Out of Character, the short film I told you about in my November letter, is almost finished! In light of that, I though you’d enjoy the following story, reprinted by permission from the Keynote Connection blog (http://www.keynoteconnection.org/).
Ongoing Effect of w[rec]k
We recently heard from one of our former Summer Project students about how God is using the short film produced during the 2008 Summer Project, w[rec]k, on the other side of the world.We’ll call him Fred since he serves in a closed country. As part of the curriculum with students, the team runs “English corners.” Fred decided to do a short-film festival during one of their sessions.
He used Ctrl Z and La Liberté de l’Interieur (Freedom Within) and opened up discussion afterward. Some of the ideas and themes are little above what the students could communicate in English, but they were definitely processing what they were seeing. After some discussion, there were only about 15 minutes left in the class and he still had two films left to show. So, Fred asked the students which of the two films they would like to see. After he described them each briefly, the students chose w[rec]k.
“They sat in silence afterward, then busted into a flurry of [native language] conversation trying to understand what just happened and what was going on. We only had about 4 minutes left in the class and so I tried to ask questions for them to begin to process it out.
“I asked who was the man? What did the girl feel before the new tape? What did she feel after the tape? What did you notice? They picked up and could enunciate that she had bad memories in the past. A few of them thought that the man was doing an experiment on the girl. But none of them could explain it all and there was just too much for them. Then the bell rang, but they all sat there still. Finally one boy in the back said, Can you tell us what it means? Explain it to us. Gladly!
“…I said, ‘what I see in this is a picture of God. I think the bald man is a picture of God. He is always trying to help her, he’s smiling at her and tries to help her catch her stuff when it falls, even in the old memory He is there and tries to help take care of the broken things but she pulls away. It seems like it’s a picture of Him because He is always trying to help her, and when she finally submits to Him, then he takes away her old painful memories and gives her a new start. A new life. So that’s what I see.’
As I was saying this stuff, it seemed as if a student was videotaping me or recording me, so it kinda made me hesitant but I wanted to be bold there. I ended up saying a few more things, then closed it with ‘but this is what I see in it. You may look at it and see something completely different, but this is just the pictures I see.’ And I heard one student towards the back of the room say, ‘oh… yeah, that makes sense.’ And I just started thanking Him for the great idea He gave to you.
“…Man, I’m so thankful for that and for you all making this. I’m so excited of just the raw amount of Truth that is in there but it is hidden for only those who are ready to respond and receive it. It’s such a beautiful thing. You can see His hand in it and still using it to sweep over people and into people. I don’t know how much of it made sense to how many people, but I know that it hit a few of them. It’s just knocking down walls and pushing things forward. It’s like waves of Truth hitting them each week and wearing them down. It’s beautiful.”
Film is a powerful medium for communication. We are excited to be a part of producing short films that spark engaging dialogue about God and the hope that He brings!
Thank you for helping make this film possible through your partnership!