Kary Finds Jesus: God is AWESOME!! The first I learned of Him was through the praying of "The Lord's Prayer" which my Mom used to pray with all us kids at bedtime. He was definitely a distant God & I felt if I tried to be good, and at least prayed each night, I would have some good points on my side. The problem is, how much good is "good enough"? I heard about Jesus while attending church with friends, or by reading tracts left at our door. While in high school I also heard a clear presentation of God's plan of love & forgiveness at a memorial service for a schoolmate & neighbor who died in a house fire. I knew there was a decision I needed to make, but I figured I could wait. (thankfully God preserved my life while I "waited"!) While in college a good friend of mine started becoming active in "religious" things. Something was going on in his life, but I wasn't sure what it was. At one point he sat down with me & shared some info in a little booklet called "The 4 Spiritual Laws"  I had heard this message before, but for the first time it began to sink deep within my soul. He said, "God so loved Kary that He gave his only son, that if Kary would believe in Him, Kary would not perish, but would have eternal life. (John3:16) God had a plan for me?  For the first time, these words penetrated my heart.  Then a classmate gave me a book, "More Than a Carpenter", by Josh McDowell.  This book addressed all the questions I had about the reliability & believability of the Bible. McDowell borrows the logic of C.S. Lewis in observing that you only have 3 choices about who Jesus is: Lord, liar or lunatic.  "Good teacher" alone is not an option due to Jesus' own claims.  Liar & lunatic are ruled out based on the life Jesus lived, so we are left with his claim to be Lord- - the "Son of God", "Messiah", "Savior of the World", "When you've seen me, you've seen the Father."  My problem was that my sin created a broken relationship with God.  In fact, the Bible says that "All have sinned & fall short of God's glory.", and "...the wages of sin is death." (eternal separation from God).  So I had a dilemma, but there was a hopeful answer.  Jesus came to reconcile indifferent or rebellious people to God, through his sacrificial death on a cross.  By rising from the dead, he showed us that we too could be raised to life (both spiritually and physically), and proved his unique relationship with the Father.  Some say that the distance between heaven & hell is 18"- - the distance between your head & your heart.  Even the demons believe in God, but they shutter about the fact that they will be judged some day & will end up in the lake of fire.  It's not enough to agree mentally that God or Jesus exists.  We must individually "receive" Jesus into our lives or "hearts" to cover the payment for our sin.  To those who received Jesus, he gave them the right to become children of God, to become a new creation, born spiritually.  This happened to me on February 5, 1984 as I prayed to receive Jesus Christ with my classmate in my dorm room at Washington State University.  The first thing I noticed different in the following days was that I lost my desire to swear.  God literally cleaned my mouth instantly.  Over time He began working in other areas of my life that were not pleasing to him.  He continues to work on my life from the inside out helping me to be more like Jesus.  After all these years I can still say with great confidence that it was the best decision I've ever made.  I could go on & on about the thousands of prayers answered, and wonderful benefits of life "in Christ", but time & space do not permit.  What I can say is, "If you haven't met Jesus yet, you need to!!"  

 Kary & Maria Join The JESUS Film Project: 

"Then I would see the medics come in & take away those who had spent their whole lives working there, only to die there as well."

I had worked for John Fluke Mfg. Co. for a year as an electrical engineer & began working for Boeing Electronics when Maria & I were married in 1987.  After 3 years working for Boeing, I was becoming dissatisfied putting in my 40 hours a week, and only having "left-over" hours to be involved with our youth group at church.  I was getting a paycheck & Boeing was getting my best hours.  Then I would see the medics come in & take away those who had spent their whole lives working there, only to die there as well.  My heart was primed for full-time Christian work where I could use my technical skills for eternal results.  I wanted to invest my life into something that would provide a large return to God, who had done so much for me through Christ.  It was then, in 1990 that Highlands Community Church, our home church in Renton, WA, hosted a missions conference featuring Paul Eshleman, the founding Director of The JESUS Film Project.  He told amazing stories of how God was using this film in the former Soviet Unions, Romania &  throughout the world.  Lives were being changed for the better around the world.  Then Paul commented, "...we need technical help in our Master Studio.  If anyone out there would like to come help, see me after words."  I felt like this was an "alter call", as I sensed very powerfully that God was targeting ME for this task.  Over the following months God confirmed His will in Maria's heart.  We applied for staff of Campus Crusade for Christ & were accepted.  In 1991 we attended New Staff Training, and began to develop our ministry partner base (churches & individuals) who would pray for us & provide financial support.  Then in September of 1991 we moved to Orlando, Florida to begin work with The JESUS Film Project.  After 15 years here we've seen God do amazing things & continue to see our need to be here.  We have no regrets & will see thousands in heaven as a result of God working through us here.  What will God do next??

What Does Kary do at The JESUS Film Project?:  In 1991 I began editing audio for the JESUS film.  Audio editing is using a computer to clean up the recorded foreign actors voices (removing extraneous noises such as breaths & "lip-smacks") and moving the voices to sync properly with the opening & closing of the mouth in the original picture video.  Then I learned to mix the audio for the film & video soundtrack.  Audio mixing is like "painting a picture with sound".  We vary the volume of each voice recording & vary the "EQ" or tone.  In indoor scenes we add room "reverb" or echo.  We also vary the pre-mixed music & sound effects (footsteps, wind, etc.) to make it seem like the movie was originally produced in the foreign language.  Early languages I worked on were Mongolian & Indonesian..  After editing about 20 languages & mixing about 40, in 1995 I began to give leadership to our audio editing & mixing engineers.  Currently I give leadership to our Postproduction Dept & studios, covering audio, video & motion picture posting.  Occasionally I have the opportunity to travel overseas to record new language versions, or to premiere a new language version.  These trips have taken me to Taiwan, Mexico, Spain, Romania, Slovenia, Hungary, Thailand, The Netherlands, India, England, Germany, Africa & Bulgaria.  Maria's primary focus is at home, raising our kids.  She has also been involved in various aspects such as welcoming newly reporting wives, Support Coach, retreat planning & Kids on a Mission program, and various MC roles.  She also joined me for a JESUS film premiere trip in 1996, recording trips in 2004 & 2005 and premiere trips in 2007 & 2009.

Our Goals: "JESUS" is now available in over 1000 languages with over 6 billions viewings.  We seek to make it available in over 1,500 languages for everyone in the world to be able to hear the good news in a language they understand.  Though some say there are over 6,000 languages in the world, 1,500 represent those with 100,000 or more speakers & over 95% of the world's population.  The other people understand a trade language that "JESUS" is in.  We are also diversifying to make the message available over radio waves, audiocassette, DVD, TV broadcast, Internet, as well as a product for children and for women (see products).

See how you can be a part of this effort <click here>

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