Man vs. World

Andrew is a 22-year-old filmmaker, a technical resource developer in The Salvation Army’s Creative Ministries Dept. He won the all-expenses-paid trip to travel the world, capture it on camera, and promote the work of TearFund along the way.

The adventure began when he entered the Downunder Worldwide Insurance Challenge on Facebook in 2010, in which he had to submit a one-minute video about himself. Out of 30 entrants, Andrew was one of the top three finalists.

The person who got the most Facebook votes would be the winner. Andrew printed 8000 flyers and spent hours doing letterbox drops. He spent two days at his old school where he set up voting stations at lunch time. He became an infamous figure on Cuba Street in Wellington, painted head-to-toe in blue or orange, doing interviews with radio and newspapers, and bribing people with Chupa Chups to vote for him. When the competition ended, a simple Facebook status update announced ‘Andrew Strugnell is the winner’.

Fourteen Countries

‘I guess it started off as an experiment. But I also knew that this could be life-changing, knowing that it could be the start of my career marrying my two passions for travel and filmmaking. I guess I fought for the opportunity,’ says Andrew.

Andrew had the daunting task of visiting 14 countries in almost every continent; beginning in South America where he visited Peru; Uganda in Africa; Europe, including England, France, Italy and Greece; and then on to Asia, where he travelled through Turkey, Syria and Jordan before flying to India, Vietnam, the Philippines and finally, China. Phew!

The goal was to create an online travel series that highlighted the work of TEAR Fund NZ, while sharing with viewers his experience of backpacking around the world on a modest budget. He was sponsored by Canon, who loaned him a specialist film camera and gear worth over $12,000 for the trip. Andrew’s approach seems to have been Man vs. World: ‘I was determined to venture out and challenge myself to survive with just me and my camera.’

Through Facebook, online viewers could vote on challenges along the way. They directed him to help out on a rice farm in the Philippines and sent him on what Andrew describes as the most bizarre experience of the whole trip, a Turkish bath and cut-throat shave. ‘It was very weird wearing nothing but a very small towel and being scrubbed down by another man,’ laughs Andrew. ‘The shave was a bit scary and I lost my rough traveller’s charm. They even lit a cotton ball on fire and scolded the hairs in my ears with it!’

His standout favourite spot was Machu Picchu in Peru, which was both sublime and ‘one of the scariest moments of my life’. With only half a day to visit the ancient lost city of the Incas, Andrew found himself confronted with a gigantic moving landslide that was blocking off the narrow road along the steep cliff face. ‘I thought I could waste two hours going around it, or I could try running over it’. Along with five other tourists, he ran for his life over the moving mass of earth. ‘I still feel scared thinking about it today,’ says Andrew. 'When we reached Machu Picchu it was this glorious city up in the hills, so mysterious—and it just made you stand back and ask a lot of questions.’

Trusting God

There were lows as well, like being alone and homesick in India with a bad case of ‘Delhi belly’. ‘In some countries, there would be a moment every day where I just thought, “Get me out of here!” Instead, you bounce those experiences and fun off the lens of a camera, and hope viewers will feel it with you on the other side of the world.'

‘The biggest part of this trip was learning to trust God for everything,’ he says, recalling yet another frightening moment in Turkey when he was harassed into getting a blacked-out taxi with two drivers, and feared for his life. ‘I just had the gnawing feeling that I was going to get mugged down the road, so I forced them to stop the taxi and they threw out my luggage along with me.’ Instead, Andrew took a bus to the Syrian border the next day, only to discover that without the right currency to pay for the NZD$140 Syrian tourist visa, he was going to be offloaded and abandoned. ‘An English couple that I had made friends with on the bus paid for me, otherwise I would have been left there. So taking the bus turned out to be what saved me,’ says Andrew. ‘I had to proactively live out my faith and trust God in every situation, and God came through every time.’

Global compassion

One month out of the three-month trip was dedicated to working with TEAR Fund NZ sponsored projects around the world. In Africa, he stayed with his ‘African mum’ and her family of eight children, five of whom are adopted. They are all children sponsored through various aid organisations, including TEAR Fund NZ. ‘Mamma Moline shared with me how excited and deeply grateful her family is, showing me family photos of her sponsors on the wall,’ says Andrew. ‘Many of the women in the village don’t have children of their own but have adopted up to eight kids.’

He felt most connected to a city mission called the Centre for Community Transformation (CCT) that aims to get homeless people off the streets of Manila, the Philippines. ‘They go to various locations and give out food parcels, share the Word of God and just ask people how they’re doing. People come in droves,’ says Andrew.

It is experiences like this that have stayed with Andrew, as other memories fade. ‘It puts things in perspective with regards to you and your relationship with the world,’ he says. ‘It’s important to be mindful that there are things bigger than ourselves, and give back with our resources and skills.

‘I think the thing that’s stayed with me most is how amazing and beautiful the world is, and how beautiful people are’

> Check out Andrew’s adventures at www.youtube.com/strugsnotdrugs

By Ingrid Barratt (abridged from War Cry, 22 October 2011, p5-7)