Entering the Third Trimester

Hello friends, family and followers! It has been a while! So much has happened since we departed on our journey. Not the least of which... we have absolutely found ourselves as full-time parents, with River in the throes of potty training and August less than a month away from his first birthday! But the other baby we're excited about is the film; the weaving together of the stories we captured from four incredible humans during our travels. We have been working a little bit at a time over the past year and a half as we have been able, piecing these stories together and continuing to learn what the Spirit has to say through it. The thread of story is this: God's majesty. His love for his people. Their response to him.

Worship.

God's majesty present in his people. In many ways, we recognize the period of time spent marinating has been essential to what this thing is going to become. We could never have just cranked it out immediately after returning. The storyline has slowly taken shape, and even the work God has been doing in our personal lives has helped define the direction to take in the editing process. It also just plain takes a lot of time to finish. It looks like it is going to end up being around 45 minutes in length, and it is no small task to see it through to completion. It feels like having a baby. The stages of pregnancy, if you don't know, are divided into three sections, or trimesters. Trimester one was being overseas. We experienced all the newness, the life-change that being pregnant is, the excitement, the nausea, the uncertainty, the dream of one day seeing this baby birthed. Trimester two has been the last year and a half stateside. The baby is there, growing, but it's not quite so demanding of your attention as in the first trimester. Sometimes you feel so great you forget you are pregnant, and have the energy to do things as "normal." Trimester three is now upon us. And it came quite suddenly, too. It came along with a recent reminder of our identity as prophetic artists, that amidst all the responsibilities of life, these kinds of projects are what we're meant to do. The time has come to birth this baby—it's coming no matter what—and we have a lot of work to do to see it out. We feel like we are supposed to take the entirety of next week and devote it to working as hard as possible to move this film toward completion. In sensing that, we were then excited to just get started on it this weekend, but ultimately then felt, no—wait, pray, prepare, first. It's going to be an intense week. Thus, we would really appreciate your prayer this weekend and throughout next week. We have always felt like this film is very distinct from any other projects we put our hand to. It's not straightforward; we truly must depend on the Spirit to lead us in what he wants to communicate through it. And one thing that we have definitely experienced over the past few years is that the Spirit absolutely leads. Absolutely speaks. But it's hard to wait and not to rush. Hard to listen. I would so much rather make things complicated and do them in my own strength than keep things simple and do them out of the strength of the Spirit. So prayer matters. We believe that. And we need that. Prayer to surrender ourselves to the natural birthing process of this project; trust that true strength is in less striving and more resting. Lastly, another exciting development is that we are collaborating with music artists from our church here in the East End of Richmond to provide original music for the film. So beyond Christy and I editing, please also pray for the music aspect of post-production. If you would like to support the post-production process financially, please see our Give page for more info. Thank you for anticipating and supporting this birth alongside us! †