AND THE WINNER IS . . .

Last week I posted a giveaway for the documentary Shining in Her Corner - The Story of Amy Vest and Loving the Lord Ministries. Thank you to all who entered!! I was encouraged by your comments, and by reading your blog posts.

Okay, now for the moment you've all been waiting for . . . well, maybe I should tell you how we picked the winner first. :-) I wrote down everybody's name (twice if you posted about it), folded the papers and mixed them up, and had Ethan (my 8-year-old brother) pick out the winner!

AND THE WINNER IS . . . .

 

Congratulations! Please leave a comment with your full name and address, and I won't publish it. I will get your DVD in the mail to you this weekend! I hope it is a blessing to you and your family!

I hope to post soon about a new project I've been working on, and also post another giveaway for my new project! And I haven't forgotten about telling ya'll about the rest of our TX trip!! Life has been crazy around here but I hope to get back to the blogging world soon. :-)

Giveaway Extended!

This upcoming weekend some of my family members and I have to be out of town for a few days (it came up last minute), so I won't be home on Sunday. So . . . I've decided to extend the giveaway to Wednesday, November 17th! For any of you who haven't signed up yet, please go to this post and leave a comment!! Thank you to all those who have entered so far! Please visit www.lovingthelordministries.org to find out more about Loving the Lord Ministries!

 

Part 3 - Tuesday and Wednesday

While Caleb and I were at the academy each day, mom and dad took Daniel, Lydia and Ethan sightseeing.

We were able to go on the riverboat ride with them during a lunch break - that was fun!

 

San Antonio is a beautiful city!

We learned a lot more at the academy from people like Collin Gunn (producer of Indoctrination)

and David Cook, who wrote the story for Seven Days in Utopia.

There were also other great speakers, including Isaac Botkin (who wrote the book Outside Hollywood), Doug Phillips (President of Vision Forum Ministries) and Geoff Botkin (Western Conservatory). Besides the speakers, there was also a panel of men who were asked questions about films they had made or worked on. There were SO many good things to learn from everybody!

I was very happy to be able to meet Anna Sophia and Elizabeth Botkin, who wrote the book So Much More (highly recommended) and helped make the documentary The Return of the Daughters (also HIGHLY recommended)!!! They are both very godly, encouraging young ladies and I was honored to have a chance to talk with them!
 

Check back early next week for pictures from the Film Festival!!

Part 2 - Sunday and Monday

On Sunday after leaving the H. family's place, we headed out to another friend's house. My friend Grace P. and I had been pen-paling and talking on the phone for over two years, and we finally met on October 24th! We were going to meet on the 25th, but it worked out for us to come early so I didn't tell her but decided to surprise her! :-) That was FUN!

Her sister made this adorable, creative sign to welcome our family to the guest house!

On Monday morning Grace, her brother Jacob, Caleb and I all got up very early to get ready for our first day at the Christian Filmmaker's Academy. The most exciting thing of the first day was seeing Christian actor Kirk Cameron (who played the lead role in FIREPROOF). He taught a couple sessions on good acting (which is sure needed in the independent Christian filmmaking world!) and I really enjoyed his sincere, strong faith, and his desire to do only what God wants him to do. He said the most important thing you can have as a filmmaker is the fear of God. Check out this Vision Forum video from the academy.

Mr. Cameron coached some young people who did an "audition" for him. After he gave some tips, Mr. Doug Phillips (president of Vision Forum and founder of the SAICFF) asked him to do an impersonation of Jimmy Stewart and he did a great job! :-) It's so awesome that such a strong actor is so godly and has such a desire to glorify God with his life. Besides acting he also has a ministry to disabled children called Camp Firefly and he also joins in doing evangalization with Ray Comfort for the ministry Living Waters. 

And of course we also got to hear Stephen Kendrick that evening, as some of you have already guessed! Wow. He is one of the godliest men I have ever seen or heard. His passion and his desire to solely glorify God is just amazing! I was inspired, convicted and encouraged by Mr. Kendrick. For those of you who don't know, he and his brother, Alex (along with their church) made the three movies Flywheel (a $20,000 production), Facing the Giants (a $100,000 production) and more recently FIREPROOF (a $500,000 production, which made $33 million in theatres alone). God's hand has clearly been on the Sherwood Films and now they are editing their latest movie - Couragous. If you've seen FIREPROOF, just imagaine that times ten! Courageous isn't coming out until next September but I think it's going to be one of the greatest Christian films ever made. God is blessing them because they have been so incredibly faithful!

 

More coming soon! And be sure to check out my GIVEAWAY!

Trip Journal - Thursday to Sunday

Okay, I'm finally getting around to writing about our wonderful trip! We had an amazing time, and God blessed us so much with good health and safe travels!

Thursday and Friday we drove all. day. long. And dad did it all! Wow! Isn't he amazing?! 22 hours is a LONG time when you're sitting in a vehicle! We were so glad to finally arrive at our friend's house on Friday night, and we enjoyed a couple days of relaxing before going into our hectic festival schedule. :-) The H. Family was SO VERY hospitable and kind. All of us enjoyed spending time with them! Here's a view from their screened-in porch - Texas is a beautiful state!

The kids all had a blast swimming in the pool and hot tub. The weather was so warm to us northerners and we enjoyed the experience of swimming outside in October! Those of you who live in ND/MN know that while we were in TX there were some terrible storms up here (including lots of snow for some people).
L-R: Daniel, Mark, Lydia, Megan, Kelly, (FRONT) Caleb, David and Ethan.

Kelly jumping in!

And Daniel!

Lydia had fun trying out the zip line on the cool "tree" house that they built in their backyard! Watch out for scorpions! :-)

 

Kelly, Megan, Lydia

Daniel, Caleb, and Mark

Mom and dad were grateful to visit with friends and relax in the warm weather out by the pool.

 

Mom and Mrs. H. We've known the H. family for 17 years and we met when they lived up here in Fargo.

Kelly, Mr. H. (Erik), Mrs. H. (Karen), Megan, Mark, and sleepy David :-)

Thank you guys for a wonderful time! We were so happy to see you, and we pray that God blesses you for your hospitality!

GIVEAWAY!

Shining in Her Corner is finally completed! I am so excited to do my first giveaway of one copy of this documentary! Here's what you have to do to enter:

IF YOU WANT TO BE ENTERED ONCE, leave a comment on my blog telling me something God has done in your life recently.
IF YOU WANT TO BE ENTERED TWICE, write about this giveaway on your blog (with a link to this post) and leave a comment here with the link to your blog.

You can visit http://www.gloryandgrace.com/daystarproductions.htm to find about more about this documentary and DayStar Productions (you can go under "Store" to purchase a copy). To God be the glory!!

The winner will be randomly chosen on Sunday, November 14th.

Yes, I'm Alive!

I'm sorry I haven't updated in such a long time!! As some of you may know, the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival and Academy were going on last week, so my family and I took a road trip to the great state of Texas!! It was a 22 hour drive one way - we left on October 21st and came back on November 2nd. It was a wonderful, very memorable trip, and I have over 500 pictures to pick from to show you what we did!! We are so thankful that God blessed us with health and safe travels. Everything was awesome and I have SO much to share! But for now . . . I'll just give you a teaser picture and I'll say that you'll have to wait a couple more days before I have time for another post!! And besides posting about the academy/festival, I am going to do a special giveaway soon so keep an eye out for that! :-)

Leave me a comment if you think you know who this is standing in the middle of this picture. :-)