Meet Awayo.

I have waited almost one whole year to introduce you to a friend of mine. His name is AWAYO. (’uh-wah-yo’)

Awayo lives in the mountainous jungle regions of West Papua, Indonesia. His tribe is called “Moi”(’moy’); there are only 700-800 Moi in existence. The Moi have a language and culture completely their own. Their primitive lifestyle is one that you wouldn’t think still truly exists in the 21st Century. Awayo’s home is as “ends of the earth” as you can get.

This is Awayo’s story. Though he lives in an indigenous, remote tribe, Awayo’s life is anything but simple. Riddled with pain, murder & deception, life in the Moi tribe was spent in constant fear. There was no hope. Then something happened that shook the foundation of Awayo’s life.

———-

Backstory: During Thanksgiving last year, most of you were probably sitting at home, enjoying time off with your family and eating as much turkey and dressing as possible. Me? Well, I was with my tribal family, enjoying each other’s company and eating lots of amazing food (pig, chicken, rice, possum poo…you know, the essentials). I was in the middle of “Moi Land”! I was with our NTMfilms team filming Awayo’s story, on location in West Papua. Our team was made up of Nate Griffin (my business partner), Ben Smallbone (of Radiate Films), and three missionaries from New Tribes Mission (Macon Hare, Ian Fallis & Regina Sullivan).

I blogged about our trip a few times back in the Winter. You can see those posts & “behind-the-scenes” videos HERE.

The purpose of filming & producing “Awayo” was to provide New Tribes Mission with a video that helps communicate and promote the vision of NTM. Most organizations make overview videos & emotional infomercials, loaded with overwhelming statistics and heart-wrenching appeals to “pray, give or go”. All of that may be well & good, but we decided to do something different. We wanted to simply tell a STORY.

B/c of it’s broad message (aka, it doesn’t have NTM’s logo & name plastered all over it), we realized that this film could fuel many churches’ call-to-missions. So we have made “AWAYO” available on WorshipHouse Media. The version posted above has Awayo’s own voice with subtitles, but we also produced a version with an English voiceover. We also created a Leader’s Guide to go along with the film. When you purchase the film from WorshipHouse, you get both versions of the film, either in SD or HD resolution. When you purchase the film, part of the proceeds are going directly back into New Tribes Mission.

I’d also like to give a shout-out to Jason Morant, who scored the original music, as well as Paul Mills, who mixed the audio for us. They blew us away and are some of the most talented, creative artists in the industry.

To learn more about New Tribes Mission & how you can share Awayo’s story, visit ntm.org/reach.