I don’t use the word “miracle” loosely, but the description fits the story of this video.

Before Lausanne, I contact Elke Werner (Marburg, Germany), Lausanne Senior Associate for Women in Evangelism, to find out what was being done to champion women who are serving globally in a variety of ministries and how I might help.

I never dreamed where this would lead.

Elke serves as Lausanne Senior Associate for Women in Evangelism. She was putting together a DVD of resources to distribute at the Lausanne Women’s Cafe. She planned to distribute 4000 copies. Elke was also given a plenary spot to highlight the importance of women and men serving God together and also to draw attention to the current global crisis involving the suffering and oppression of women as presented in works like Half the Sky. I offered to help.

One idea I suggested was a video to unpack for women the Lausanne call: The Whole Church taking the Whole Gospel to the Whole World!. I thought she might use it during her plenary presentation. That’s when I learned she only had 8 minutes (!) to present and couldn’t spare a second. I decided to pursue the video anyway for the DVD and, with support from the Synergy board, drafted a script and sent it to Nate Clarke of Fourth Line Films. Nate took my ideas to the next level and did a masterful job of translating ideas and words visually.

When I sent the video to Elke, this is the email message that came back:

I am so happy with your video! When I saw the three minutes on women I started to cry. I was so moved! What a great piece of art!

This weekend I will have to finish to work on my talk. And I decided to use the video for the first three minutes. It contains exactly what I had planned to say in the first three minutes (I timed my words and it was exactly three minutes I had planned to talk about women in need) and now I am so glad that I can rather “show” the audience what I want to say then just say it. I can build wonderfully on the content of the video and I am so thrilled about it!

Carolyn, words cannot say how grateful I am to you and to Synergy!!! What a great help, a wonderful working of the Spirit, a testimony on what partnerships can achieve. Again and again: Thank you!

The video went on the DVDs and for the plenary was translated into eight languages. It was shown Saturday during the Lausanne General Session and also on Lausanne’s Global Links around the world! I told you it was a miracle!

Saturday morning at Lausanne I was a bundle of nerves, partly from empathy for Elke who was about to address the entire gathering of 4500 delegates and partly in anticipation of the Synergy video.

Since Lausanne, I’ve begun hearing how the video is being used in other contexts: an international ministry to Muslim women and at U.S. women’s conferences.

At Synergy, we pray that the video will be widely used to mobilize women for the whole gospel and raise the alarm over what is happening to women worldwide.

You can be sure we’ll be showing it at Synergy2011!