Hello All,
One of my favorite ways to serve is through AV. I find it’s such a unique way to serve because of how varying the needs are. From Nashville SLAM weeks with big bands, light setups, and like 7 wireless microphones between 14 people (none of which want to use them but need to… I digress). To more recently with our SLAM weeks in Uganda or El Salvador, which had less tech quantity wise but more difficulty due to a variety of issues more pertinent to the developing world.
Tech isn’t just about the sessions though, it’s documentation, environment/mood setting, accessibility, and there are so many practical considerations that go into what makes mission field tech so difficult yet so rewarding.
Something our AV (Standing for “Audio-Visual” for those unfamiliar) crew has been doing these last few weeks is live-streaming and/or recording the things we’re doing. Largely these are SLAM sessions but also church visits and other activities. The same day I’m writing this, Friday the 11th, we just finished our visit to a town called Kamuli, where members of our internship team and NFC Kenya (GOD’s Kenya Futbol club) played against some local teams and afterward fellowshipped at the church.
During that game, Melanie, Ethan Benoit, Ssubi, and I were streaming the game with our mobile setup which has: two cameras on tripods, a SIM card based hotspot for Wifi, and a nifty little device called a Yolobox which “stream”lines the process to actually stream our stuff online. As we were setting up on the field, several of the children nearby came and were just standing around watching us.
I recalled a conversation I had a few weeks earlier with Mr. Aaseby about tech where he recounted that when he used to do AV on the road, he would involve the people around him, even if it was something simple like wrapping cables. It still made a connection; it provides a way to bridge the gap that threatens to disconnect the AV techs from the people we’re there to serve.
All that to say, I invited the kids over, let some of the older ones man the camera with Benoit and I’s supervision, let some others help with the camera pov switcher on our Yolobox, let some of them help us pack up, and got to talk and connect with them by bringing them into what was going on instead of just letting them watch from afar.
I think sometimes tech is a little consuming, especially in high-intensity settings like Summer Internship. So much can happen and suddenly we start to value the tech like it’s the most important thing we have on hand (which it certainly is valuable and requires proper attention and care in handling and transport), but what’s more important are the people, and if there’s a disconnect there because you get too focused on the tech to connect with the people, you miss an experience. The experience that I didn’t miss today, getting to give these kids a chance to do something they can’t within their own environment, giving them my time and energy to experience something new.
I wish I would’ve said more to them, told them how special they are, how much I love them, how much God loves them. Somewhere right now, in a village in Uganda named Kamuli, is a kid named Kenneth, a bright soul in a dark world and I hope he knows, even if only subconsciously that he and all of his friends are so precious, and will always be worth our time and energy. Service never will be about the tech, it remains about the people.
God bless the children of the world.
With much love,
Tyler