Pay It Forward

Photo Credit: Courtney Dirks

This weekend, our friends invited us to participate in their second film festival--a celebration of complete amateurs gaining an appreciation for the art of filmmaking. ;-) (If you missed our first short film, you can see it here: When the Rain Comes.) This time, we had a very comfortable alotment of one whole weekend in which to create our film (last summer, we had a mere 12 hours). We received the word on Saturday morning: kindness. Brainstorming, planning, and decision-making took up our day, as well as the Saturday chores, sewing classes, and a baby shower. By Saturday night, we had the concept, the roles, and the scenes sketched out: we were ready to shoot!

Sunday afternoon we filmed, and we had lots of opportunities to practice kindness to each other! There is nothing like working under a deadline with six different opinions, ideas, strengths, and weaknesses to challenge one's expression of kindness and gentleness to others. While filming, however, we were blessed to have an audience in a young boy who couldn't have been more than ten. God provided me an opportunity to witness to him and present the Gospel to him (he knew about Jesus, but he didn't think he had sinned--nope, never lied...nope, never stole a cookie...but when I asked if he had ever disobeyed his parents, he had to admit that, yes, he had). This was definitely the highlight of the weekend for me. Please pray for Jacob!

Monday was editing--Melanie was our editor extraordinaire, and let me tell you--those people don't get enough credit! Everything was finished up and tied with a beautiful bow (figuratively speaking) by the time we arrived at our friend's house for a fun evening of pizza and movies. Ours won "Best Application of Biblical Principles," and we received a symbolic bag of lifesavers for our efforts.

So, without further ado, please enjoy Pay It Forward. We are by no means skilled at this craft, but we sure enjoyed trying our hand at it!