The months of July and August were life changing for us. We thought we’d be home nearly the whole month of July, which is something we were really looking forward to since we’ve been gone the majority of the year, but only a few days after we got back from our 32 day trip to New England and Europe, we were packing our bags again. This time, we’d agreed to housesit for Cassie’s brother’s friend in Pinehurst over Fourth of July, but we were regretting having said yes. We’d only been home for a few days and Cassie was really relishing in the idea of hiding out at home, decompressing from all our travels. But alas, we found ourselves in a beautiful home not our own caring for five chickens, two fish, a parakeet, cat, dog and a bearded dragon. 

Staying in someone else’s house was an eye-opening experience. Not because it was a new place, that’s pretty normal for us, but because it was a private house close to Cassie’s family. It gave us a taste for what it would be like if we lived in Cassie’s hometown, rather than just staying with family like we normally do when we visit. We even hosted Cassie’s parents and her brother and his family in the house we were staying in for our Fourth of July festivities! But most transformative was the fact that we, especially Cassie, realized that we could get the much needed rest and recuperation from our travels we needed under a roof not our own. She realized our house had no magical power over her. Sure, it was home and it is a special place to us, but she realized she had idolized it in her mind. This realization came at the perfect timing too, as God’s timing is always perfect.

A couple weeks later, Cassie’s dad had a big doctor’s appointment he had been waiting six months for and he was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. We were alongside her parents for the news, which was very hard to swallow but we knew God had prepared our hearts for it. Without hesitation or doubt, we knew it was time to move to Cassie’s hometown to live closer to her parents so we can help with their needs as they arise, and just spend more time together. That said, we listed our house on the market in early October and were under contract in four days. 

In the middle of all this, Jordan’s mom broke her hip and spent 11 days in the hospital. We also made our second trip to Africa this year for a project in Tanzania, which actually didn’t require us to do any filming or photography. This trip was a new role for us, coaching participants on a missions-minded video storytelling workshop. The newbie videographer participants on the trip were given a story to document and we provided one-on-one coaching through the entire process, from coming up with interview questions and assisting during the interviews, directing during b-roll shoots, helping to tighten up stories and critiquing during the editing process. It was powerful to hear and help tell the stories of Tanzanians who have been impacted by the various ministries that the ABWE missionaries started in the capital city of Dar es Salaam, which includes health care, counseling, artisan training for young single women to make a living, and biblical training paired with farming training for pastors to plant churches and support their families. The trip culminated with a premiere event where all the interviewees came with their family and friends for dinner and the film screenings. There were speeches, gifts and even a surprise visit from Masai tribesmen who performed (jumped) for us. It was a very sweet premiere event and fun cultural experience too! Photos below courtesy of one of the other coaches on the trip, the talented Stanley Leary.

So where in the world are the Timpys now? We’re currently in a time of transition and in-between, helping Cassie’s parents by doing a lot of the cooking as we live with them until our future home in Southern Pines is move-in ready, which probably won’t be until February. The fact that we’re technically homeless for this period of time in between houses didn’t stop us from adopting a sweet kitty we found while camping with friends in Uwharrie National Forest back in November. We named our girl after the beautiful national forest we found her in, Uwharrie, and are totally smitten with this kitten. Finally, two lifelong animal lovers with our first pet after more than 11 years of marriage— we’ve built up a lot of love to give our fur baby!

This update is coming to an end, but we can’t give an update without sharing some videos, and since our next project in January 2025 is with one of our favorite organizations, Refugee Hope Partners in Raleigh, NC, here are a few videos from filming for them earlier in 2024. We’ve worked with Refugee Hope Partners for several years in a row, but in case you’ve never heard of the nonprofit, RHP exists to love their refugee neighbors with the hope of the gospel in partnership with the local church by engaging, equipping, and encouraging refugee families so that all may thrive. They do great work and over the years we’ve been honored to help tell their story and the stories of people they serve and watch the organization grow to help more and more refugee neighbors. 

Lastly, and potentially most anticipated, we leave you with our annual Year in Numbers! Thanks for reading, clicking, watching and praying. We love you. See you in 2025!

2024 YEAR IN NUMBERS

167 days away from home

73 Videos produced

60 days without a home

38 flights flown

31 beds slept in

13 books read (including the Bible from front to back)

12 countries visited

9 states visited

7 tricycle taxi rides

6 nights in a campervan in Scotland

6 bodies of water paddled

5 concerts attended in a canoe

4 lakes swam in

4 venomous snakes killed

4 family pet losses

3 nights spent in the hospital accompanying parents

2 New Years’ celebrated

2 missed flights

1 solar eclipse witnessed in totality

1 kid fostered

1 kitty adopted

0 REGRETS

COUNTLESS BLESSINGS!

Five days after we got back from our Asia tour, we were flying across the world yet again for a project in Africa, but flying to South Africa felt like a short travel day compared to Asia! We spent the night in a hotel in Johannesburg and then had a one-hour flight the next morning to our final destination, Gaborone, Botswana.

Botswana

Out of all the places we’ve traveled, the culture in Botswana is very memorable. Like in most African countries, no one is in a rush, but it’s more than that in Botswana. We quickly learned you can’t approach anyone with a simple question like “where is the bathroom?” without first saying hello and asking how the person, a complete stranger, is doing. If you forget and simply ask your question, your question is ignored and they instead reply, “hello, how are you?” For Americans, this is very hard to get used to, but by the end of our time there, we really began to appreciate what it does. For one, it makes you think outwardly rather than being consumed with your needs, and secondly, it helps you build relationships and value everyone in your path.

Our work in Botswana was documenting a group of 17 college students on their spring break who, rather than taking a cruise to Cancún or something along those lines, decided to spend their break serving on a mission trip in Africa. They were busy too! They put on a Vacation Bible School program for young kids, helped lead a youth group for high schoolers, hosted an evening event for young adults, visited a college campus to engage with students their own age, and did street evangelism sharing the good news of Jesus. It was very cool to see college students passionate about sharing their faith, but it was also exciting to see the full-time ministry they were serving with, which is all through a local Baptist church in Gaborone. In the vibrant church, kids and youth ministries abound and a full-fledged seminary school equips nationals to be pastors and plant churches. Check out the videos below about the ministry efforts in Gaborone as well as the experience of the college students’ mission trip.

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This year started with tears. Sitting on Cassie’s parents’ couch after the ball dropped on New Year’s Day, we knew right away this year would be hard. Two days later, Cassie’s mom had emergency back surgery, a month later their beloved 12-year-old German Shepherd (who Cassie potty trained over Christmas break back in her college days) would no longer be with us, and Cassie’s dad’s health would fluctuate drastically over the next few months. But with the lows, there have been many highs. 

Work has been steady and travel nearly nonstop. We spent the entire month of February in Asia for projects between Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. Our first stop was Kuala Lumpur, the skyscraper-filled capital of Malaysia, which happened to coincide with Chinese New Year. This year was a particularly “lucky” year, the year of the Dragon, so there was much hype and all the Buddhist temples were decked out in red lanterns, a very photogenic sight.

Kuala Lumpur, known as “KL” for short, is an interesting place with a blend of three main cultures (and religions): native Malay (Muslim), Chinese Malay (Buddhist) and Indian (Hindu). Due to more than half of the population being native Malay and bound to Islam’s Sharia Law, which means a Muslim’s conversion to another religion is forbidden and can be punishable by death, our projects presented huge creative challenges to tell the stories of the cross cultural workers without revealing their identities to protect them. It was just another one of those eye-opening trips we experience so often that make us appreciate living in the USA and all the things we take for granted, like, for instance, freedom of religion. We heard amazing stories, including one from an Iranian Muslim refugee turned staunch atheist. He intended to prove to everyone that God did not exist and succeeded in denouncing many religions, but in the process of reading the Bible (specifically the book of Galatians) to prove Christianity wrong, his eyes were opened to the countercultural truths of the Gospel and he is now a Christian pastor—wow, to God be the glory! We wish we could share the four inspiring videos we filmed and produced from our time in Malaysia, but for the security of the overseas workers, we cannot post them online. Hopefully the pictures below will suffice!

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After our five weeks in seven countries in April and May, we had a little bit of a breather at home this summer before departing for projects in Peru and Romania. If you search flights from Lima to Bucharest, there’s a connection Paris. Reluctant, but not wanting to fly all the way back home for just two nights, we decided to spend four days in Paris. Now having been, I’m not sure why two art-lovers were so reluctant to go to the City of Love.

The restaurant in the French film Amélie!

Vincent Van Gogh’s brother, Theo lived in this building in the neighborhood of Montmartre (along with Vincent himself, for 2 years)!

We actually filmed these same ornaments being made in Thailand at at ministry called Thai Country Trim! From Thailand to the Louvre Museum Gift Shop— Monet in a blue leisure suit!

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What a great year this has been for us so far! We enjoyed the most perfect spring in Wilmington, with unseasonably cool days and not having to turn on our air conditioning until mid June. Despite a much busier than usual first half of the year, we’ve been able to catch up on our editing projects before each international trip, leaving with the weight of a to-do list off our shoulders and coming back from video travels with a clean slate. We are feeling very thankful that God has been working all these details out of our control and giving us a nice rhythm. 

Back in May, we returned from a FIVE-WEEK overseas film trip to document several seminaries for one overarching video. This was our longest stint of time abroad since having a home base, but because our time was split between seven different countries, it really didn’t feel long at all!

The start of our trip began with a day in Singapore before heading on to India. 

Next we filmed on three islands of Indonesia, even getting to spend a few days in Bali for Jordan to surf a world-class wave in Uluwatu (his second world-class wave this year, after getting to surf at Fiji’s famous Tavarua Island in February where he caught the biggest wave of his life!). 

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Papua New Guinea is REALLY far away, and that’s coming from a couple that has traveled to Antarctica! We had to take six flights just to get there, crossing the international date line and arriving three days after we left. But as far away as it is, God is in this place, and we had the amazing opportunity to witness His presence and power moving in the lives of the people in PNG.

Psalm 139:7-17: 

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

 

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2022 has been a really big year for us in many ways. We served a lot of organizations and ministries near and far with trips to Malawi, Tanzania, Serbia, Portugal, London, Stockholm, Pittsburgh, and Black Mountain, NC as we continued to follow our calling to serve with our cameras, but we were pushed and challenged in ways like never before with bigger and more complex projects. For instance, we were approached by FirstHealth, the hospital in Cassie’s hometown that has become a regular client since we first worked with them in 2019, to pull off a creative project similar to something they found online— something very different from what we’re used to doing. The production was technically challenging, which involved hiring a lighting company to build a scaffold system for the lighting design we needed and hanging pipe and drape to transform a church auditorium into a film set. It was also our first time directing a large group of people during a video shoot, as 50 hospital employees took part in a social experiment about unconscious bias. It was a challenge, but the film day was a success and we were all extremely happy with the outcome, so take a look!

Another example of a project that pushed us this year was with an organization we have worked with in the past, World Villages for Children, which operates schools around the world where the poorest children are cared for, educated, and prepared for a career that will end generational poverty in their families. They had just opened a new campus in Tanzania and sent us to document several stories, producing six videos total. That all probably sounds like par for the course if you know anything about what we have done in the past, but the catch here was that we would be producing each of those six videos subtitled in eight different languages – a total of 48 videos! The complexity involved in keeping everything straight between the different versions and incorporating changes specific for each international charity’s country-specific branding and language was a new challenge. They also wanted the videos to be in formats that could be shown in theaters, but that was no problem for our new Sony cameras. Wait, did we mention that we completely switched out all of our camera gear in the middle of this year, changing from the familiar Canon brand that we have used for 14 years to a completely different system with Sony? Talk about a challenge! The videos came out great though and we are excited to share these stories showcasing the impactful work World Villages for Children is doing in Tanzania.

Now let’s talk big. Continue reading →

How do you sum up half a year, especially one that has been so full of intensely different experiences? Our typical travel work schedule was interrupted by an unexpected diagnosis, which turned into a complex surgery, followed by a long recovery and complete healing. In just the past six months, we’ve traveled to 6 continents, crossing off our 7th continent just a few days ago— Antarctica! As you can expect, this update covers a lot, so let’s jump right in! We’re going to look back in time to catch you up on all that’s happened.

JULY in Moldova & Greece

The fields of sunflowers in Moldova were in full bloom when we went to document a mission trip for Moldova Mission, the same organization we served with in 2017. But this trip to the landlocked Eastern European country felt completely different than last time because the summer camp was being hosted in a new location, a beautiful plot of land that the local church bought to develop into a camp of their very own. The property was beautiful and progress was amazing. The amenities were much better than the first camp location where they offered a 30-minute window for hot showers, boiling the water to make that possible. The new camp had plumbing to make hot showers possible for all, a luxury experience for the campers, compared to the homes they come from. The camp was also able to host twice as many campers in the new space, giving more kids the opportunity to hear and respond to the Gospel. The Gospel was shared each morning and evening in the form of Bible studies, prayer time, skits, worship, sermons, and sharing of testimonies. This year, we were asked to participate and share our testimonies too, which was a humbling experience to stand up in front of 200 people and share the good, bad and ugly of our lives and how God transformed us from broken individuals into the Jesus followers we are today. 

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After our Colorado project with Christ Church Windsor over Easter, these Appalachian Trail thru-hiking veterans couldn’t leave the area without doing some hiking. We hope you take the time to enjoy this epic blog post of our 11-day epic camping road trip where we visited SEVEN national parks and crossed off several bucket list items along the way, setting up camp from our economy rental car as our base of operations. Because of the pandemic, our plans had to be formulated well in advance, booking campsites and national park shuttle tickets in very specific timeframes, leaving not much to chance. Our plan for this trip was the Four Corner States: Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, and we were psyched for it to finally begin!

COLORADO

I guess technically we got to do some hiking DURING our project, because the team did take a trip out to Rocky Mountain National Park where we strapped spikes on our shoes so we could hike a few miles in the snow to Emerald Lake. The lake wasn’t visible because it was frozen over and covered in snow, but the view and backdrop of the Rockies was surreal.

UTAH

Upon picking up our rental car in Denver, Colorado, we took a local’s recommendation to head to Fisher Towers outside of Moab, Utah. When we arrived, there were only four car camping sites total, and just one was taken. We immediately snagged a spot and hit the desert trail for our first hike on our own.

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We’ve had a lot going on and we have lots of videos to share with you in this post. We can finally share the fruit of our labors from our filming trip to Libera in November 2020, as well as some from a more recent project in Raleigh, NC.

In the below mini documentary you will hear about The Last Well’s 12-year mission to bring clean water to the entire nation of Liberia by 2020. Spoiler alert: they did it.

Going into 2021, we really had no idea what God had in store for us. But, then again, do we ever? International travel was still on hold, so we were excited pretty early in the year when we were contacted by Refugee Hope Partners to do a series of videos called “Stories of Hope” in Raleigh, NC. If their name sounds familiar, it’s probably because we have worked with them a couple times in the past, and we are big fans of their ministry to love their refugee neighbors with the hope of the gospel in partnership with the local church. We produced five videos for them, one of which might be our best video yet. Take and look and see which one you like most.

For many refugees, life doesn’t get easier once resettled in a new country. New challenges arise and many children are forced to grow up quickly and take on the responsibility of an adult in order for their family to survive. Elysee’s story is much like this, helping to carry the weight of his family on his shoulders, but his story is not over yet.

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