RWANDA

"ZOE Ministries"

One of the really amazing perks of the work I do is that I sometimes get to travel to some amazing places I had never once thought I might visit to document what God is doing there. In Rwanda, I traveled with the ZOE Ministries team to visit children who had been empowered by the program to develop basic sanitation, learn life skills, and build their own small businesses, until they had the capabilities to support themselves - and eventually, others.

It's no small thing to be fed out of the fields of teenagers who had gone from begging in the streets to owning the largest banana plantation in the village, and it's no small joy to watch the pride on their faces when they show us that they now have enough to share.

I wrote a series of pieces on the mission and my experiences visiting Rwanda on the twenty-year anniversary of the genocide; you can read them here if you like.

CAMERON DEZEN HAMMON

"The Boys of Summer"

The official music video for Cameron's cover of Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer" was shot on as shoestring a budget as you can have. I had my little Canon Rebel and a single broken lens that had lost the ability to iris at all, and we had couple hours at a closed-down Pleasure Pier in Galveston, Texas to get something shot.

We went in with a mood we wanted to establish, but the content of the video came out of the dilapidated locations we found (Galveston is a very good place for that, off-season), and we built a story out of those locations. It was a thrill to watch things come together as the afternoon went along, as the story turned from something simple and sad into something more mysterious and sinister.

As we lost the last of the light and headed for home, I remember Cameron pounding the steering wheel and shouting in happiness as we drove home, and I think that's how every shoot should end.

REBELBASE STUDENT MINISTRIES

“ALYX’S FIRST CONCERT”

Alyx, a young lady with special needs who I've known for quite some time, has always loved singing and always dreamed about performing a big concert in front of people. During one junior high retreat weekend, we set out to make that happen for her in the biggest way that we possibly could.

There are some things you can plan for and hope something special happens, but this would never have been what it was without the way these kids grabbed onto this idea and made what this day genuinely magical for Alyx.

INDIA

"Hope For Today Ministries"

I've now gotten to travel to Northern India twice with Hope For Today Ministries, the first time to follow our church’s pastors as we tried to decide how we could invest ourselves in this ministry, and the second a year later, when I joined our first mission team to travel to support it.

Creating house churches anywhere in India is difficult, but we met pastors who had been brutally beaten and had their family's lives threatened, but who continued on, despite having no support and earning a salary of about seventy-five cents a week.

In addition to the video, I wrote a series of pieces both times I went to India, you can find them collected here.

GOOD FRIDAY WORSHIP

"ALWAYS"

This was the biggest Good Friday event we ever did. The moment our Maundy Thursday service finished, we started setting up this stage, staying up all night to transform our staid Traditional sanctuary into a massive modern worship space.

If you want, you can check out every song from the evening right here. Otherwise, here's the closing song from the set, featuring Shelby and Zach Hendricks on vocals with David Dunn. 

DAVID DUNN

"Heart Stops (Live)"

Okay, let's get this out of the way right away - this is a live video, but it's not really a live concert video. Someone stopped in my office one afternoon and said, "hey, David Dunn's coming over in an hour. We said we'd shoot a live video of one of his songs a while back, and then we forgot about it. Um... can you come direct it?"

I said "yes," of course, partially because David is an awesome guy and I'll always be glad to help him do anything, and partially because what's more fun than trying to put together a fake concert in an hour? 

We grabbed half a dozen people, I set up DSLR cameras and dollies everywhere I could and taught people how to run them, then grabbed a camera and ran around handheld. David and his band showed up, we tracked everything live, and I patched in a few crowd shots to try and sell the myth. I'm not sure you buy it's a real concert, but it is a fun live video anyway, just because David's such a dynamic performer.