A new animated story of the life of Christ could have huge implications for closed country evangelism.

USA (MMN) — Their main goal is to provide God’s word to children and youth. Book of Hope Internationalhas been able to give a “Book of Hope” to 200-million young people.

However, now they’ll be able to do it in a visual way with a new 3D animated film on the life of Christ. “It’s the latest type,” says Hoskins. He says, “it’s character generated, photo realistic type (of production). The production will be completed at the end of ’03 and we’re looking at it’s first release in ’04.”

Hoskins says this could be the key to reaching young people in countries like China. “Although we are only able to get a small number of printed Books of Hope into the country of China, what we’ll be able to do with God Man on compact video disc is to literally show it to millions and there are 420-million school aged children in China. So, this will be able to show the story of Jesus in the latest and most relevant way possible.”

Hoskins says they still need to raise 800-thousand dollars to complete the nearly $4-million project, allowing them to hit that very important deadline. “If we don’t hit the end of the year, it’ll make it very difficult for us to get this on any type network television at Easter time for the U-S. And then of course, to roll it out in the other languages will be another budget factor for next year as we release it around the world.”

Many countries are becoming more media savy. He says, “we haven’t had, as the church, tools that could effectively reach the media audience of the global children and youth culture of today. But, the “God Man” is that tool. This will be the Jesus story of this generation.”