When Wanda MacLean watched the JESUS film in a movie theater in San Bernardino, Calif., for the first time, she saw it in her own language—English. That was 25 years ago.

"I had no idea how far-reaching the film would be," says Wanda, who today works full time with The JESUS Film Project¨ at Campus Crusade's world headquarters in Orlando, Fla., giving motivational tours about the film.

To help visitors understand the impact of the film, Wanda, who manages the tours and is one of three guides, starts her daily tours by pointing to a screen with scrolling numbers. The world's population, increasing every second, is over 6.4 billion people. The counter also measures the 5.2 billion times JESUS has been watched, sometimes more than once by the same person, in the last 25 years.

"What's really exciting is there are more viewings of the JESUS film every second than the rate of the world-population increase," says Wanda. The brainchild of Campus Crusade founder Bill Bright, JESUS is regularly shown by 1,537 church denominations and mission agencies around the world.

Directing visitors' eyes to a television, Wanda starts a clip of the movie—the parable of the sower—in English. English subtitles flash on the screen, but the audio changes to French, Spanish and then Mandarin Chinese. JESUS has been seen in every country of the world, and as of September the film has been translated into 860 languages, with 230 more in process.

From its earliest days, some have envisioned using the JESUS film to give each person in the world a chance to see and hear Jesus in a language they can understand.

But dubbing new languages over the 1979 film isn't easy. Local Christians, missionaries or Bible scholars must translate the original script—which is 140 pages long—into the new language. In order to match the lip movements of the original actors to the new translation's words, the syllable count of the translation becomes very important.

"Say you have a greeting like the word 'Hello' in English," says Wanda. "Is there a two-syllable greeting in Russian you can use?" The Russian words for 'Hi' and 'Hello' are both more than two syllables, proving even simple words are difficult to translate.

"But the integrity of the text, which is based on the Gospel of Luke, is far more important to us than syllable count for the sake of lip synchronization," explains Wanda.

Once translation is complete, a team of usually two travels to the country in which the language is spoken. The travel team's job is adventurous—but not a job for everyone.

"Somebody might serve you a sheep's head as part of your meal," says Wanda. "It would be very rude to decline."

The travel team records lines of the film into the new languages using native speakers as voice actors. The process, complicated in a proper studio, is even more challenging in conditions found in villages. Wanda tells a story of a rooster crowing—over and over—during a recording in Uganda.

"They had chicken soup the next day," says Wanda. "That literally took care of that ambient noise." Travel teams have used bed mattresses, blankets and egg crates to block extra noise. On average, the voice recording takes about one week.

Pointing toward the JESUS Film Master Studio, Wanda explains the next part of the process. Using computers, technicians synchronize the lip movements from the film with digital audio, and mix the music soundtrack back into the film. Lip smacks and unnecessary breaths are removed, and the voices are adjusted for volume, tone and ambience.

The entire process—from scripting the language, to recording the voices, to syncing it to the 1979 film, to producing a film reel—costs an average of $35,000. After the script is translated, the average time from voice recording to showing is 15 months.

Although it is a long and costly process, it is effective. In the last 25 years, 197 million people have indicated a decision to accept Christ as their Savior after watching JESUS. And though the film was released 25 years ago, it continues to reach multitudes today.

"It is a wonderful thing to hear truth in your own language," Wanda says.

For more information about the JESUS film, visit jesusfilm.org or phone 1-800-432-1997.