Back in Malaysia I prayed and asked for a story and out of that you might remember I met Shakeela – A women who taught me the power of story and who courageously allowed me to share who testimony as a short film.
I have been paying that prayer every month and in the Dominican Republic I had a feeling there was a need here and I wanted the Lord to show me it.
This month we worked at H.O.P.E. 4 DR in the mountains of Lajas. The organization works to plants churches and children’s centers around the country.
After creating a video about their baptism celebration (watch it here) they announced the decision to put together four short documentaries on each church. There were four teams so each team was assigned a different church to research and conduct interviews with. I was asked to go with each team and lead the filming and then later do all the editing. It was one of the largest video projects I have ever taken on and it made for some unforgettable memories.
My team getting shots at the beach!
That whole first week I went to a different city every day and filmed with a different team at all four of the churches. My team went out first to Puerto Plata to meet Pastor Frank and learn about his church and children’s center. The people we interviewed were so grateful for the opportunity to tell their stories and honored that we all simply took the time to listen. I don’t think they even cared if they ever saw the video.
I loved getting to share the project with my team, I have never gotten to work on something like this with all of them before. When the day was over I asked for feedback from my team on how I had lead the day. I was a little nervous to work with the other teams and I really wanted to lead through empowerment and not simply control everything. They helped me figure out how I could best give everyone different roles and teach them about the interview process.
So every morning I asked for volunteers to do the following: Conduct the interview, run the sound and microphone, shoot behind the scenes footage, control noise, and shoot b-roll (this is the extra footage that is played over the interviews to enhance the story.)
I found that a lot of people were really interested in the project and were excited to work on it. The second day I got to work with a bunch of my old teammates and travel to a city called Cienfuegos. The town is marked my a huge dump that we hiked through to get footage and a feel for the town. It was one of the most surreal things I have seen this year. There were people burning the trash and dark black clouds filling the sky. There were people sifting through it looking for things to sell and cows everywhere grazing.
I realized then how incredible the opportunity was to do this project and to even own a camera at all. Getting to share experiences and stories like that increases the experience’s impact from just the people there to potentially millions around the world.
The third day when we went to Los Cerritos and we got to visit some people’s homes and actually attend a service with the church. This church was really special because it was the first one H.O.P.E.’s founder Vicky and Ruben started and it was in the city where Ruben grew up.
I asked him if he could take me for a walk around his old street and let me get some shots of him talking to people. This man is basically a celebrity, he knew everyone. I felt like he was running for office, it was so fun to walk around with him. He told me it was so meaningful to him that these people had known him as a little boy and now they had embraced him again and his ministry as a man.
We wrapped up filming on Friday in Moca and the daunting task of editing started on Monday. I knocked out a whole video on Monday and things were looking really positive. Tuesday it got harder, the first video was mostly in English and the rest were not. I was really discouraged and overwhelmed by it all.
I told my team I was struggling and starting to have a bad attitude about it. Eric and I prayed together about it and I suddenly felt a new attitude about everything. My hard drive was super full so I decided I was going to back everything up and then wipe it clean so I could have more space to finish everything with out a headache. I had done it before and felt really confident about doing it again.
I wiped the drive and suddenly there was nothing on my computer but a white question mark. I didn’t know at the time that you need solid internet to re-download the operating software and I had deleted the backup files too. I should have cried but I laughed. I swear the Holy Spirit over took my body and gave me a happy attitude about it all.
I peaked my head up the stairs and said, “Um hey Kristan (the H.O.P.E. contact working with me on the project and one of my new favorite people) I need to go to the Apple store tomorrow, I broke my computer.”
Her jaw dropped! We were up in the mountains and it wasn’t going to be a easy trip. I went down to the camp sight where my squamate Michelle was sleeping, she is a computer expert and I knew she could help. “Hey Michelle, I broke my computer I need your help.”
She came back up to the house and the three of us researched every possible way to fix it on our own. We even called Apple and talked to a man named Bob and another named Lix which rhymes with six, as he told us. We were in hysterics the whole time having fun when we should have been in panic. We came to the conclusion I needed to go to the store.
The next morning I recruited Justin to escort me there and with directions from Kristan we set out confidently. We waited for a bus for an hour and none came so wee flagged down a man in a red truck. We asked for a ride to Santiago and he said, No probelma but his back seat had mucho cosas, mucho cosas (lots of stuff). He moved over a bunch stuff, offered the seat to Justin and insisted I take the front seat.
He was a plumber and he drove back and forth from the mountain to Santiago every day. He was a christian and went to a church in the city. He only spoke Spanish but we were able to talk to him quite a bit. When we got out we stopped right in front of a flower stand. He insisted on not accepting any payment so Justin bought him some flowers and told him to give them to his wife.
We made it to the store and they restored my OS X and all was well. The journey took all day but my good mood never let up. I found a quite place to edit the next day and had a hopeful attitude the rest of the week. I finished the project on Friday night and officially handed them over Saturday afternoon, the day before we left.
I was a crazy two weeks and a tall order but we did it. I am so grateful we got this opportunity and especially grateful to God for making it all fun no matter what. I am pretty excited about the product so with out further ado, here they are:
Video one Puerto Plata by team Harvest: Justin Harsdorf, Sara MacIntosh, Anna Ganter, Nicole Brossard, Eric Belair and Erin Tyson. The whole team helped film behind the scenes, watch it here.
Video two Cienfuegos by Team Deeply Loved: Kayla Russum, Shonda Foublasse and Sarah German. Interviews led by Jenn Eyears, and all B-roll shots by Kacie Tillman. Ashley Page shot behind the scenes, watch it here.
Video three Los Cerritos by team Captivating: Meraia McDaniel, Lacey Lizotte and Becca Mitchell. Interviews led by Mallory Finley, assistance with b-roll, Michelle Kong and Jamie Allison. Clare shot behind the scenes watch it here.
Video four Moca by team Restore: Courtney Goddard, Hope Bowman, Sydney Dunlap. Interviews led by Rachel Lyons, all b-roll shot by Casey Roberts, behind the scenes shot by Brian Joseph, watch it here.
Special thanks to Kristan for organizing the whole project and to Kristan and Tony Vegas for translating all the interviews.
