Dear Family and Friends:

Every once in a while we like to explain the big picture again. For most, it’s a recap, but for others, it might bring a new perspective on what it is Mike does - and what Global Media Outreach does.

First, how did Global Media Outreach get started? Our founder, Walt Wilson, had worked closely with Steve Jobs in the early days of Apple Computer as Operations Manager. When the World Wide Web was just getting started, Walt visited the MIT Media Lab. Now VP of another tech company, he wanted to get a better idea of how this new communications platform would affect the business world. But because of his Christian faith, Walt couldn’t help thinking how the Web could be used to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. “If we had a connected global network,” he thought, “could we connect to people who were searching for God?” “Could we minister to people at their point of need?” “Could we lead them to a relationship with Jesus and disciple them?” When Walt eventually shared his ambitions with Paul Eshlemann (Director of the JESUS Film) and Steve Douglass (President of Campus Crusade for Christ), they invited him to join the staff of CCCI to “figure it out together.” By 2004, Walt’s growing team merged with another Campus Crusade division pursuing a similar strategy, and a new ministry, Global Media Outreach, was founded.

How did Mike got involved? In 2002, Mike was working at Lifescience Media in Diamond Bar, CA, developing eLearning projects for the medical industry. It was interesting work: sometimes requiring graphic design one day, programming the next. But one disappointing consequence of working closely with a rapidly growing industry was the sometimes temporary value of our efforts. One client might “spin off” a division as a new company. Another’s drug may fail to meet FDA approval. A product might be sold to another company. In such cases, while project goals were met, contracts were paid and the finished products were satisfying, theintended purpose was frustrated. Mike began to envision applying this toward reaching the world for Jesus. Campus Crusade for Christ surfaced again and again as he looked for ways to do this. In 2003, Mike and Cindy joined CCCI staff with the ministry that eventually merged with Walt’s group. At the time, our “Who Is Jesus - Really?” website had reached the top 10 results in Google through natural search engine rankings, and as many as 50 people every day were indicating decisions for Christ through it and related sites.

What we’re doing today: Our official 2013 results were released just last week. A total of 326,353,266 gospel presentations were made through GMO sites in 2013. After seeing a presentation, 34,833,442 people indicated a decision to follow Jesus Christ, 17,983,313 made a connection with one of our volunteers and 12,087,243 made discipleship visits to one of our follow-up sites. Since 2004, our estimate is about a billionreached, 100 million indicated decisions for Christ. Our goal for 2014 is to present the gospel to 400 million. I don’t know of a better way of reaching such vast numbers of people than what we are doing.