A vision from 1998, built in about a week in Manila.

A week in Manila

In October 2026 I flew to Manila to bring my daughter, Ivy, to her internship with the digital marketing team at Kids International Ministries (KIM). While I was there, in about a week, I built Hey Archi with AI. I built it so a small media team could find the stories hiding in years of footage, and make great videos without becoming expert editors.

A vision from 1998

In 1998 I went on a missions trip to Ghana. There I had a vision I called Missions In Action: use technology to connect missionaries in the field with the people who support them, in real time, so missionaries could spend less effort on logistics and more on people.

This was before blogs and social media. I proved the idea with a laptop and an early digital camera.

Twenty-seven years of preparation

That work helped get me hired at Microsoft, and the vision went quiet. I spent 27 years there, the last stretch on the Xbox team. In the last year or so, I went deep on building with AI. That year turned out to be the training.

Connect, and a decision

Our family has made yearly trips to KIM, and we have a deep friendship with its director, Norman Denler. In 2026, at KIM, I discovered that Norman had independently built a platform called Connect. It was the 1998 vision, even down to the word.

That same season, Microsoft offered a voluntary retirement. I retired in July 2026, because I knew I could use the AI skills I'd spent the past year building to help ministries be their best. That's what Missions In Action AI is now: putting skilled engineers right inside ministries.

I see this whole path as God's faithfulness and timing: a vision that waited 27 years and came back together all at once.

Why Hey Archi is free

Ministry footage is of real people, often kids. It should stay on their own computer, and finding the stories in it shouldn't cost a subscription. So Hey Archi is free, and it will stay free. It's one example of what Missions In Action does.

— Nate Dunlap