Jeanne DamasioMexicoAug 28, 2026, 1:29 PM
Hope Media Chiapas unveiled a television production truck in July and sent it out on its first assignment in August, to a campsite in Cintalapa, in southern Mexico, where more than 15,000 people, most of them young, had gathered for five days. From there it carried the event to an audience the organizers put at hundreds of thousands.
The camp ran from August 12 to 16 at Campamento Eben Ezer. It was the second edition of a gathering the Chiapas Mexican Union holds for its children’s and teenagers’ clubs, under the theme Invencibles.
Clubs traveled from across Chiapas and other states in Mexico, as well as international groups from Guatemala, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, the United States, and Nepal. Azteca Chiapas, a regional broadcaster, called it the largest youth event of its kind in the state this year.
“We have 15,000 people attending here in person, but through the mobile unit, our media team is able to reach an audience of hundreds of thousands who are following the broadcast, without ever having to step onto the main stage,” said Pastor José Luis Bouchot, president of the Chiapas Mexican Union, which oversees nine regional offices across the state.
The mobile production unit is equipped for television production, live broadcasting, streaming, and distribution across digital platforms, with a cooling system, connections for external power, its own generator, and specialized production equipment. Félix Cortés, an engineer with the Mexican broadcaster TV Azteca who assisted with the installation, said it is well equipped to meet the production needs in Chiapas.
The reason for putting a studio on wheels is geography. Chiapas is mountainous and rural, and many of its communities sit far from any production facility. The unit was acquired to reach them, and to carry the gospel of Jesus in the languages spoken there. Plans include a media center to coordinate an online radio station and audiovisual content in Indigenous languages, with Tsotsil-speaking staff who can produce programs and answer viewers in their own language.
“We will now be able to broadcast from virtually anywhere our different ministries gather, whether for youth, adults, or children,” Bouchot said. “We will no longer have to improvise technical solutions for every event. It will also result in significant savings by reducing the need to rent equipment and hire additional personnel each time we set up at a new location.”
A truck of this kind needs a full crew, and one is being trained in each of the nine regional offices.
“The mobile unit requires a full production team, camera operators, a technical director, a graphics operator, an audio engineer, and a broadcast engineer,” said Uriel Castellanos, communication director of the Chiapas Mexican Union. “At the Union level, we have qualified personnel to fill all of these roles. At the same time, each local field has a team that is being trained so that, when we arrive at an event, they can join the production, step into their respective roles, and be ready to work alongside us.”
As first reported by Inter-American Division News, the truck was unveiled on July 18 in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, during a short film festival, with about 220 young communicators, filmmakers, leaders, and members of an initiative called Creative Disciples present. The nine regional offices worked together to acquire it, and they share it.
Over two days the festival screened 26 short films in 12 premiere blocks, made by teams from across the state, Hope Media Chiapas, schools, and Creative Disciples groups.
The truck joins work already underway. Earlier digital campaigns in the state connected with about 250,000 people. The union built a platform called Esperanza Chiapas, introduced online Bible courses, and created an artificial intelligence assistant that lets people study the Bible over WhatsApp. The goal now is an active social media presence in 80 percent of congregations across the state.
Abel Márquez, communication director of the Inter-American Division, sees the unit as something other territories can reproduce.
“It serves as a production and broadcasting model that can be replicated throughout Inter-America,” Márquez said. “At Hope Channel Inter-America, we support this project because we believe it can play a significant role not only in the Chiapas Mexican Union, but also across Mexico and the wider territory.”
“This was the mobile unit’s very first assignment,” Bouchot said. “Coincidence? No. I believe in Providence. I believe God is sending us a message, because the next generation is right here.”
