Candace Mackie with TWR Motion, a division of Trans World Radio, says, “We believe people of all cultures deserve to hear about Jesus in a way they understand and so, we make animated content that’s used on social media to engage with people who are spiritually seeking.” 

Kayla Schlipf, art director for Journey to Hope, illustrating a scene from the episode about the fall of humankind. (Image and caption courtesy of TWR Motion)

Trans World Radio is all about reaching the last, those forgotten and cut off from the gospel. Today, TWR Motion is partnering with a ministry in Thailand, this time to reach Buddhists. 

“We started to work with them to understand Thai people in particular, but also just broadly trying to understand Buddhism,” Mackie says. 

There’s been a steep learning curve. In recent years, TWR Motion created a video series called “Share the Story” presenting the gospel to Muslims. That was an easier process than this new series has been. 

“Islam is a little bit closer to what we’re used to. There’s a lot of bridges to the gospel with Old Testament prophets. Sacrifice is very much something that they understand,” Mackie says. “But for Buddhist people, it’s been really tricky to understand their worldview, because it’s just so different than ours.”

For example, Mackie says animism and spirit worship are common among the Thai people.

Illustration from Journey to Hope, an animated Bible story to share the gospel with people with a Buddhist worldview. Adam and Eve in the garden. (Image and caption courtesy of TWR Motion)

“It’s a very different context. We’ve kind of taken a deep dive into this, to produce 20 episodes of Bible stories,” Mackie says. 

The “Journey to Hope” series should be completed in 2025. (Learn more about it here.) Between now and then, Mackie says there are ways you can help bring it to the finish line.

“I would definitely ask for prayer for us as we develop this series. For the Lord to work out some of the challenges that we have in our workflow.”

If you are a church planter who could use “Journey to Hope” in a language other than Thai, reach out to TWR Motion. They have worked with dozens of other teams to translate their video resources into new languages to spread the gospel.  

Header photo of a church planter in Thailand talking with a local man in a village courtesy of TWR Motion.

Candace Mackie with TWR Motion says they often partner with church-planters who use social media to reach spiritual seekers. “We’ll work with them to develop original videos that they can use that reach their culture with the gospel in their language.” 

A church planter in Thailand talks with a local man in a village. (Image and caption courtesy of TWR Motion)

After creating a video series for the Muslim world, TWR Motion has now partnered with a church-planting ministry in Thailand. The new 20-video series will cover creation, the fall of man, Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, plus many other stories in between — all of them geared to reach into the unique worldview of Buddhists. 

“The whole series theme, we’re trying to show that Jesus is our ultimate hope. So we’re trying to present Jesus as the person who can bring hope to their lives and that they can know for themselves,” Mackie says.

Mackie says the trickiest part has been learning to understand the worldview of Buddhists. Their partners have been essential in developing the content.

“They [ministry partners in Thailand] actually worked with Wycliffe Bible Translators as well. So the base of the scripts came from Wycliffe,” Mackie says. “We made some adjustments and spoke into it at different points to help [with] thinking about it from a video perspective. But [we] really trusted them with the content that needed to be in there.” 

Illustration from Journey to Hope, an animated Bible story to share the gospel with people with a Buddhist worldview. Adam and Eve eating the fruit. (Image and caption courtesy of TWR Motion)

The series Journey to Hope should release in the Thai language in 2025. Between now and then, would you pray for and support the team? 

“There’s a lot that goes into the artwork and the way that we tell the stories. [Pray] for wisdom, and clarity, and energy, stamina,” Mackie says. 

This video series is meant to reach beyond just Thai communities. It’s an ongoing project that you can support. (Learn more about “The Crew” behind TWR Motion here.)

“The goal — and what we’ve done with our other series — is that any church-planting team who would like to use this can come to us and we’ll work with them to translate it and produce it in their language so that they can use it in their contexts,” Mackie says. 

If you could use Journey to Hope to reach Buddhists in another culture or language than Thai, reach out to TWR Motion here. 

Header photo: Kayla Schlipf, art director for “Journey to Hope,” illustrating a scene from the episode about the fall of humankind. Photo and caption courtesy of TWR Motion.