Finally have a working title….. “While We Were Sleeping”

No this is not a prequel or sequel to any romantic comedy starring Sandra Bullock. Although working with her may not be so bad. I don’t think she’s mean or anything.

I’ve heard a few pastors, heard one this weekend, and speakers say that you don’t know you’ve been sleeping until you wake up and it’s over. Sleep is pretty much the only natural thing we do that we can’t really force to happen and can’t realize while we’re doing it. All we know is that we wake up and realize that we’ve been a sleep. Becoming a believer and follower of Christ is similar. People don’t know they’ve been sleeping on life until Christ wakes them up. Shoot, a lot of Christians fall asleep in their faith going through the motions.

I didn’t know about the homeless problem in my county. I mean, it’s a fairly rural area. I assumed there were some homeless people, but I didn’t know that the average homeless person is 9 years old. Yes, 9 years old.

I didn’t know that out of approximately 17000 students in our county there were over 250 kids newly identified as homeless last year. I mentioned this in a previous post, but that number doesn’t include kids that were already known to be homeless or kids who are homeless, but are “undocumented”.

Nearly half of the students, 48%, over 8,000 kids, are classified as “economically disadvantaged”. What people don’t realize is that the last meal a lot of these kids get in a week is at lunch at school on Fridays. Some of them don’t eat ANYTHING until breakfast at school on Monday. I didn’t know that either until I started to hear the cases from first-hand teachers and school social workers. Now, I’m awake.

Want to know where you’re county’s school district stands with some of these statistics? Visit the Georgia DoE site and click on any County or City School and then click on the “facts” tab. For information on homeless children in your area, contact you local homeless shelter. They’ll likely be glad to take you call.

I’ve prayed a lot about having opportunities to serve Him with my abilities, and I have in some capacities, and I can’t sleep through this one. We have to do something to alleviate the struggles for these kids and make this community aware of this seemingly invisible issue. With God’s help, lives will change.

Started filming!!

The script is a living one right now in that it’s not complete and we’re shooting some footage anyway. Granted a documentary script is more of an outline than a dramatic script, it will still be nice to get it finished up. We decided to start filming “on the street” interviews with random folks as there are a lot of great opportunities to find people at summer festivals and events that are taking place.

This weekend we spoke to about a dozen folks and basically asked them all the same questions: How old is the average homeless person in our county? How many homeless children do you think are in our school system?

The answers were all over the place, and everyone was shocked to find out that the average homeless person in our county is 9 years old and that 250 kids were identified as homeless in our school district.  I didn’t know these numbers either and when I heard them I also heard God’s voice telling me to move.

Speaking to these people was great in that it restarted the fire to keep this project going. I think God has great things in store for the homeless people in this community and I feel great that He’s letting me be a part of it. Awesome.

Great day today

We met with the leader of the homeless shelter today and pitched to her our vision for the documentary we’re going to produce. Notice I didn’t say “try to do”. No, we’re going to do it. As Yoda would say, “Do or do not.  There is no ‘try’.”   Anyway, she was very positive and seems as excited as we are and expects there to be a lot of attention on this effort.  She is going to handle getting public and media attention through her numerous contacts with the local press and business owners, so it’s pretty safe to say that we’ve “poked the hornets nest” and now it’s time to really make this happen.

One major realization is that I don’t have sufficient equipment to produce a quality documentary.  I must figure out what to do about good audio and lighting equipment.  If I schedule the actual filming of interviews and families efficiently, I should be able to shoot that portion in at least 3 days which means I could rent or borrow some good gear.

I have a feeling late September will be here very soon.

My name is Dan Wallace……

My name is Dan Wallace, kind of, and I’m chasing lions. If you’ve read In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day by Mark Batterson, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, then I suggest you read it, but take a peak at www.chasethelion.com and watch some of the videos there and listen to some of the messages. I’ve been a Christ follower all of my life. At times, many times, I’ve been a knucklehead, but those mistakes have led me to where I am today and I thank God for them.  And I still make some, so there’s still some leading going on.

As a kid, I used to pick up my Mom’s video camera and then me and the neighborhood kids used to make crappy movies, tape skits, and video our wiffle ball, basketball, and football games. Like many other folks in my generation, I’d use video skits in place of presentations in front of the class. High school is where my video hobby seemingly died. I went on to college, the military, and then to work and family life and love every minute of it.

A few years ago, a spark ignited my flame for video again. Now I believe that spark was God telling me that no matter how crude my ability is, I can use it to help people get to know His love and figure out what God wants for them. A few months back, I was told some somber statistics about the number of homeless children in our county schools. We have a relatively small county population (less than 80,000 people) when you consider the very large city that is only 35 miles away. We’re in a small town with big problems and we, as Christ followers, should do more.

I prayed to God for guidance last week to simply give me direction and what I could do with video and then, like a slap of thunder, it hit me. I must shoot a documentary about the homeless children and families in our community.

How? I’m not a film maker and have yet to produce a single documentary. Well, I have crossed paths with several folks who are involved with television production and have produced documentaries. They will hopefully be able to focus me in the right directions. Most importantly, I have been connected with the local homeless shelter and when told about my mission, they said that it was “an answer to a prayer” that they’ve had for years. So few people in the community are aware of the situation and it is our mission to help these families and improve our community through the power of Christ.

This blog will remain anonymous for a while and I will use it to update how the production process is going, who we meet, information we are given, and other things involved with the documentary.

I have no idea what God has in store for this project. I may fail and this may be a bust, but this is an issue that I think our community needs to know about.