Get to Know Jordan
I had a passion for missions work before I ever held a camera. I ended up in bible college (through a series of ridiculous events) with the intention of getting involved with some form of humanitarian or missional work overseas, and this led to me joining a missions trip to Thailand at the end of my senior year. That’s where everything shifted.
The team needed help making a promo video for the trip. I still didn’t have a clue what I was doing with a camera, but I decided to pitch in and see what I could come up with. As soon as I agreed to help in this way, however, every ministry who the team was going to support found out why I was coming and invited me to serve their ministries in this same way. This initial trip turned from me going only to Thailand, to going to Thailand, Myanmar, Southern Siberia, Russia, and Germany. I would be telling the story of multiple humanitarian and missional agencies across these countries and promoting the incredible work that they were doing… I was suddenly in WAY over my head. But I’m a “fake it until you make it” kind of guy, and so I decided to dig in my heels and see where this road would lead me.
During that two-month trip, a passion for telling stories was ignited in me. I was so deeply impacted by the testimonies that I was a part of telling, and I kept thinking to myself, “how many people don’t know these stories?” I suddenly knew what I was called to do with the rest of my life. This changed my trajectory, and I started to focus on learning whatever I could about video production and story telling. I began by filming anything I could get my hands on. I did video work for local churches, weddings, various side projects, and local ministries, all trying to figure out this newfound passion that I had. I eventually decided to launch out away from home and moved to a town that was on the other side of Canada. This is where God showed up and opened the door for me to work with a video production company in the Greater Toronto Area.
They hired me before I was talented, but they saw me as a blank slate and as someone who was teachable. And so I humbled myself and did whatever they asked of me. During that first year of working with this company, they would pick apart anything I handed them and showed me the areas where I could improve. It was a humbling process but I grew exponentially during this season. All the while they allowed me to travel as much as I wanted to; continuing my work abroad while having a job when I got back. It was a real Godsend. Over time, I reached a point where I had gained all I could from that experience, and I felt confident and ready to step out on my own to fully pursue and realize my call. I started a business called Groundwork Media which was specifically dedicated to video production for ministries, missionaries, and humanitarian agencies. I started that year by travelling to 9 different countries with the expressed purpose of storytelling for missions… and then COVID hit. This shut me down, and Groundwork Media was brought to a grinding halt.
While trying to navigate the realities of COVID alongside the rest of the world, I was given the opportunity to relocate to Istanbul as an option to continue my work while being more central to where the action was. Seeing as living abroad was always something I wanted to do one day I jumped at the opportunity. Istanbul became my base of operations for two and a half years and my traveling picked up. I was averaging about 15 countries a year, telling the story of incredible people across the globe, and to be honest… I was burnt out. It was too much travel for one person, and I knew I couldn’t keep up this pace.
This is when I started talking to my good friend Mike. We had filmed together in Africa before and kept in touch. He had his own story of how he had gotten to the same point with the same passion as me, and we began dreaming of what it could look like to do this together. I knew that if I wanted to move forward from here it would have to be as a part of a team and so I relocated to Austria where Mike and I started Project Vérité.
My passion has always belonged to people’s stories. I have always said that if there was a better way to tell someone’s story other than video, I would drop video in a heartbeat and do that! But given today’s audience, this is the best tool we have. I have now been to 40 different countries over 11 years doing this work and I haven’t looked back since.