando at (407) 826-2081.
The only remuneration he gets for working on the project does come in handy, though, for someone who has widened his view of the world and has found delight in visiting its unfamiliar corners.
“All the frequent flyer miles,” he says. “I get to keep them.”