Around the Coffee Table | Photo by Ryan Thurman
As usual, last Saturday morning, our small team met in the kitchen, catching up, eating snacks, drinking coffee, seated around the low table.
As best we can we are preparing for a major event, something way beyond our confidence level.
How did we get ourselves in this pickle? It all began when 4 of us sat together at True Food on Camelback Road. Getting to know each other we discovered that Corey has Jewish roots and is a videographer. Over the following days we shared with each other our common outlandish idea that we should make a documentary of my story.
Our team has now grown to 11, 9 adults and two small boys, each bringing a unique gifting. We plan to travel in Germany at the beginning of October and film in places that play a significant role in my past, interview historians of the Holocaust and friends who are intimately involved in my journey from bitterness to reconciliation.
Last Saturday we sat amazed by all that has happened but also weighed down by the impossibilities before us.
Top of the list…. the money to pay for travel and living expenses for 11 people!
What could we do?
In quietness, we sat and prayed. Sometimes when you are dependent and still there is room for the Lord to speak..…..
The thought came, This is a Jewish/German story, ask for Germans to contribute as an act of reconciliation.
A few minutes later the phone rang. It was our friends, Ludwig and Cecily, calling from Trieb, Germany. We put them on speaker phone and we all listened.
It was evening in Germany and we could hear music in the background.
Flyer for the Music festival in Trieb
Their extended family was hosting a Messianic Music Festival and they had just been approached by two leaders of a reconciliation initiative between Christians and Jews.
They wanted to donate a substantial sum toward the costs of the documentary, saying that the vision of the documentary was their vision also!
We were dumbstruck. Some of us wept. We were all
overwhelmed with thankfulness.
Who’s in charge?