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With a pen, a journal, and a camera, two men travel the world to bring us stories of deliverance from another world. Their aim is to share good news about the advance of the good news, far as the curse is found.

On the scene in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, Tim Keesee reports on the kingdom of Christ’s advance in this latest installment of the DVD series, Dispatches from the Front. Aptly titled Every Tribe, the scope of this survey of the frontlines is beautifully overwhelming.

Horror and Hope

Keesee shares the horrifying statistics of this recently war-torn region—genocide by the millions, moral suicide on a national scale, widespread idolatry, demon worship. He examines the artifacts and scenes through which it eventually became obvious to the world that evil reigned there. The viewer is prompted to ask a question only the Word of God can answer: What can we do in the face of such evil? We’re also drawn to wonder about the church in this region—how is she doing? As Keesee tells her stories, we see with clarity that the only way these brothers and sisters can get out of bed in the morning is to place their trust in the risen King who holds the keys to death and Hades.

I was struck by the fact that our hope is the same as theirs. The church is facing different obstacles all over the world. Consider your own congregation and the various issues that keep coming up: to the forefront of member conversations, to the list at the prayer meetings, and to the elders’ minds as they feed the sheep. Though our temporary life circumstances may look very different than the churches in this dispatch, it’s easy to see what we have in common. Every Tribe is a multiethnic illustration of the biblical truth that we all live in a fallen world—and that Jesus Christ, whom we follow, has overcome the world.

Life and Death

The film implicitly addresses what I think is one of our most uncontested assumptions when it comes to evangelism. We tend to look around and subconsciously identify individuals in our family, work, or school we assume are “more likely” to follow Christ. Oh, her? She’ll never change. It’s no use to witness to her. Sadly, I’ve even heard some imagine statistics that rank the potential of different ethnic groups to believe the gospel. He’s from where? They hate Jesus. Those people are a lost cause.

The stories we see and hear in Every Tribe are kind of like watching someone else work out; we’re inspired to get in the game with them. As history unfolds before us in this dispatch, we get to watch a new generation of Christ followers flex their faith muscles and pass on the gospel. And the children! We get to listen to children sing of the Savior—as the first generation of their people who don’t know what it’s like to live in fear of demons.

Dispatches from the Front: Every Tribe

Dispatches from the Front: Every Tribe

Frontline Missions International.

The latest episode of the Dispatches from the Front series is set in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos, where a patchwork of tribes lives—people groups long crushed by brutal dictators and enslaved to the worship of demons. But the Gospel is setting prisoners free! From the killing fields of Cambodia to the remote corners of Laos, this is an “every tribe, every tongue” story of first-generation believers, who are now singing for joy over their deliverance, loving the Word, and crossing borders to share the Good News that “never has been kept within bounds.”

Frontline Missions International.

As always in these DVDs, we’re instructed by what we see before us. The stark contrast of life and death in this film shows that whether you’re “over there” or “over here,” we all need new birth in Christ. The people of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam suffer the same spiritual deadness and satanic blindness that we all suffer from no matter where we were born. Sure, the way our spiritual depravity plays out in our cultures may look different, but the remedy is the same. The gospel is the power of God for salvation no matter who you are, where you’re from, or what idol has enslaved you.

We’re humbled when we realize this abundant fruit was produced by God when faithful brothers and sisters left their homes, learned new languages and cultures, and loved not their lives even unto death. In scene after scene, Keesee shows us that the world’s idols are unable to save; they sleep like the stone from which they were quarried. But our King is alive! And he’s effectively plundering the strong man’s prison house as he gives men, women, and children life in his name. My faith is strengthened to see how, every day, ordinary men and women believe Jesus’s promises and go make disciples.

Film for the Family

The Dispatches from the Front DVD series is a Furman family favorite, no doubt owing to Keesee’s biblical commentary and pastoral heart. We love how he brings our family along with him to places we’ve never been, to see persons we’ll someday meet in glory. He helps us understand the world we live in through an eternal perspective. Our hearts are stirred with compassion for the lost. Our fears are checked as we watch others in the great cloud of witnesses trusting Jesus in difficult circumstances. We’re reminded to not just pray for safety for our brothers and sisters in the global church, but to pray for their boldness as well.

Keesee’s storytelling reminds us that we ought to pray for God to do what man cannot. He is able! (Parents of young children, you may wish to view this film beforehand, so you can be better prepared to discuss the film’s themes.)

Prepare Your Heart

Though most of us can’t sing in Tampuan, one of their hymns, written by a young woman named Yet, rings in our hearts:

In the past we didn’t know God the Father.

Yes, in the past we didn’t know Bakatoy.

God is the One who sent Jesus Christ.

This Jesus is the Lord who came down to save us.

Come, bow down before the Lord Jesus, who forgives sin.

Come, all peoples of the earth,

Hurry and believe on the Lord Jesus.

Praise God for the grace he has shown our brothers and sisters from among the Tampuan, Krung, Brao, and Jarai people! Once they were not a people, but now they are God’s people. Once they had not received mercy, but now they have received mercy.

In our world of fearmongering headlines and unknowns, we fight to keep our hearts fixed on what is certain and true. Here is the cosmos-altering headline that gives us a sure foundation and a hope: Jesus is alive!

In closing, these are Keesee’s words about the scope of Christ’s triumph over evil:

Across these remote borderlands, Christ’s kingdom continues to grow. War, persecution, the chains of demon darkness—even the boundaries of nations and languages—none of these things can stop this every-tribe-every-tongue gospel. Christ’s kingdom has no borders!

Gather with your family or your small group to watch Every Tribe, and marvel at how Jesus is gathering men, women, and children from every nation to worship him and sing the anthem of the ages: “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”


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