Shooting With a Mission: ABWE's Volunteer Photographer Program

By Jeff Raymond

"The shots the photographers took here were invaluable in putting together our presentation. It's a great help to the missionary in providing relevant info for the churches in the U.S." - Peter Brock, Italy, 2002

For most people, short-term missions work brings visions of constructing churches, working at a summer camp, or helping in a mission hospital. However, specialized skills of any type can be used, as our Missions Photography Team has found. Over the last five years, we have developed a network of volunteer professional photographers and videographers who raise their own support to travel overseas to produce quality images of our mission fields.

Some may wonder, is this just a frivolous excuse for a vacation with a camera? With today's technology, why can't missionaries just take their own pictures?

Most missionaries aren't trained to be photographers. Their snapshots are often documentary in nature, which diminishes the impact of church presentations. Our team of professional photographers is gifted with the ability to capture the heart and emotion of missions.

Photographers look at the culture through "American" glasses. In other words, they see things in much the same way as people back home would. After living overseas for awhile, missionaries become oblivious to the differences in culture. "I forgot that donkeys don't pull carts down the streets of Philadelphia," commented one ABWE missionary.

Certainly missionaries take plenty of pictures, but they rarely move to the other side of their cameras. A vital link that connects them with their North American partners is the ability to "see" the missionary in action. Photographers can come in from the outside and capture all aspects of the missionary's life, ministry, and daily routine.

Quality photographs effectively communicate missions. Powerful images can motivate people to pray, give, or go as they observe what God is doing all around the world.

I am so thankful for the hundreds of excellent slides of Ukraine that were taken by Tom Kilpatrick and by other photographers over the years. They have greatly enhanced our presentations. . . . Thanks again for your help in the media department and for helping to provide such a great resource for us! - John Taylor, Ukraine, 2002

Since 1999.

• 57 volunteer overseas photo & video trips to ABWE mission fields (some to multiple countries)
• 33 different individuals have participated
• 16 days is the average duration of a missions photo trip
• 17 hours is the average length of a photographer's workday
• 56 different ABWE fields have been covered by volunteer photographers
• 1769 photographs is the average number of new images that a photographer brings back to us from each field (over 100,000 total)
• $2,200 is the average cost of travel and photographic expenses that each photographer must raise to cover the costs of a trip

View ABWE's recent online photo galleries.

For more information on supporting an ABWE volunteer photographer, email donorhelp@abwe.org.

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