He is Real, Just Ask Ann

The first of a (hopefully) long series of people sharing their stories of how God has changed them.

But first, here's a short behind the scenes video.

He will NOT let me go!

His grip on me is so strong I can't do anything to shake it.

Today was a day that took me by surprise.

For anyone who works for, or is involved in ministry, in a Sunday morning church service, you know what I'm talking about when I say, sometimes, you have to make an effort to remember why and who you are serving.

It's easy to get lost in the 'work' aspect of your day and miss out on the worship, the message and ultimately miss out on what the Holy Spirit is doing in that room.

I'm guilty of that sometimes, especially when directing the video feed. As a director, your job is to talk constantly to camera operators, computer operators, sound people and anyone else you need to talk to in order to make everything run smoothly.

But today, I found myself in a place that took every ounce of responsibility in me not to drop my walkie-talkies, abandon my video mixer and just worship! And from 11am this morning even until this very minute, 9:30pm, Jesus has not left my side.

It's an encounter in which He sought me out. And it is so true of His character.

I've just gone through a difficult week emotionally... and spiritually. 

I failed this week. 

I ultimately needed forgiveness in a big way this week. 

And just as I weakly try to crawl from my hole and face my God, He acts as if I did nothing wrong.

"How God? How can you just love me like this after what I've done?"

"You brought your failures to me and admitted that you needed my help right?"

"Yeah."

"You asked for my forgiveness didn't you?"

"Yeah, I did."

"Then it's gone. Let's move on."

The Great Drought

Not only in Nairobi but on my blog it seems.

Ok, there's not really a drought in Nairobi, but it's been really HOT. Like 32 celsius hot... for weeks and there's not a lot of relief until sundown.

But this place has been seriously neglected and I am still sorry. Don't let this generate your opinions of me on such topics as parenting, pet ownership, stewardship or any other position of responsibility. I really am a responsible person... serious!

(This is where I would launch into a rant about how bad my internet has been for months but I just don't feel like complaining)

Instead, I'll give you a little snippet of what's happening right now.

VLOGS
I have about 4 to be edited.
Lately I've been working on quite a few projects at once and since I am not the type of person who prioritizes well, I've been plugging through all the urgent stuff more so than the important stuff. Still working on that. But know, there are vlogs coming. (One takes place at a Kenyan Wedding!)

PROJECTS
I am almost done a video project for By Grace Children's Home located in Ngong. (South west of Nairobi)
I filmed the whole thing in one day. I had some help from teachers at the school in wrangling in the actors but that day I took on the roles of director, sound engineer, director of photography, script writer and now editor. Let's just say that next time I will be asking for help. This project was a lot of fun to work on and I will be putting it on my youtube channel once it's done.

Baptism testimonial videos are one thing that I'm going to be taking initiative in creating at Nairobi Chapel this year and I will be filming my first one early next week. I have a meeting with the lady sharing her story and then it's film time. It should take a few sessions to edit but needs to be done by the end of next week. I'm excited about it but a little intimidated by the time frame because of other things going on.

Streeters! I've done streeters in the past with my good friend and former Youth Pastor. A streeter is basically taking a camera into the street and asking people questions. A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to do this with Chapel and I spent two days with the help of a friend just getting outside and talking to people. I love these kinds of projects. It gives you the opportunity to pick the brains of people you wouldn't normally have the opportunity to talk to, people from all kinds of social and economical backgrounds. We took the better part of a week condensing an hour and a half of footage into 3 minutes, created some subtitles, found some music and stuck on the Chapel logos and voila! An impactful video that we are showing at church this Sunday. I would love to upload this one but we had to assure hesitant participants that this video would not be published.

In the future I might have the opportunity to work on a video for a new organization that rescues young prostitute girls (under 12 years old) from slums to be housed, fed, educated, counseled and mentored. It's really heavy stuff but I'm hoping that God opens the door for me to have the opportunity to share what is going on in the lives of these girls, and how He is able to take someone even as broken as these and make them whole.


MORE
There is more stuff outside of video projects that I'm in the middle of. One big thing is MOVING!!
More on that soon...