What's Goin' Down

A bit of here and there.

First, my bride-to-be and I will be formatting the September-October issue of Call to Battle tomorrow (Friday). If you have any articles (or certainly blog posts would be cool), you can send them in (or point us in the direction of the blog post if it is that) before noon on Friday. We love receiving and printing contributions from you, so please don't hesitate to send stuff in! If you don't, it's entirely possible you'll simply read more romantic gush from me and Lana! (OK, so with a mostly-female readership, maybe that wasn't the most effective threat to make.)

I want to warn you now about my articles for this issue: Most will seem familiar to you because they are in fact modified blog posts. Hey, it's not my fault you read the blog and get the magazine. Think of it this way: The blog provides you with a partial sneak preview of the next CtB issue.

Oh, and let me just tease you by saying that in this issue, you'll finally get to discover why my screenname is "Warrior of the Dawn." I'm excited about you getting to read this particular work of mine, leftover from the last issue.

I believe the word is getting around my church that Lana and I are engaged. (EDIT: The correct term is courting, not engagement; though we are committed to marrying, we are not officially engaged.) Josh -- a friend, one of my actors in Hunted, a classmate at UAFS, and fellow member of FBC Branch -- asked us today if we'd set our wedding date. Well, no; we will when I get her the ring, and it'll probably be some time before that happens. But I'd much rather people think we're engaged than dating, if there's a choice. I'll try to provide some clarification to my church at some point.

For those of you who have asked about Hunted, well, rest assured we haven't pulled the plug on the project. We have taken a hiatus from filming due to Fan the Flame, and will be idle this weekend in order to give some of our production members a break. We plan on picking it up again next Saturday and hitting it hard, with only about three or four more days of filming to go (Lord willing)! Thank you again to all of you who have voiced encouragement, and we ask that you continue to pray for the movie.

The latest update from Lovers' Lane: Note-giving is all the rage. Note-giving, you ask? Yep. During class, as opposed to taking notes, we often find ourselves giving notes -- to one another. We had a delightful time doing it in Reasoning yesterday, and in both of our writing classes today. But I told Lana that, alas, we'll have to cut down on it or we'll lose our scholarships due to poor grades.

College football begins tonight as LSU takes on Mississippi State on ESPN. I can't wait (and am trying to get CtB articles together so I can watch some of it). Most of my readers may not care about this staple of Southern life, football, but I am eagerly anticipating the coming season and have high hopes for the beloved Arkansas Razorbacks. The Hogs open against Troy on Saturday. Woo Pig Sooiee!

I ask for your prayers for our youth group. I know God has some awesome things for us coming out of FtF, but the devil is attacking us right now. We had kind of a tough service last night. It ended up being good, but there was definitely a feeling of tension in the air. I expect it from Satan; he's trying to steal what God has given us and continues to give us. But as the ending of one of our FtF skits quoted, "One little word shall fell him." Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

And the fire of the Lord fell

Saturday, August 25. The day we had awaited since, well, probably Saturday, August 26 of last year. Fan the Flame 2007 had finally arrived.

The morning was a crazy bustle of furious activity as we tried to finish up what absolutely had to be done. I was up at the church at nine. I always like to be really early for stuff like FtF and the Easter program, but in this case it was more a necessity than a convenience.

12:45 pm. Fifteen minutes to showtime. Apart from our youth, only about twenty people had showed up. Yikes. Where IS everybody? Did they not hear about 12:30 registration? (One youth leader had called the church earlier and announced that her group was ready to be there at 2; I made her aware of the fact that we started at 1 and needed them to be there at 12:30).

And then people started showing up. Our registration line stretched out in the overhang. And it stayed out there for the next thirty minutes as we continued to have more trickle in.

Needless to say, we did not start at 1:00 as planned. It seemed counterproductive to begin the event knowing that a bunch of people were still waiting to get in the church. It was about 1:25 before we finally kicked off.

After a "trailer"-like video intro, emcees Daniel and Trevor jumped up on stage to welcome everyone to the event. After some door prizes, a skit, and a two-minute warning with Caleb Melton, it was time for worship, led by Singled Out.

It had been a stressful morning, or at least potentially so. But I was pumped about leading some worship. We started out with the brand-new "Let God Arise", followed by "Praise Your Name" and "Not to Us" with no pauses in between. The crowd was the best that I've ever led worship with, I believe; they stood and started clapping in rhythm without us telling them to, and sang along loudly when they knew the words.

We toned everything down quickly with the new "Awesome is the Lord Most High" (with my brother Daniel making his debut singing harmony), then went worshipfully soft with the classics "How Great Is Our God" and "Heart of Worship". The Spirit was moving, and it thrilled me to hear the voices in the crowd and see upraised hands. Done for now, and it was time to hand off to Christopher Russell, our first speaker.

Chris immediately started in with a hard-hitting, in-your-face Gospel message centered around the Cross. He preached from Isaiah 52-53 and other passages, and actually hammered together a cross on stage and adorned it with nails and paint to represent blood. He talked about Christ's sacrifice for us on the cross, and about sin, and hell, and salvation.

In Chris' invitation, ten young people came forward to make decisions, and five of them prayed to receive Christ. Praise God!

After the invitation, we did a couple more songs: "Rescue" and "The Wonderful Cross." Then, after our second skit -- starring Daniel and Trevor as a couple of wacked-out military dudes -- it was time to dismiss everyone to the afternoon sessions.

In the first afternoon session, half the youth went to classes while the other half got free time. After an hour, they would switch places. I was taking a break and drink in the hallways, watching the first group shuttle around to their classes, when this girl stopped and talked to me. She then proceeded to follow me around all afternoon. It was wonderful.

I absolutely loved getting to be together with Lana as a couple in public for the first time. A totally new experience, to actually be expected to go everywhere and do everything with this one person, but totally awesome. We hung out, talked to some of our friends, searched for missing teenage girls (uh yeah, seriously), and ate supper together (well, she ate supper; I was way too keyed up to eat and just had a piece of bread). We both immensely enjoyed ourselves.

But alas, at some point I had to abandon my fair maiden for the time being and get stuff ready for the second service. It opened with a couple of songs from Deadlife, which is basically Billy, Daniel, and Trevor doing some songs that Billy has written. They were good. Then, after a last skit and a two-minute warning with Aaron Lovelace, the band was back up to lead worship.

We started with "Salvation Is Here", a classic church camp anthem that we've wanted to do for a long time and finally did this year. Then I let everyone take some meet-and-greet fellowship time while Daniel and Billy worked frantically on the electric guitar, which had gone woefully out of tune.

By the time we got everyone back together to continue the worship, I was a bit worried because there seemed to be some raucousness in the crowd, a lack of focus among some in the audience. Thanks be to God, it didn't last long; by the time we were well into our next song, "Enough", the focus was there and I was feeling the Lord's presence. We finished with two of my favorites, "Give Us Clean Hands" and "D Medley", both powerful songs of prayer. The Spirit was incredibly strong, and everyone was singing so loudly. I thanked God for honoring us with His presence and indwelling our praises.

Enter Rickey Dustin Wright. Dusty's message was just as strong as Chris', though in a different direction: he focused on the biblical image of cleansing the temple. He brought out some great insights from the Word. One was that cleansing the temple was the first thing and the last thing Jesus did in His earthly ministry. Another was that while Jesus never used force to drive people into the temple, He did use force to drive them out of it. Great stuff.

Dusty's big illustration came in the form of a large concrete heart, which he had hanging in a special platformed box. At the end of his message, he demonstrated what our own efforts to change our hearts are like by tossing little paper wads at this "hard heart". Then, to show the power the Word of God has to change hearts, he demolished the thing with a couple of blows from a sledgehammer. It was powerful imagery.

Early in Dusty's message, he felt led to go ahead and give an invitation for those who needed to be saved. There was no response, and Dusty turned around to get his Bible and begin preaching. But just as he did so, one young man got up from his seat and came down to the front. About seven or eight more young people followed; praise God, praise God! We don't know how many decisions were made during that time, but at least a couple prayed to receive Christ. One was Lana's friend whom she had introduced to me that afternoon, Hope. It was a blessing to see the joy on her face afterwards at her new salvation.

Dusty's message-ending invitation did not see any decisions for Christ, but the altar area was filled with young people in prayer. I played and sang the chorus to "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus" on the keyboard. After everyone was finished praying, we played "Agnus Dei", accompanied for the first ever by my sister Hannah on violin; it's an amazing worship song with words all taken from the book of Revelation, and was a terrific capstone to the day. But the day was not quite over. It was time to head outside for the bonfire service.

That's right, the bonfire service. Not only had we not been sure whether we would have it, but I had been completely sure even that morning that we would not. Our county, Franklin, has had a burn ban for some time now; we had been told that a big rain would have to come on Thursday in order to lift the ban in time for FtF on Saturday. No rain on Thursday, no rain on Friday, and I was sure that meant no bonfire on Saturday.

Oh me of little faith! It rained for most of the morning on Saturday, and then Mrs. Georgia, a faithful member of the church and Branch city councilperson, decided to take matters into her own hands. She called the county judge and the county sheriff; both told her that even though the burn ban was still on, we could go ahead and have our fire since Branch had received a lot of rain. Why did I doubt?

Everyone silently walked outside for the bonfire. Only there was no bonfire -- to start with. Dusty waited until all were present, then told the story of Elijah on Mount Carmel, gesturing to an altar in the middle that we had built. Finally he recited Elijah's fervent prayer that God send fire to show Himself to the Israelites.

To the shock and awe of most of those in the crowd, a real, genuine fire fell on the altar and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifice -- or at least the wood we had piled on it. What a cool visualization of a true story from the Bible! (For those of you wanting to know how we did it, you ought to be able to guess.)

It was a perfect ending to a great day. FtF '07 is now in the past, but I think the impact of the day will continue to last far into the future. We at FBC Branch can't wait to see what God does in our group through this event, and we are also praying for all the groups that came and for those who made decisions for Christ. It has always been our goal that Fan the Flame not be a one-day monument to a "rally"-type gathering, but an ongoing movement where a passion for God continues to burn in our hearts.

The fire fell.

Our romance has begun

Wow, how do I say this? Or better yet, how do I say this without writing a post that takes an hour to read?

I suppose I should inform you that I have a new watch. It is currently wrapped around my left wrist as I type. It's very nice. How did I get it? Oh, well, it was recently given to me by my future father-in-law.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not gonna kid myself and pretend that you all don't already read the blog of my bride-to-be. Plus, it's a lot easier on me here in the present if I acknowledge that fact. So if you read her blog, you know pretty well what has transpired. If you haven't, allow me to introduce you to it: musingsofaservantprincess.blogspot.com. Go check it out; you'll have to scroll through a couple posts before you get to the one that talks about how this whole romance started. She does it far more concisely (and, I think, more dramatically, since she was the one that was surprised) than I ever could.

But, okay, I'm not just gonna cop out and tell you to go read her blog and that's the end of it. Not only would that not be right, but I don't want to do that. So let me make my formal introduction:

That I, Luke Timothy, sometime known as Sir Luke the Impossible, have begun to pursue a courtship relationship with Lana Marie, sometime known as Lady Lana the Adorable (I am inclined to agree with this assessment), effective as of 8:15 pm on Thursday, August 23. While this courtship status is not completely synonymous with engagement (the giving of a commemorative ring and the establishing of a wedding date being the chief absences), our commitment to enjoying one another's company for the remainder of our time here on Earth, within the bonds of marriage ultimately, is unwaveringly settled.

There's a sample of the pompous style, chiefly to amuse my beloved and myself (it is truly enjoyable to come up with big, official-sounding words to describe something such as this). In the Common Tongue, it reads:

I have begun to court Lana, with the intention of marrying her, as of last Thursday night. That's not the same thing as engagement, which will come later; but in our eyes engagement is little more than a formality.

A commitment to marriage is a wonderful thing to announce, but that's only half of it. You see, I am not merely committed to Lana; I am in passionate love with her, and have been since February 27, the day God allowed me to fall in love. That is of course, incidentally, exactly six months ago today.

On Thursday night, Lana's parents and I conspired to give her the surprise of her life and an evening that neither she nor I would ever forget. You can read her blog to see how the surprise (and romantic evening) progressed. After surprising her, I, well, stalled, then prayed, then asked if I could court her. I'll never forget the way she said in tearful happiness, "What can I say? I'd love to?"

Having established our commitment, we spent a long time talking and, yes, gazing into each other's eyes. It was wonderful beyond words to finally be able to speak to her freely about our future together, about how I had longed for this evening to come, about what we had gone through to get here.

There was something else very important that I had to tell her, but I put it on hold until it was almost time for us to go back inside her house. Even when it was time, I stalled. Finally, with the help of God, I was able to get the words out the way I had planned on; her blog features a more-or-less direct quote from what I told her. I then talked about February 27, what had specifically happened on that day, and how in a flash, God flung open the doors of my heart and allowed her to come in and claim it. At the end, I paused, not wanting to be in the slightest unclear, ready to utter the magical words that I had longed to say for so long. And then I did. "I love you."

With tears forming again, she searched my eyes for a moment, overwhelmed. Then she whispered, "I love you too."

I almost couldn't believe it. Maybe I'm naive, maybe I'm modest, but I somehow expected to have to do more to win her heart than that. It's her heart, after all! Her most prized possession. For so long she had guarded it, obeying the command of the woman in Song of Solomon: not to awaken love until it so desires.

And in that perfect moment, she gave her heart to me. Freely, willingly, abundantly. My pursuit of her didn't last long; she allowed me to catch her and claim her. And now she is mine, and I am hers.

So now, whenever we receive queries from various friends and acquaintances with knowing expressions on their faces, we can finally answer that, yes, we are a couple. Oh, yeah, I'm with her. Who is that? Oh, that's my bride-to-be. Are ya'll in love? Uh, you better believe it.

I love everything about this. Let me list some things:

1. I love how open we get to be with each other. The night I declared myself, I asked her how many kids she wanted in the ensuing conversation. She was taken off-guard, but it didn't make her uncomfortable. Since we know we're going to marry each other, that's a viable question. (If you're interested, we decided that we have plenty of time to figure out how many kids to have, and God'll give them to us in His timing.) There's no hinting, no beating around the bush, no playing with emotions. We belong to each other in heart and spirit, and there's nothing hidden.
2. I love her family. Her parents have been so awesome to me, even before I asked them if I could marry their daughter, and even more so since then. It was them who did most of the planning for our romantic opening evening. When I met with her dad to ask his blessing, I expected to be asked about finances and other important "for the future" issues. Nope. He said we could talk about stuff like that later; for now, he wanted me to know that he completely approved of me and as far as he's concerned, I'm like another son now. That means so much to me.
3. I love getting to go around with her and be with her and not be worried what anyone thinks, because what they're thinking is probably the truth. We got to spend most of the afternoon together last Saturday at Fan the Flame (and I promise I will post on that soon), and it was so awesome. Being an official couple absolutely rocks my face off.
4. I love the insanity of romance. Thinking about her seemingly every other moment (at minimum), calling her on the phone just to hear her voice, constantly checking my e-mail for another message from guess-who. It's such an incredible feeling.
5. I love having the knowledge that we both waited on God's timing and did things His way in this relationship -- and continue to do things in what we believe to be His way. If we and our families had very different beliefs about romance, we could have and probably would have ended up being a couple a long time ago. But even though we were meant for each other, it wouldn't have been right to do it then; that wouldn't have been God's timing. Now, because we have waited for this point, when we can commit to each other for life and fall in love, with our parents' full blessing to marry, everything is so much sweeter and more romantic than it would have been otherwise. We still haven't held hands yet, and boy do I want to, but we're going to talk to our parents and obey God's will on that.
6. I love God as the giver of all blessings and the ultimate romantic. I absolutely know that He revels in this kind of stuff. His goodness to me and Lana blows me away; He has orchestrated everything so perfectly for us as we begin the process of intertwining our two lives as one. He truly overwhelms me.
7. Ahh, you knew this was coming. I love Lana Marie, the girl of my dreams (literally). As I told her the other night, she is my true love, my first love, and my only love. By God's grace, though I haven't been perfect, I am able to present myself to my bride as a one-woman man. I am still blown away that she loves me so freely. I want to love her as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her. I have an insatiable passion for her, and to my eternal joy, she finally knows it. In the four days of our courtship, she has already made me happier than I ever knew I could be. I love you, princess.

As you might be able to imagine, I'll have a lot more on Lana and our relationship in the future. I am looking forward to God using this beyond merely our two lives and those of our families, to be an encouragement to those who seek to wait on His plan for romance in their own lives. For now I will say to all of you: wait on Him and do it His way. I can promise you, because I have finally seen it true in my life: you will not be disappointed.

The deep breath before the plunge

Two days left. Two more days. Two days. Almost here. Man.

It truly is the deep breath before the plunge, in more ways than one.

Can you feel the anticipation?

Let the fire fall, Father.

Next time I post, it will be already over.

Why don't we pray together?

"It is written, 'My house will be called a house of prayer.' But you are making it a den of thieves!" - Jesus Christ

We had an incredible prayer meeting last night for FtF.

Our youth group has been divided into two groups for work on Fan the Flame: prayer and advertising. The prayer group has done a great job of putting together different prayer focuses for the event. They have written a seven-day prayer guide for this week, distributed rubber bands to wear as a reminder to pray, and scheduled several different prayer meetings.

The one last night was a meeting at the church from 7-9 pm. We prayed together in a circle for a while, then separated. Most of us walked the church and surrounding property, lifting our petitions to God for the event. We gathered again at the end to pray together once more.

It was such an amazing feeling to be there, along with God's people, pleading with God to do a mighty work through FtF. It gave me comfort, encouragement, and a certain feeling -- that something spectacular is coming this Saturday. I'm not a prophet and that's not a prophecy, but that's what God was telling me as I prayed last night.

But the thought struck me as we wrapped up our meeting: Why do we not do this together, consistently, as a church?

It was a fairly small group that met to pray on Monday night. Probably sixteen people, somewhere around there. Yet the entire church had been invited. So what gives?

I have heard it said about churches: "You can tell how popular a church is by how many come on Sunday morning. You can tell how popular the pastor or evangelist is by how many come on Sunday night. But you can tell how popular Jesus is by how many come to the prayer meeting."

Ouch. Is that really true? I hope not, but I fear otherwise. After all, as Brooklyn Tabernacle pastor Jim Cymbala points out, Jesus didn't call the believers' gathering place a house of preaching. Nor did He call it a house of fellowship, or of ministry, or of song. He called it a house of prayer.

When, historically, has God moved in people's hearts? When there was prayer. Check Acts 2. When the Spirit fell on the believers in the upper room at Pentecost, Peter wasn't holding a preachfest. That came afterward. They were praying.

In Acts 4, when the place where the church was meeting was shaken, they weren't having a finger-food potluck. They were praying.

There are many more examples throughout history. God works through prayer. "The intense prayer of the righteous is very powerful," says James, and I don't think we understand how powerful it truly is.

When God's people meet to pray intensely, is there anything they cannot do? We had sixteen or so people last night in our meeting. What if we had had fifty? Or a hundred? Or more? What kind of impact could we have?

The key, of course, is that the focus is not on impact. Over my teenage years, I have longed to see God do great things, make a great impact in the world, launch a Great Awakening in this country. But the focus has to be on Him alone. When we do place our eyes upon Him in truth, we will change the world.

Praying by oneself is, of course, commanded in Scripture, in Matthew 6:5-8, among other passages. But we are also commanded to meet to pray together, and too often we forsake this calling. It is in the corporate prayer meeting that God will do a great work, in the hearts of those who are praying.

Why do we underestimate the power of prayer? Why do we shortchange God, limit His work in us? Do we not believe the promises in His Word? Do we forget the stories from the past of what He has accomplished through prayer?

And just as importantly, when will we begin to devote ourselves to prayer again?

The work of God continues...

The weekend was absolutely insane. We're filming. We're not filming. We're filming. We're taking too long in filming. We're not filming this or that. We are filming this after all. It's raining (meaning we're not filming).

End result, we accomplished everything we hoped to get on Friday, and a small portion of what we hoped to get on Saturday. Along the way, God reminded me yet again who's in charge by bringing me to my knees.

You'd think that would have happened on Saturday, where we were unable to film most of what we had planned. But it was actually on Friday night. We were filming a scene with Eric and Leslie walking on the side of the road, and we couldn't figure out how to get it. It's always tough to do scenes where people are walking and talking for a sustained amount of time. That alone wouldn't bother me much, but Lana had been feeling very sick all day. Plus, she had a forty-minute drive home once we got done, which meant that it being a Friday night, we needed to get done and let her leave as soon as possible.

We tried one thing and another, and I began to get very frustrated. But Lana, the one who was being affected the most by all this, kept her calm and told me to slow down, calm down, and do it right. Thank God for her.

Once again, God was removing another layer of my pride. And even though I was thankful for that, I didn't like it. After all, the Word tells us to humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord. If He has to do it for us, we're not obeying Him like we should.

God molded me a little bit more on Friday night. It's crazy how much He's been doing in me over the summer, working to get rid of more and more of my pride. I'm learning so much about Him and about myself. A lot of it is stuff that I've known in my head for a long time, but I never realized the full impact of the meaning.

As Fan the Flame continues to get closer, God continues to prepare my heart. But I know absolutely that Satan is right there as well, doing his best to interfere in any way possible. He's not a gentleman; he plays dirty and will do whatever it takes to throw me off the path. I have definitely experienced more spiritual attack coming up on this year's FtF than for any of the previous ones, and that encourages me because I know God has something special planned.

School started today, and it's going to be interesting. Classes are so different from one another. The respective demeanors of my Intro to Theater professor and my Reasoning Across the Disciplines professor could not be more different. I had those classes today and have two writing classes and a history class tomorrow. In a way it's like, argh, school is here, blah. But it's also exciting simply because I know God has a great plan for my school year. I get to spend a lot of time alone with Him while I'm driving back and forth, and I get to take four out of my five classes with Lana, my best friend. Plus, who knows, maybe I'll actually learn something fun and/or beneficial, huh?

Go God, and readers, do three things for FtF. One, pray. Two, make sure you can come on Saturday. Three, invite as many people to come as you can. As you pray, continue to pray for rain; we got some this weekend, but not enough to lift Franklin County's burn ban. This means that unless we get more, the bonfire service is still going to be off. So please pray about that. Let the fire fall.

These are the times that set men's souls ablaze

The life, it is becoming crazy. A lot of things are coming to a head here in the next couple of weeks. It's exciting, certainly a tad nervewracking, but I know God's in it and it's gonna be cool.

Yesterday was a really good day in a lot of ways, culminating in a good service last night. I didn't feel any of the concern and heaviness that had burdened me the previous week. We had what was, for me at least, a sweet time of worship, and we were even able to teach the youth a new song that we're doing at FtF: Chris Tomlin's "Awesome is the Lord Most High."

Dusty preached, and I thought it was a great message, very focused, very passionate. A hard message in a way, though. Dusty is not the type to shy away from stuff like sin and hell and the blood of Jesus (neither is Chris, of course). I'm quite sure he's offended people in the past with his strong invitations to accept Christ. But I think that's entirely biblical.

Things are totally coming together. Chris is, Lord willing, going to go pick up T-shirts today. We're meeting on Saturday afternoon to plan out decorations for the sanctuary. I have finished writing the skits and gotten scripts to most of my actors. Our advertising team is about to hit the towns in the next few days to put up flyers. The prayer team has several different prayer meeting scheduled. The band still needs some more practice, but is on track to be ready by next Saturday.

Filming continues to plug steadily along. We are, as of right now, set to film scenes at Leslie's house tomorrow, and then film Hunt stuff on Saturday. If we can get all of that right here in the last weekend before school starts, I will be a happy guy. It'll leave us with probably three good Saturdays of work, possibly four, before we're done.

That puts us getting done at the end of September, which I had previously dreaded, but now I'm like, let's just get it done. I'm not gonna cry about having to film something in October if that's what it takes.

After we finally get the filming finished, it'll be time to edit, then do ADR, score the thing (I'm expecting that to be tough but deliciously fun), do whatever needs to be done for our final sound mix, and have the world premiere.

So maybe it'll be done by Christmas. That's my current estimate. If not, then January at the very latest.

Making movies is pretty tough. All of us working on the project have learned that over and over thus far, and we'll definitely learn it a bunch more times before we finish. But we're learning some valuable lessons, not just about filmmaking, but about life. At least, I am.

It's been hard, and to be honest, I've brought a lot of the difficulty on myself. But I know God wants us to do this, and so even though it's frustrating at times, I believe it's all worth it. Regardless of whether we produce a good film or not.

So will it be a good film? I really don't know. It won't be anything approaching the quality of something you see in the movie theater. Some parts may fall on their faces, with cheesy dialogue (written by me) and hammy acting (done by me). But I think other parts will connect with the audience, hopefully. I think you'll find yourself laughing at Shawn and Travis at least a few times, focusing in on Clyde's inner struggle, identifying with Eric's heartfelt prayer.

And if you do, I'll sit back and praise God for using this film to affect its audience in some small way. If there's any glory to be found from this movie, He gets all of it.

More Thoughts on Fan the Flame

Eleven days till Fan the Flame. I just sent information to one more church today, First Freewill Baptist in Charleston. It looks like they'll bring a group. Pretty cool to be able to get another commitment this late in the game.

Attendance-wise for FtF, we're looking for at least two hundred to show up, and I think that's definitely realistic. If we get that many, it's going to be a great crowd. If we get more than that, well, yeah baby, it will rock awesomely.

Even though it's a dream of ours to see the church packed out on August 25, I'm not too concerned about our attendance numbers. God will bring the ones who need to be there, and I believe His fire will fall on us. Of course, we still need to be doing everything we can in the meantime to get people there.

I know several people from outside our youth group have expressed interest in coming on this blog and others of my friends; and that's awesome. I would love to see a host of homeschoolers descend on FBC Branch for FtF; we actually have plenty in our youth group now, which rocks my face off.

Anyways, if any of you "outsiders" need any info about the event, just let me know; I think I'm in charge of information for FtF.

I do want to give a warning about the music, though. It's only fair that I let you know that it will be pretty loud. As the lead singer, however, I can assure you that there will NOT be a concert-type atmosphere, and all the songs will direct praise to God. We do several songs in kind of a rock-slash-worship style, but most of them are acoustic. We're even looking at featuring some piano this year, which I think will be fantastic.

Anyways, I wanted to shout that out because I know that homeschoolers sometimes have different convictions about music, and homeschoolers are currently most of my audience on this blog.

In the meantime, I would like to ask that my praying readers add another request to the list: rain. Each year we close Fan the Flame with a bonfire service; it's a special and unique time that has really made an impact on people in the past, and this year's bonfire service is planned to be the best one yet.

But it won't happen if we don't get some rain between now and then. After a rainy early summer, the floodgates have closed and it has become very dry. Our county, Franklin, is not yet under a burn ban, but it will be by FtF without rain. And we'll be unable to light our bonfire.

So please pray about that. I know God already has His perfect plan laid out regarding whether or not we're to have a bonfire this year. Pray that His will be done, for that and for everything regarding the event.

In my last post, I mentioned the class time on Sunday night with my youth group. They were such a blessing to me, sharing some of their concerns and heart's desires for the event. I believe that God is going to bless our group and use us to do a great work at Fan the Flame.

One thing I wanted to touch on in class, however, was that this event is really not anything special in a worldly sense. The band will lead worship. Chris and Dusty will preach the Gospel. We'll do some other fun stuff, eat a meal, have a bit of time to hang out. That's old hat for our youth group, if not necessarily for the visiting youth attending.

But I don't think it's what we do at Fan the Flame that matters so much. If we had Chris Tomlin there to lead worship, Billy Graham preaching, and a water park for afternoon fun, I certainly don't think our event would automatically become so much better. The key to FtF is not that the band rocks everyone's faces off in worship, or that Chris and Dusty mesmerize the crowd with dynamic messages, or that everybody has the maximum amount of possible fun in the afternoon. The key is that we surrender ourselves to God and allow Him to move in a mighty way in our hearts on Saturday, August 25. And if that happens, the event will be a smashing success.

So don't expect an all-star event a week from this Saturday. At the same time, expect God to do something amazing. It's what we're praying for.

Let the fire fall.

Back from the dead, and, living passionately

Crazy, crazy weekend. I think I'm about recovered from it now, though a good night's sleep tonight will help.

I'll try to give full-fledged production updates again at some point soon, but at the moment there's simply too much to tell. I'll try to give you some information.

Friday night. Filming after dark, trying to get two campsites finished (there are three in the film; the first one we did two weeks ago, as you'll remember from my production updates). Dark is, oh, about 9:00, say. We had to wait on Daniel, who had had to work every day of the week, and who was also going to pick up Tony. They pulled in at about 10:30.

Ouch. Already an hour and a half behind, right out of the gate. By the time Daniel had showered and we finished applying makeup and studying script and got out to the location to film, it was midnight.

Tip for budding filmmakers: If you can help it, don't ever start shooting at midnight. If you finish at midnight, that's okay, but it's not fun to begin and know that the clock already reads AM.

Five and a half hours later, after multiple delays (which were pretty much beyond our control), we finally picked up our stuff and pulled out. Yup, you've got that right, 5:30 am.

Incidentally, the most beautiful part of the day begins at about 5:30. Lying in a sleeping bag on the ground, facing the lightening sky, trying to decide whether to get my two hours of sleep or just stay awake through the whole thing, I was awestruck. It's such a gorgeous sight as the light continues to creep into the sky, the stars slowly disappearing. I felt like I was in some movie. Or like I had just finished filming part of one.

In the morning, we had three more scenes to do. Feeling pretty miserable (at least, I was; I don't know about everyone else, but I can pretty much guess), we got them done and pulled out for home.

All in all, I was happy with the weekend. I felt like we were able to buckle down and work hard and together. We weren't perfect, but you're not going to be when it's late at night (or is it that early in the morning?). I was proud of my fellow troopers, all sibling pairs: Daniel and Hannah (who are of course my own siblings), Lana and Tony, Trevor and Tara. They faced a night even more difficult than the last night shoot we did, never complained, worked hard, and got stuff accomplished. I will definitely do my best to think of an appropriate way to honor them when we get to the end of this whole thing. "Good times gravy."

Sunday was a difficult day. There were classes to teach, songs to lead, lessons to prepare, band practices to conduct, slideshows to run; and I wasn't running on a full tank. At several points during the day I responded with anger and frustration, then had to ask God to forgive me and help me.

And now? Well, it never rains but it pours, as they say in Bree. In the next two weeks, I've got a magazine, a movie, and a youth event to work on. School starts a week from today. Work. Church. Other things in my personal life.

But I'm kinda looking forward to it. Some fun stuff coming up. When I get engulfed in the sea's depths, I simply have to suck in the water and trust God to allow me to breath it. He always does.

One thing I've kinda rediscovered (by the grace of God) in the last couple of months is how exhilarating life truly is. When you give your everything to the Giver of life and put your trust in Him, He makes everything that much more fun. And I guess that last statement is an unconscious paraphrase of Matthew 6:33: "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

Not that I have done that perfectly, or anywhere close to perfectly. I have still messed up, still failed, still rebelled, in ways that shame me. If I were in my Heavenly Father's shoes, looking down at my life, I would probably be continually yelling, "Why can't you get it?" Thankfully, He continues to show grace and mercy to me beyond what I deserve.

And so yeah, life is fun. It can be kinda cool to put stuff in God's hands, not having any idea how He's going to work it out. Hunted, for example. Will we even have filming done by the end of September? I have no idea. But I know it belongs to God, and He's going to work it out the way He sees fit -- which is infinitely better than any plan I could conceive.

One of my goals is that throughout my life, from youth to old age if God allows me that long, I would live passionately. Passionate people change the world. Passionate people experience true happiness and fulfillment. Passionate people don't just say they know, they truly do know that nothing is too big for the God they serve. Passionate people inspire others to be passionate. Passionate people don't get hung up on the little things of life, but focus on stuff like faith and hope and love, and let that filter through into the little things. Passionate people are fun to be around. Passionate people get movies made about them.

Not that I want a movie made of my life. And not that I can say all of those things about myself, even though I am trying to live passionately. But there are so many people on this earth who don't live passionately, and it shows. They may not have a care in the world, but they also don't have anything genuine to care about. They may never try to do something big and fail, but that's because they will never try anything big in the first place. They may never have their hearts broken, but that's because they're unwilling to allow their hearts to love. They risk nothing and gain nothing; they put nothing in and get the same thing out.

Life is not about money. It's not about cars or clothes or sports or music or even church or family. No, I think when it all boils down, life is about passion. A passion for the Creator that fills everything else we do.

If you have that, you are a shining star in His universe, and you will find happiness because you're seeking it in the right place. If you don't have it, no matter how many other great and wonderful things may be in your life, they count for nothing.

Well, I could keep going, but I'll stop for now, though I daresay I feel a magazine article coming out of this. But it's 6:00 and time for me to leave work. Till tomorrow.

Uh-oh, here we go again

No, the title doesn't signify bad news, merely that it's back-to-back with the previous post. So if you haven't read that one yet, go do it and then come back up to this one. I feel like I owe multiple posts after a long silence.

While our plans for Friday and Saturday were restored by the grace of God, our Thursday plans fell through. We had been planning on using a couple of homes of people in our church. Well, they weren't sure whether they'd be available on Thursday because they were supposed to help somebody move, and then Jordan, my contact who also happens to be in our band, never told me for sure. Then he temporarily dropped off the face of the earth (which he does sometimes). By Wednesday night, I had to make the decision to call the filming off. It was okay in a sense, because I had kinda felt from the Lord that Thursday wasn't going to be a good day to film anyway.

We were able to use Thursday night for band practice. Daniel, Trevor, and I, that is. That's the guitar, drums, and vocals in our band, respectively. We also have Billy the old one (he's like, 30, I mean old) on bass and Jordan the young one (he's like, 15, I mean young) on congas. But they weren't able to make it, Jordan's reason of course being the whole helping-move thing, so the three of us practiced together and made some progress. There's a little Chris Tomlin ditty called "Let God Arise" that is going to ROCK at Fan the Flame. If the Lord wills. We're all pretty excited about playing that song.

In the last couple of days, sitting at home because I was off work, I was able to get various stuff accomplished for FtF. I have finally finished our skits, the ones we were originally scheduled to begin practicing three weeks ago, and I'm fairly happy with them. The last one, a take-off on "This Little Light of Mine", is the best; it has a type of humor I haven't used in a long time.

And then, Wednesday. (Notice how I kinda keep going back in time here? That's not intentional.) God has really blessed our youth group and allowed us to grow quite a bit in the last few months. We now run a solid 30-35 on Wednesday nights. I think we can easily have 40 every time if we can get a few more people that are "on the fringe" to start being faithful.

At any rate, on Wednesdays we usually start getting together at about 4 or 4:30 at the church. We hang out, maybe play some basketball or Ping-Pong, talk. Then we eat (our food being cooked by Dusty's wonderful wife Amanda and Chris' wonderful wife Dadrian, with help from some of the youth girls). And for about a year now, instead of having "class" on Wednesday nights, we basically have a full-fledged service in the fellowship hall. I lead the worship time, assisted by Daniel on the guitar (and lately we've added Caleb Melton and Jordan on the guitar as well), and then either Chris or Dusty preaches.

It's something we decided to start doing while we were at church camp last year, and I think it has been awesome, no question. I would estimate that we've seen close to thirty youth pray to receive Christ on Wednesday nights since we started doing the service. Not all of those decisions were genuine, sadly, but many were, by God's grace.

Anyways, it's straight-up awesome to be able to lead worship every Wednesday night for a group of young people. I highly encourage that all my readers do it sometime (wink). We have had some great times of worship, and the Spirit had really been moving lately. But in the last couple of weeks, we leaders have been noticing something a bit alarming.

It wasn't something earthshattering, just a small difference that we probably wouldn't have picked up on if the Spirit hadn't told us. While everything perhaps looked okay during our worship times, we began to sense that the group wasn't totally united, that a lot of the kids were holding back during worship.

That's never a good thing for a youth group. When you've got Fan the Flame, a huge event that you want God to bless mightily, coming up in a few weeks, it has the potential to be deadly. So we and some of the older guys in the youth group prayed about it before the service on Wednesday, and we came to the service ready to address the issue.

Dusty started, butting in to the announcement time (just kidding; it's always cool with me when he or Chris does that) and stating concisely that we had noticed the group as a whole hadn't been as focused lately as it should be. Then, after giving the announcements and taking prayer requests, I let loose on the group.

It wasn't pleasant, for me or for them. I nearly always try to be upbeat and positive at the beginning of the worship service, but not this night. I shared the story from Joshua about the Israelites' defeat at Ai and how the sin of one man, Achan, was responsible. It was uncomfortable. Several of the youth, especially ones who hadn't been coming for very long, were glancing around as if to say, "Is this guy off his rocker?" I began to worry that none of it was getting through, that the whole service was going to go down the drain, that I was saying too much.

It's hard not to say too much in a situation like that; there was so much I wanted to say, but it has to be God speaking to them, not me. Finally, I quit talking and started singing. We usually start with an energetic song to get going, but this time we kicked off with the prayerful "One Thing".

And we had worship. It felt wonderful. For me, it was passionate worship. I sang a lot louder than I usually do; hopefully that didn't throw anyone off. The Spirit fell upon us.

Chris then gave a hardcore message about witnessing; good stuff and convicting, for me (I think) as much as the kids. As the service wrapped up, I felt a lot better about the unity of the group. I'm not naive enough to think it was all resolved, that everything's now perfect. But I know some kids got right with God on Wednesday, and our group is better off for it.

I just pray that we'll be ready for what God has for us at Fan the Flame. Fifteen days to go.

But that's not all...

Well, I have left my readers in the lurch, and I do apologize. Circumstances beyond my control (namely an unintelligent hunk of plastic and metal by the name of DELL) prevented me from posting. And honestly, I don't know how long it'll be before I can post again after today. Oh well, here I am for now.

If you've read sunshine princess (Lana)'s blog, then you've heard the rrrrrrest of the story, as Paul Harvey calls it. But I'll describe it anyway in case you haven't.

Let's see, where were we? Ah yes, Tuesday, everything falls through. I was trusting in God and doing good by His grace, but silly me, I never stopped to think about the possibility that He might go ahead and let us film on Friday and Saturday anyway.

Which is exactly what happened. Trevor (the "source" of all the "trouble", bless 'im) called me back later that afternoon. Of course, being Trevor, his call was not about the cancelled filming, but about some irrelevant topic. He mentioned as an aside, "Oh yeah. I was gonna tell you, we're not going on vacation till Monday."

A bright light shone down as the heavens opened up and began to rain pizza rolls. Oh blessed T-Rev! What a joy divine!

Actually, at this point I was beyond being surprised, and since I was already HAPPY (see previous post), I couldn't get a lot happier than I was. I do wish the sky would rain pizza rolls sometime, though.

At any rate, I called Lana back to tell her that we were back on for the weekend. And there was much rejoicing. And now it's Friday, and I'm gearing up to leave in about six hours for the filming we weren't supposed to be able to do.

I think God must laugh at us sometimes, in a good way. Not to say that He wadded up my plans and threw them in the trash and dug them out and gave them back to me just for the fun of it, but I bet it was a little bit funny to Him. Probably a little bit sad, too: "How hard is it for him to trust Me?"

Hopefully, a little less hard after Tuesday. In the meantime, I still feel good. Have I fallen on my face since then, messed up, wasted opportunities? Yeah, and that hasn't felt good. But I know He's with me, always ready to pick me up, dust me off, and set my feet in the right direction again.

I love you, Father.

I Feel Good (NA-na-NA-na-NA-na-NA)

Last night, I found out that my plans for this weekend had been utterly crushed. Crumpled up into a little ball and tossed into the trash can. Not what I was wanting to hear.

These weren't the oh-here's-what-I'll-probably-do-if-I-have-time-and-don't-just-decide-to-sit-at-home-and-read-a-book type plans; these were the life-or-death-and-i-can-already-sense-suffocation-setting-in-if-they-fall-through type plans. Uh, yeah.

Our movie is far behind schedule. We were hoping to have the filming finished by the end of July. It's August 7th, and we're only approximately halfway done. We had planned to get some major stuff done on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday -- to the tune of 10-12 scenes.

And I found out last night that we wouldn't be able to do it. And I found out this morning that the next weekend was not an option for our Friday-Saturday stuff.

Sometimes I wonder if God has any purpose for this movie beyond making it an exercise in trust. I know He does, but so far He indeed has used it as a major test of my faith. I failed it initially. When my brother broke the news to me last night, I was hopping mad. It wasn't the first time something like this had happened, and it very well may not be the last.

But today I have realized again that God is the one who crumpled up my plans and threw them in the trash can. It was His plan, His perfect will, for me to have my weekend plans fall through. It was always His plan, and He's not one bit worried or concerned or angry because He knows exactly what He's doing, and it's far better than what I try to do. Makes it kinda hard to complain, huh?

The weekend fall-through is, of course, not the end of the world. Or even the end of the movie. There are other options, other ways, other paths, and somehow we'll still get this thing done. If it's God's will.

After discussing the failed plans with my parents, I went into my room for my daily quiet time. My reading just "happened" to be Philippians 2; this made it very difficult to focus inward (try reading it sometime and then focusing on yourself; it's hard). Then I remembered a passage that my dad had referenced in a sermon several weeks ago, one that I had reread and found especially applicable to my own life. I read it again, and was struck once again by the clear fact that God wrote it for me. It's Psalm 37 if you want to go check it out, which I recommend.

Verses 23 and 24 were especially poignant:
A man's steps are established by the Lord, and He takes pleasure in his way.
Though he falls, he will not be overwhelmed, because the Lord holds his hand.

How cool is it to have "the King of the universe hold your hand", as a song by Pocket Full of Rocks says? Those verses lifted me up, gave me a firm swat on the bottom, and made me feel better; you usually do after a spanking.

Then I talked to Lana about the filming ordeal. She was such an encouragement, taking the news calmly (unlike me), helping me look through options, and voicing encouragement. The combined effort of my quiet time and my friend made it impossible for me to feel bad anymore.

Nope, by the grace of God, I'm hoppin' HAPPY! It was such a weird feeling as I got off the phone with her, because I knew it was a happiness that didn't come from myself. I had given the movie completely to God, letting Him know that He can do with it what He wants. If He doesn't want it finished, that's okay with me, because it's what He wants.

Not that I really believe He doesn't want us to finish it. It would be a hard pill to swallow if He gave it to me. But ultimately, if He were to tell me that, I'd be torn up, but it'd be all right, because He's in control.

I feel like singing. Ah, maybe not "I Feel Good" (the title of this post), but perhaps one of the new songs we'll be playing at Fan the Flame. Part of it goes:
God above all the world in motion
God above all my hopes and fears
No matter what the world throws at me now
It's gonna be all right
'Cause I know my God saved the day
And I know His Word never fails
And I know my God made a way for me
Salvation is here

Yeah, baby! Do we serve an awesome God, or what? Hey, please come to FtF on August 25, because you're gonna hear one pumped-up dude leading the songs! God is awesome! I feel good and I'm praising Him!

Singing, Filming, Looking Forward to College

Pretty good day today; lots of singing. Our song leader, one of the pillars of our church and a great man of God, has moved to Clarksville. I am filling in for now (and now could last for a long time, which is perfectly OK with me), leading the songs on Sunday mornings and evenings.

Also, we had band practice this afternoon between services. It was a good hour-long session. We're going to mix in some new songs for Fan the Flame to go with some of the ones we've played for (seemingly) forever. I'm excited about the opportunity to teach Chris Tomlin's "Let God Arise" to our FtF audience.

Filming yesterday went pretty well; filming for tomorrow fell through. I'll try to provide a capsule of yesterday's filming at some point tomorrow. The movie's production continues to progress well, but a lot more slowly than any of us want. It has become a real test of my faith to trust God that we will be able to get this all filmed in His time.

It's been good, though. I continue to be amazed at the sacrifices that so many people have made for the film; and we're still adding new people to that "list". It's not only the ones who are actually involved on the film; often their families are forced to sacrifice time with them so they can be part of this project. It's humbling to me, and it also motivates me to try to do as good a job as we can and also get it done as quickly as we can. The latter is difficult, but again, I have to trust God that He'll work it all out.

Two weeks till school starts, at least for those of us who are enrolled in the esteemed University of Arkansas-Fort Smith. I'm kinda looking forward to classes at this point, which is pretty weird for me. I figure I'll enjoy the feeling while I have it, and it'll probably be gone in, oh, about three weeks. It may last through the first week, which is always pretty easy. I say always as if I'm an old pro, though I've only been through two semesters. Still, that's a significant portion of my higher education.

This year, my classes are
Advanced Composition - a writing class that I expect to be no more than the next-gen model of Freshman Comp II
Nonfiction Writing - a writing class that could be fairly fun and interesting, or could be a clone of Advanced Comp
Reasoning Across the Disciplines - a philosophy class which I know nothing about beyond the title
Europe: 20th Century - a history class that I'm taking because I had the professor in another class last semester and he was awesome; plus, the topic will be cool
Introduction to Theater - a, well, theater class that I hope will be a blast

I think I definitely am getting settled in to the whole college experience, though. I've always heard that the first year is the hardest, and I think it's true. Not necessarily in terms of the actual work, but in terms of getting adjusted and all that jazz.

And speaking of jazz: The biggest thing I'll miss about this semester is not having Don Bailey as an instructor. He is one of the many outstanding music professors at UAFS; directs the university jazz band; and taught my Music Appreciation class last semester. My verdict on him: If you go to UAFS, do everything you can to take him. He's an awesome teacher, if more than a bit unconventional, and his class is a ton of fun (and easy to boot!). OK, enough of my Bailey plug -- and this post. I seem to be getting pretty good at those long ramblings; the short ditties have mostly not yet materialized.

Peace out and go God.

On the Nature of Posts, and, Fan the Flame

As you read this blog, you'll soon notice that some posts will be outrageously long, while others will be short ditties. Some will be movie updates, some will be grandiose musings on life and God, and some will be quickie capsules of my life.


Right now, I'm sitting at work -- an AT&T authorized agent store in Charleston, Arkansas. It's been a fairly uneventful day of work, but I'm looking forward to getting off here in a couple of minutes. Tomorrow we have an afternoon and evening of filming lined up, all stuff involving the villainous Gang.

Picking up this post again at home now. I love Blogger, BTW; automatically saves your drafts so you can pick them up again any ol' time you want. Amazing Stacey.

I'm about to go work on a Sunday night lesson for my youth group. I part-volunteered, was part-enlisted, as "Sunday night coordinator" for our youth at First Baptist Church of Branch. It's been a pretty cool opportunity so far. I've been doing a series of lessons recently on the biblical monarchs of Kings and Chronicles. We go through each of their lives and pick up on the lessons to be learned from them. We started with Solomon, who took a while, and have finally moved on to Rehoboam and Jeroboam.

This week and in the next few weeks, we're going to take a break from our study of the kings and do some special focus lessons as we lead up to Fan the Flame, our annual youth event that will take place on Saturday, August 25. This week, the lesson is on fasting. It's not an issue we've addressed in our youth for a long time, and I think it'll be a neat chance to teach them. I plan on emphasizing that while putting away the eats is the most popular form (and one of the most effective forms) of fasting, it is by no means the only one. It's gonna be good.

And Fan the Flame, you ask? It's a pretty special day. I think it's fantastic that a church our size can put on a youth event like this each year. Of course, God gets all the glory for it; we're merely earthen vessels. It kicks off at 1:00 pm and ends somewhere around 9. We have two worship services, one in the early afternoon and one in the evening. I am privileged to be able to lead worship, along with the rest of the members of our youth group's band, Singled Out. Our speakers are my partners in crime in youth leadership, Chris Russell and Dusty Wright. It's an awesome day, and we believe this year's event will be the best one yet.

The whole point of Fan the Flame is to get a whole bunch of people together (they don't even have to be all youth, though that's our target group) and experience the moving of the Holy Spirit in a mighty way. We've seen some truly amazing things through this event in the past, and, again, we think the best is yet to come.

So yeah, I'm pumped about that. Band practice is tonight, and I'm really looking forward to what we can do as a band this year. We're going to introduce some new songs and hopefully branch out a bit musically.

Dude, I am getting seriously psyched just sitting here typing. To all my readers: Please pray for this event; we can do nothing without the effectual fervent prayers of the righteous men and women of God. Also, if you haven't heard about it yet, please plan on attending and invite some friends to come with you. It's going to be a phenomenal day. Go God!

Now I'd better go work on my lesson a bit.

The Four Rules of Writing

One of my absolute favorite authors is Ted Dekker. He writes daring, audacious stories that draw readers closer to their Creator. One of his best novels, Showdown, lays out four rules of writing. I don't know if he thought them up on his own or derived them from some other source, but I think they're brilliant in simplicity and they help me in my writing. Perhaps they'll help other writers out there.

The Four Rules of Writing
1. Write to discover.
2. There is no greater discovery than love.
3. All love leads to the Creator.
4. Write what you will.

The Great Production Experience - Saturday, July 28

Date: Friday, July 27

Location: My grandparents' property, Natural Dam, AR

Cast: Luke, Lana, Trevor, Daniel, Tony, Chris, James, Dusty

Crew: Hannah, Tara

*Yawn* Ah, there's nothing like waking up at 7:00 in the morning when you've been up working since two the previous evening. It was a lovely morning, but we weren't enjoying it terribly much, thank you. A couple of our group were up before me, but I managed to rouse the rest of them and even peek in and wake up Lana as she slumbered on a beautiful mattressed bed. OK, OK, so she was sick; is that supposed to be some kind of excuse? *Ducks*

Breakfast: Donuts and chocolate milk. Three cheers for chocolate milk! A truly wonderful way to kick off a day. After getting everybody up, fed, and dressed, we departed back into the woods to our set from the night before for a morning scene.

The scene went well. I cannot resist pointing out that a certain female member of the cast was not set to appear in the scene; her character is off-screen in Shawn and Travis' tent and only her voice appears. This esteemed actress did not need to enter the tent at all to play her role; she could have merely stayed off-camera, yet she somehow managed to stay inside the tent for the duration of the filming of the scene! I must admit, she delivered her one line beautifully during each take. If only I could have it this easy.

With that done, Daniel left with Trevor, Tara, and Hannah to drop off Tara at her abode and pick up our morning crew. Our morning crew being James and Dusty. While they were gone, well, what's a filmmaker to do but shower? It was a lovely shower, and I confess I took longer than usual. It was a bit disheartening afterward to put on the same stinky clothes, but I felt 500% better. Smelled 500% better too, even with dirty clothes. Old Spice is awesome stuff.

Because of various delays, Daniel and the others would end up being gone for about three hours, instead of the expected two. And they had already left a full hour late. The rest of us (myself, Lana, Tony, and Chris), after taking the showers, went off to scout locations along the sides of my grandparents' bluffs. Marvelous things they are, and they will look gorgeous when we use them in the climactic final chase of the film.

Here's one of the many brilliant sections of woods.

Pretty sweet view.

Could this cliff or another like it be important in the climax of the movie? I wonder...

Fast forward to lunchtime; the others had finally completed the trip up, and we sat down to a delicious meal of grilled-chicken sandwiches. Oh baby, these were awesome. The girls applied makeup to the newcomers while Chris ribbed Dusty about being so late. Ah, good to be among both of my fellow youth leaders again!

After lunch, it was time to go back to the original Shawn-and-Travis tent location from the day before, the one we'd done all the running around. This time, in a scene that takes place shortly after the aforementioned one, gang members Carl (Chris) and Barry (James) run into Shawn and Travis' tent. More running, but this time for the bad guys. Chris and James play their roles with the intensity of hunters in the midst of the hunt, while Daniel and Tony get to be laid back and cool.

Then Daniel had to take Tony back to Van Buren since his part in the acting had been completed. Meanwhile, we filmed a couple of scenes exclusively between Carl and Barry. My goodness, James had trouble with one of them! He could not stop laughing at a particular part. We went through probably about twenty takes but finally managed to salvage the scene. He did better with the next scene, and to his credit, you probably won't be able to tell in the finished film that he had such trouble. After a while Chris also got distracted and started laughing some too. Sometimes it's hard to keep yourself under control as an actor; in this case they needed to work quickly because both of them had to leave pretty soon.

At last the scenes were done. Exit Chris and James, both of whom did a fine job. We were now ready to do our final shooting of the day, all involving only one actor: Dusty as Clyde, the leader of the Gang and older brother of Eric. Only problem was, the first of these scenes happens near nightfall. We had to wait until the sun was nearly down to drive out to our road location (in my grandpa's nearly-brand-new Chevy pickup, which he graciously agreed to let us borrow) and film a brief scene where Clyde talks on the phone and then vents inner turmoil. One down, two to go.

Back at the house, we had a simple shot of Clyde sitting in a chair and staring into space. Really? you ask. What's that doing in a movie? Doesn't sound very dramatic. Well, time will tell, but I think it will be very dramatic when it's all put together. Anyways, it was difficult to try to light this scene; we ended up using some white Christmas lights (those come in very useful for night scenes) and a low-wattage blue light that Lana bought. It took a while to get them situated where the camcorder would pick up the light on Dusty's face correctly. To make matters worse, my grandparents don't have air conditioning, so it was like a sauna in the room. But we got it done, and it matched my vision for the scene very closely.

The final shot was just a brief look at Clyde in bed, unable to sleep. This one was easy to light; we got it and got the shot in just a few minutes. Then it was time to bid my grandparents goodbye, thank them heartily for their gracious hosting during the past thirty-two hours, pack everything up, and head for home!

Hannah and I finally made it home a little after 11:00. Oh, glorious shower and bed that I call my own at home! It's now Tuesday night (or Wednesday morning technically), and I think I'm almost physically recovered from the weekend. Pretty crazy, but we got a lot of stuff done.

I am so thankful for my fellow cast and crew on this project, who are willing to devote so much of their time and energy to a dream that was not their own. I love all of you guys and could not do it without a single one of you. Thank you also to all of our families, who have sacrificed much as well that we might be able to make this little movie. I pray that it is all worth it.

Here I go getting all sentimental. Can't let that happen yet; we've still got a lot of filming in front of us yet. Stay tuned once again for further updates!