Next Year

So, I thought I’d better write something quickly about my plans for next year (starting August ’08).  I have agreed to stay on with the Pais Project as well as starting a new kind of team for the department.

Last year, shortly after I arrived in Vancouver, I had the feeling that I didn’t know why I was here – I mean, I was doing youth work (which I’d not done much of before) and was living in the biggest city I’ve ever lived in (which was kinda daunting).  It wasn’t feeling much like home and on top of that, I was starting to feel that I didn’t want to lose the passion I had for film (after having completed my degree in Film Production).  

But then I had the idea of combining both my passion for my Christian faith and film together – brilliant plan!! I remember praying before I knew what I was doing after graduating, saying that I wanted to combine the two and that I’d be up for anything … but then I ended up on Pais?? 

I’ve met quite a few people in the Industry here – Vancouver has a million movies being filmed here, there and everywhere – in fact, there is a movie being filmed this week across the road from my church at the local high school we work at.  People always ask me if I want to go into the Industry too – but I don’t.  That’s not my passion – just ask me what movies I like and my mind goes blank, so I can’t be all that into it all eh? haha. Having said that, I recently watched three movies that I’ll recommend to you now – Juno, The Darjeeling Limited and A Scanner Darkly. Go watch, and let me know what you think.

ANYWAYS, to get back on track….

In October, we helped at a conference called Campusfire and whilst there, I heard a guy called Brett Ullman speak and he inspired me in what I want to pioneer next year with my team.  So let me try to explain this…

**I have a love for people, but a hate for the pain that people struggle with.

**I have a love for culture and media, but a hate for the lies that are constantly telling us we’re not good enough.

**I have a love for God and the truth and freedom that His name brings, but a hate for the barriers that prevent us from believing any of it, causing us pain and anger.

So, what to do about these things?  What I want to do now, is go into high schools and through creative (art, film, music, etc) workshops, seminars, classes, assemblies and whatever else, share with the students a life worth living – bringing them Biblical and good values but not in an explicitly Christian way.  However, this stuff won’t happen for a while. I need people to join me on this mission, and prayer.  As well as all this, I’ll have Pais work to do – which will be fun, doing things like update videos for the other teams, and newsletters and other stuff too.