The World Race is a big year.
It is definitely a time that will change you and there will definitely be experiences you will want to remember. Journaling is a great way to record your experiences from the day and to process through how you are thinking and feeling about what is going on. But sometimes you just want to capture memories in a different way–through VISUAL ARTS.
I am really into PHOTOGRAPHY, but others on my squad are really great at videography too. Either way, I’ve found myself caught between a few different philosophies in how to approach capturing visual memories in the field.
1) Tourist/Photographic Journalist
I want to document everything I come across! From the unique toilets and showers around the world, to the food, to the houses, and most importantly the people that we meet, I want to capture it all, in the moment. I don’t want to loose any chance, miss any moment, or forget any image. I want to carry my camera around everywhere, pulling it out at a moment’s notice, to be able to document and record everything I experience. I want to be able to make sure I can tell others about it. With photographic journalism, you are not so much trying to build relationships as you are just trying to document the scene and situation to be able to communicate that story to others.
2) Ethnographic Anthropology
In ethnographic anthropology, you are living with the people for a while, getting to know them personally, building trust and establishing relationships. Once you have been living in community for a while with them and doing life with them, you can then start to ask their stories and ask permission to be able to share their stories. This is similar to photographic journaling in that you are trying to document things and tell a story, but in photographic journaling, it is must more about trying to take pictures for the sake of reporting the story to others. In ethnographic anthropology, it is much more about the relationships that you are forming and telling stories from those relationships.
3) Missionary
But I am neither a photojournalist nor an ethnographer. I am a missionary, and I am here on a mission—to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus and to administer the love and truth of God. So I have to be very careful and sensitive with what I do.
For instance, it would not be beneficial to the mission, when we are entering someone’s adobe house when we are going through a village doing door-to-door prayer and evangelism ministry, for me to pull out my big flashy DSLR camera and take pictures of their house. The photojournalist in me wants to, and the ethnographer in me want to but maybe on the second or third visit (if we even get another visit), but the missionary in me tells me that it just is not necessary or beneficial.
Similarly, I would want to take out my camera and record different prayer ministries and worship services from around the world, and perhaps there may be a time, place and opportunity for that. But most of the time I find it more important for me to be present in the moment, worshipping God or praying for people.
It is definitely a careful, fine line to walk, and I am slowly trying to figure it all out.
I cannot wait to come back home and share pictures and videos not just of my experiences but more so of what God is doing around the world. But I also must be sensitive to just doing the ministry that God has placed on my heart and convicted me to do here and now.
