Here is an announcement I made, using footage I shot on the trip with the new D90. We will be running this for the next few weeks, during the weekend services:

jimmy

Before I left for Africa, I asked Greg Vestri about how sensitive he thought people were about having their picture taken. He said that it was not much different than most places, just use common sense, and go ahead and ask the subject for their permission first, if possible. Then he mentioned that recently, there has been criticism leveled at photojournalism that focused on poverty. The claim is that a typical photograph of a hungry African child is decontextualized, sentimental, and exploitative.

Honestly, I can see the critics’ point. It’s easy to justify these photographs as a vehicle for spreading a worthwhile message that will inspire people to act in response. The message is probably well-meaning and truthful. Help this hungry child. But as a photographer, I will be the first to tell you that a photograph isn’t truthful at all, even if it is taken honestly, without (obvious) manipulation or modification. Part of it is truthful, but the context will (and should) always be in question.

This is a photo I took at a school near Jinja. I think this is a fair representation of the kind of picture you might see in a save the children campaign, designed to have people running for their checkbooks. This photo was not manipulated in any way, either at the time I took the shot, or in post production. I saw the child sitting outside a classroom and I walked over and took several pictures. In that sense (and in the sense that this child does, in fact, need help), the photo is honest.

What isn’t honest, or at least what is obscured, is the context. What we all forget is that a photographer is usually part of the context. In this case, I walked over to the child and he was looking right at me. What might be perceived as sadness or worry in his expression, might simply be curiosity at seeing a mzungu. The truth is – the child had that expression on his face, because…

…I hadn’t made him smile yet.

As a student of journalism and a photographer (and now, as someone who takes photographs of poor African children), I am very interested in this debate. If you have any thoughts about the subject, let me know in the Comments section. However, I would like to make a more important point – if these photographs or blog entries about Africa (or anything else) inspire you, then I would urge you to seek the truth for yourself and go see things with your own eyes. I can tell you that even with a lifetime of preparation, nothing was quite like I expected. No photograph, no book, no story could have prepared me for the things that took my breath away. They only inspired me. I didn’t see the truth, until I went to see for myself.

Full size versions of these photos are in the gallery.

jimmy

One week from today, we fly to Uganda, Africa. I’m not ready.

Well, in one sense, I am very ready. I have wanted to go to Africa since high school, when a geography teacher sparked my imagination with tales of her experiences in Kenya, specifically with the Maasai people. She had lived with the Maasai for some time and had become an honorary member of their tribe. She told us about drinking the mixture of cow’s blood and milk, which is a waning tradition. She told us about the tribe’s custom of stretching their earlobes. She said they liked to put things in them, especially 35 mm film canisters (something else which is disappearing), because they could carry things in them. She also taught us some basic Swahili (Kiswahili). Because of her expertise, she spent a lot of time making her experiences come alive for us and I really wanted to go and meet those people she talked about.

Around the same time, Out of Africa was released. I saw the film with my girlfriend and at one point, I found myself bawling my eyes out. No, it wasn’t because of what happened to Robert Redford’s dashing Denys Finch Hatton. I don’t know what it was about. John Barry’s beautiful score certainly didn’t help matters, but clearly, something was stirring in me. I suspect my girlfriend thought I was crazy. To be sure there was plenty going on in my life to cause a spontaneous, minor emotional breakdown, but I really think it goes beyond those events. For all the years that I have thought about that incident, I have known in my heart that it had something to do with Africa.

I began to keep a clip file on Africa and I even bought a book about traveling to Africa, but I never went.

Peter Beard wears a different kind of croc.

Then I discovered Peter Beard, an American artist, photographer, and ecologist who was inspired to move to Kenya after reading Karen Blixen’s Out of Africa three decades before I saw Sydney Pollack’s film. His collage-style diaries inspired my own diaries that I began in the 90′s (I will discuss those les livres noirs in another blog entry some other day). I found Beard’s life to be fascinating and desirable. To me, he was a real life “most interesting man in the world.” If I couldn’t be James Bond, then I wanted to be Peter Beard.

I loved the way he seemed to effortlessly navigate between living in a tent, on his ranch in Kenya, photographing the grim plight of the African elephant and flying to New York to party at Studio 54 with his pals Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, Bianca Jagger, and Jackie O. He was friends with Francis Bacon. He married Cheryl Tiegs. Admittedly, some of my admiration was misguided, but I don’t want to derail my point with those observations at this time. There is no denying our common passion for Africa and studying Beard’s work only deepened my longing for the continent.

And still, though I sometimes had the means, I never went.

I use the word continent deliberately. Most of my early African inspiration came specifically from Kenya, but later I would have similar deeply moving feelings about other parts of Africa, especially North Africa, which is vastly different than East Africa. I have heard about North Africa my whole life, because my mother lived in Morocco when she was a teenager. My point is that there is something about that continent. Some draw. Something beyond description. Something beyond me.

And still, even knowing that I needed to go there, I never went.

It wasn’t the right time. Let me just say it as plainly as I can – I believe that God didn’t want me to go on a photo safari in Africa. Don’t hear me say there is anything wrong with photo safaris or tourism. Maybe I will do that someday. But as God has restored things in my life that I had previously ruined, delayed, derailed, or thought beyond reach, I have come to recognize his handiwork, his holy blessed meddling, and it is clear to me that he reserved my experience of Africa, until I was ready to go and serve in his name. I think he used my experience with the homeless camp a couple of years ago as a kind of missionary bunny slope, a safe way to understand a particular kind of service to people, which had nothing to do with art and was outside my comfort zone.

I get the feeling that on this trip, God is going take me being outside my comfort zone to a whole nutha level. In fact, that process caught me off guard by starting almost the moment we signed-up. At the first team meeting, our leader, Erika Dunham, started talking about support letters. Support letters? I had assumed we would just pay our own way. She described the process and then asked if anyone had a problem with it. My hand shot up. I told her that I felt very uncomfortable asking people for money (especially in the current economy), not because we didn’t have the money, but rather because we did have the money. She listened patiently and then said it was my pride. Ulp.

Sending the support letters was difficult for me, but Erika explained some of the Biblical concepts behind it and after some reflection, I have a much better understanding of why it is done that way. If you did not receive a letter from us, please take that as a statement of our weakness and nothing more. We sent very few letters this time and most of them were to family. One of the difficult concepts for me was understanding that we were being selfish by denying people the chance to contribute and participate in the mission trip. So (deep breath), if you are reading this and would like to contribute financially to this trip, you can send a check to:

2009 ACF Africa Mission Trip
c/o Austin Christian Fellowship
6401 River Place Blvd
Austin, TX 78730

Make the check payable to Austin Christian Fellowship and put Jimmy and Kimberly Pribble on the memo line. You can also support us with prayer! Please know that prayer might even be more important for the success of the trip. We don’t know yet what our needs will be, so simply pray that God’s will be done.

If you did receive and respond to our letter, thank you! Your outpouring of love and support has been humbling. In practical terms, we just got word that our trip has been fully funded through your donations! I know the Lord will bless your sacrificial giving and I promise to do my best to document the trip so you can see God’s hand in the lives of those we meet in Africa and in our own lives.

No Really, I’m Not Ready

I had a fantasy that I would clear my calendar the two weeks before the trip in order to give myself time to study, pray, shop for supplies, pack, and learn to use my new camera. No chance. I’m booked. In fact, this next week I am busy every evening, except Wednesday, and that is because I canceled my standing Wednesday Work Night.

In fact, I have had so many projects lately, that I have found it very difficult to get deeply excited about this trip and I so desperately want to be excited. I am just about to go to our packing party, so maybe that will help.

Each year, dozens of people are killed on Lake Victoria by crocs. Do they really want us sending them more?

Okay, I just got back from the packing party and my attitude has improved. We have a great team and everyone not only pitched-in to pack 26 duffel bags full of donations (that’s 1300 lbs. of stuff), but they did it with a great attitude and a real sense of purpose. It’s going to be great serving with them over the next few weeks.

I was also happy to see so many Crocs being shipped to Africa. Hey, the more we send to Africa, the less we have here! Okay, I admit it – I hate those shoes. I’m sure they are practical, but let’s face it, so are nurses shoes and I don’t want to see those on everyone’s feet, either. Still, thank you Crocs for your donation! Those folks in Africa are going to love your shoes and I hope your company will be blessed, because of your genorosity.

This post has really gone off its outline. Let’s see if I can wrap this up. I was talking about not being ready…

A couple of weeks ago, I did manage to clear my schedule long enough to do some research into Uganda. Until recently, my brain dump of all things Uganda would have looked like this: Uganda, Idi Amin, Raid on Entebee and…that’s it. So, I studied-up on Uganda’s geography first and then checked the CIA World Factbook for a solid overview. I have a reasonable library at home, so I looked at my books and came-up with only two hits: a very short entry in 1000 Places to See Before You Die (good) and a very long entry in The World’s Most Dangerous Places. Oh dear.

So, I went to Barnes & Noble to see what I could find. I bought The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden and The Teeth May Smile but the Heart Does Not Forget: Murder and Memory in Uganda by Andrew Rice. Grim stuff. I think Kevin Kendrick picked-up a book that is even worse. It’s probably just as well I don’t have more time to research. I think I would rather just get over there and I see what I see with my own eyes, unencumbered with preconceived expectations. That is my primary duty after all – I am the official photographer and blogger for this mission trip.

My secondary duty? Preacher. I’ll give you a moment to pick yourself up off the floor. I swear, I’m as shocked as you are. Two Sundays from now, I am going to go to an African church , stand-up behind a pulpit, and deliver a full-length sermon, maybe through a translator, maybe not. I was just told this last week. I don’t have a sermon prepared, I don’t know what to say to a congregation that I have never met and who’s lives I do not yet understand, and I don’t see that I have any time in the next two weeks to write what will be my very first sermon.

I’m really, really not ready. But God is.

jimmy

For the contest, which takes place in cities all around the country, participating teams congregate on Friday night and are given a genre, a character, a line of dialog, and a prop. They then have 48 hours to produce a film from scratch which contains all of those elements. My team from church decided to take-up the challenge.

Friday

So, on Friday, Jim Shields and I went down to the studio downtown where teams would be given their elements. On the way to the studio we were discussing which genres we wanted and didn’t want. I was very afraid of comedy. Being funny is easy, but writing good comedy is very hard. I was also afraid of the musical genre, but our church is overrun with first-class, professional musicians and some of them were dying for us to draw the musical genre. After-all, for a 4-7 minute film (the limits of the contest), you are really only talking about one song with some setup. The only other one we were concerned about was holiday film. There is nothing hard about it, but a holiday film? Kill me. Yeah, that’s right, I work at a church and I just said kill me to making a holiday film.

Anyway, I remember saying to Jim, “I hope we get horror.” It’s not my favorite genre by far, but it’s just so easy to work with. This was our first contest, after all. I just felt like we could do the most with that genre, given our resources, which includes church property containing substantial wooded areas. To me, woods (at night) = scary. Well, against all probability, Jim drew horror as our genre! I was so excited, I think I made some sort of exclamation during the ceremony. Our other elements were as follows:

Genre – horror
Character – Zach or Zinnia Needham, take-out/delivery driver
Prop – a child’s block
Line of dialog – “That was a good one.”

I had a story immediately. I was coming out of my skin, because we weren’t allowed to call anybody, nor were we able to discuss any ideas until exactly 7pm. All I could tell Jim was, “I have the story. I have the story.” As soon as they released us, we jumped into Jim’s car, I told him my story and then I called the rest of our team, who were waiting for us back at the church offices. Then we rushed back to meet them.

Our team was a mix of church staff and volunteers. The staffers were the usual suspects: Tony Colvin (executive producer, craft services, and boom operator), Alex Jacobsen (gaffer, actor), Jim Shields (producer, director of photography, editor), Lane Fasetta (actress), and myself (writer, director, and actor). Joining us were Jenn Kovacs (camera operator and editor) and Amy Young (hair/make-up artist and actress).

Jim and Jenn get a killer time-lapse shot of a cloud formation on Friday

When we got to the office, we saw that Tony and Karen Colvin had setup an awesome craft services table to keep us fueled for the weekend. So, we grabbed some food and started brainstorming. I outlined my story to the group and everyone agreed that we should use it. One of the nice things about the story was that it utilized our resources almost perfectly. Most of the shooting could be done on our campus to save time and it took advantage of the actors that we had on hand.

Craft Services table at HQ: kettle chips, candy bars, and Red Bull (the really good stuff was in the kitchen)

After a couple of hours of fleshing-out ideas and strategizing for the long shoot on Saturday, some of the team went home to rest, Lane and Jen went shopping for fake blood supplies, Alex and Jim went to the event center to start work on the score, and I began punching-out a script. I was finished by 1 am, which now seems like such a luxurious time of night – plenty of time left to sleep, really not much later than I usually go to bed. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to sleep, so I just continued polishing the script and even managed to do some storyboard sketches.

Saturday

Everyone arrived at the church offices on Saturday morning looking pretty haggard. Jim brought coffee and pastries for everyone, so we spent some time getting caffeinated, before heading out for our first shots, which would be out on Hwy 71 (which also happens to be the title of the movie). The shooting went well, but in our search for the perfect stretch of road, we almost ended-up all the way out to Marble Falls. So, we spent hours of our time shooting what would amount to being a few seconds of establishment footage. I was getting nervous.

A storyboard sketch and the finished shot.

We regrouped at our offices, picked-up Amy Young, our other actress, and drove to Tony and Karen Colvin’s house for interior shooting. Our office, which is an old stone house built in the 60′s was perfect for our characters’ country house. Unfortunately, it is completely filled with desks and cubicles and no longer looks like a lived-in house on the inside. It would have taken much more work to try to dress the house, so we had to do more remote location shooting. The driving was really taking a toll on our time. Next year, we might work harder to keep the shooting down to one location.

By the time we got to the Colvin home, we were starving. Luckily, the first scene was a dinner scene, so we got to eat, though it was only after an hour of setup and shooting, so the food was stone cold as we ate it. It was during this shoot that I started to unravel a little bit from the lack of sleep. Once the dinner scene was over, I wasn’t directly involved in any of the other shooting. Since these were interior shots, there was a lot of light setup, which just seemed to take forever. Then a thunderstorm rolled-through, which made me nervous because we weren’t filming in order and I was worried about continuity.

Setting up for an uncomfortable dinner.

Anyway, I was so tired that when shooting resumed, I felt myself allowing mediocre takes to slide by as good enough. I just didn’t have the energy to help the actors give me what I wanted. I feel awful that I just let them hang out there without proper direction. Next year, I need to ban myself from acting. It was just too much overhead.

Amy Young in another scene shot at the Colvin home.

After we finished at the Colvin’s, we drove out Parmer Ln. to look for a good “break-down” spot for our characters. On the way out there, I could feel myself falling asleep at the wheel, which is very dangerous. Next year, we need drivers. The break-down scene went well, although I was still in the mode of not having the energy to push for stronger takes. I was mostly walking in circles, trying to stay awake.

Amy Young as Zinnia Needham, coming to the rescue of…

Lane Fassetta and Alex Jacobsen, playing a hip, young couple in love.

Then we drove back to the office for the final push into the evening and night scenes. We took a little break to gather ourselves back together. Once evening came, I got some energy back. The last scenes would be my character’s introduction and the physically demanding final scene, both of which took place in the barn that we have on the church campus. The shots took a long time to setup, but they went well and except for an impressive, mood-setting shot of a cloud formation during sundown that Jim shot on Friday night, I think the barn shots are the best in the film.

A storyboard sketch and finished introductory shot of my character, Zach Needham.

Saturday was a killer 18-hour day of shooting, but the team held together and got the job done. I think it would have been really easy for us to get on each others’ nerves, but that never seemed to happen. There were some mood swings, but overall, everybody held it together and remained professional throughout the shoot. Even at our most exhausted, we were laughing and having fun up until the very end. It was mad fun.

At the very end, as most of us were leaving, Jim and Jenn were just sitting down to begin editing a basic cut of the film, which they accomplished by 3:30 am.

Sunday

I finally slept on Sunday morning, so when I got up to be at a church event at noon, I was excited and awake. I felt great and I was telling anyone who would listen about the contest and how much fun we had filming. After the event ended around 1:30 pm or so, I helped record Alex and Ted Herring perform the original score for the film. Meanwhile, Jim and Jenn were recording ADR with Amy to loop some dialog that didn’t get properly recorded. They also recorded a scream that we didn’t want to do live at 1 am the night before, since the barn is only a few feet from some neighbors.

Anyway, we got the music to Jim by 3 pm and he began to mix it into the film. I had hoped to see a cut of the film, so that I could make suggestions for changes, but Jim said time was too short and that the cut was locked. He still had to mix the soundtrack, do some color correction, render the film and burn it to media. The film was due at Mangia Pizza on Guadalupe by 7:30 pm. So, Alex and I busied ourselves with the paperwork and release forms that were required to be turned-in with the film. When we had finished with that chore, Alex went home to get some well-deserved rest. I stayed behind to go with Jim to the drop-off party.

It was soon after that Jim walked-in to my office and said he didn’t know if we would make it. What? I told him that we had plenty of time. He explained how much there was left to do. I agreed that it would be close, but it should be fine. Also, we didn’t have to burn it to MiniDV (which is the best quality and preferred format of the contest), but we could just burn it to DVD, which wouldn’t take as long. He went back to work and I went and filled my car with gas, since it looked like we might be in a hurry to get downtown. And then the rendering process failed. That’s bad. That process was taking around 20-30 minutes a pop. Jim rebooted his computer and tried again. It would have to work this time for us to make the deadline. For awhile, I was considering going out to the parking lot and warming-up my tires and brakes, thinking it would have to be one of those kind of drives – a personal record to downtown. But even as the clock was ticking down to where even my most insane driving couldn’t get us there in time – the render failed again. It was over.

I lay down on the floor and stared at the ceiling, trying to keep it together as the bitter disappointment washed over me. I couldn’t believe it. Jim came into my office and after awhile, it occurred to him to try rendering the movie on my laptop. He brought his external drive and plugged it into my computer and started the render. It was agonizingly slow, but we just stared at the progress bar as it crawled along, showing the rendering happening frame by frame. Only 13,000 more frames to render. Sigh.

After about half an hour, the render actually completed! Jim burned the film to DVD, grabbed the paperwork, and we jumped in my car to see if we could catch the event organizers at Mangia. Jim managed to get someone on the phone and they said they would be there for another 15 minutes. So, I ended-up having to drive like a maniac after all. Traffic wasn’t as cooperative as I had hoped, but I know I blasted down the the 35th St exit at around 100 mph, so we still made good time. We caught the organizers at Mangia, but we were still an hour and 16 minutes late. Sherry Mills, the event producer said something about “at least you have closure by getting the film here” or something like that. Maybe she was right, but at the time, I just felt defeated. I hadn’t even seen the film!

After a day to reflect, I feel a little bit better. The film will be screened on Tuesday and Wednesday, so for the first time in my life, I will walk into a bona fide movie theater and watch a movie that I made. I’m sure the same thing can be said for most of those on my team. Also, hopefully, we will get some kind of critique, judgment, scoring, or feedback, even though we aren’t eligible for prizes. That would also be of substantial benefit to us and our education as we work to become better filmmakers. But no matter what, I am a very competitive person and to be a DNF just plain stings. Sigh. Builds character…I guess.

The 48 Hour Film Project really is a great event and we will be back next year. I want to thank the cast and crew this year for making it such a memorable and fun event. Jim, Alex, Tony, Jenn, Lane, and Amy – you guys are the best!

Addendum: We just got back from the first screening of our film and the films in our group. It was electric. I think we held our own against the other films, especially on a technical level, though I don’t think we had the best film. It was definitely one of the few films that didn’t take a humorous angle to its genre. In fact, it felt a little out of place. Afterwards, Jim said that next year we shouldn’t take ourselves so seriously. Maybe. But I think that sometimes, going for humor is just another way to cop-out of meeting the challenge of the genre. That being said, there was some very funny stuff in the other films tonight and it was great to laugh along with them. I was very impressed with a lot of the work that I saw.

Afterwards, the team had dinner at Chuy’s for a proper wrap party and to celebrate Amy’s birthday. It was a great night.

jimmy

- Arcade Fire “Rebellion (Lies)”

An unwelcome reprieve today gives me a moment to shed some light on what I have been doing lately. I tried to sleep this afternoon, but it was futile. I didn’t feel like doing anything else and any reasonable estimation of my sleep deficit should have predicted success, but no. It wasn’t dark enough. It wasn’t cold enough. Nothing was settled enough. So, I pretended as long as I could, hoping that at least some part of my body was getting rest. I don’t think I ever really believed it. Fine, on the back of missing an Astros-Cubbies game with my work mates, missing seeing The Police with Rob, a very bad week all around, and a couple of stiff Knob Creek whiskey sours, I give you an update of the last several months.

First of all, I have been posting, just not to my own site. As I mentioned in my last post, my friend Tony and I started a local homeless ministry at church. He created a blog for that ministry and my last post will be copied to that blog. I should have more recent updates posted soon.

(click on the photo to open the site)

Also, I created a blog for the arts ministry at ACF. This should reflect what we have been doing at work, but of course, it is way out-of-date.

(click on the photo to open the site)

And I have another blog site out there, but I’ll get to that later.

I bought another car. I have kept the Miata as my daily driver, but I bought a 1994 Audi S4 from a friend for a song. It fell into my lap and I just couldn’t resist having another go at my favorite car that I have ever owned. A friend told me, “It’s so good to see you in an S4 again. I always thought that Miata looked like some kind of mid-life crisis car. You just look right in an S4.” Really? Oh my God, I love that Miata! I look like some middle aged punter? Ouch. Well, that’s a bloody shame because I’m still going to use that Miata as my daily driver. It uses regular gas, it gets decent mileage, and it has never given me any trouble whatsoever. That car is fantastic!

The S4 (UrS4), which I have named Nessie, is destined to be a garage queen and special transport vehicle on those rare occasions that I need to carry multiple passengers or maybe just on special occasions – like when I want to drive insanely fast or when I want to go broke buying expensive premium gasoline. Though I own three cars that are capable of track duty, I never intended for the UrS4 to see the track. And yet, through circumstances with which I won’t bore you, I found myself in the UrS4 on Harris Hill Road (H2R), which you might remember I visited in a pre-tarmac state here.

Here I am with a student at H2R (click for huge photo).

Here are some posts that I made about my car on another forum:

Nessie
Punch List
Jimmy’s ’94 S4

In the spirit of the title of this post, I have to tell you that my new car was featured in a film that Jim Shields and I made for church last week. I didn’t drive until the wheels fell off, but I did drive the car over a curbed median while we were filming. The car doesn’t sound so good anymore. I had a light shining in my face while we were filming, so my night vision was gone and the light was reflecting off all of my windows and I could only see out of my front window. When I went to make a U-turn, I turned too early and plowed right over a median. It was all captured on camera. Our crew t-shirts are going to say, “I think Jimmy just jacked-up his car.” What do you want from me? I worked 15 hours that day.

I haven’t had a chance to see what I did to the car, because I’m busy preparing for a track event this coming weekend. The S4 will just have to wait its turn. My track event post should feature footage from the new in-car camera that I have installed in the car. Look for that in a couple of weeks.

Also, once this next track event is over, we will begin preparing for the 24 Hours of LeMons – no, not LeMans, but LeMons. The idea is to run a 24-hour endurance race with a car that doesn’t cost over $500. Crazy? You betcha. The event is in October. I made a team blog here:

(click on the photo to open the site)

Important Note: I wrote most of this post a couple of weeks ago at the end of a horrible week. Things are better now, but I’ll go ahead and finish my story. For some reason, I just didn’t seem to fit into the world very easily that week. I was thwarted at every turn and every success came at a high cost. I had disagreements with my wife, my boss, a co-worker, and a volunteer. I was exhausted and feeling like I was underwater. I had to punt on writing some devotionals for church and I had been asked to somehow help start and lead a third ministry. Sure. I had crashed my new car. By Thursday, I was reeling.

And then Tony walked into the office and told me that Isaiah, the homeless man to whom I am closest, was arrested at DPS when Tony had taken him to get his ID that morning. We had been in the process of getting all of his paperwork in order, so that we could legally pay him for contract work that we wanted him to do at the church. While waiting in line, they arrested him for a very serious felony warrant issued six years ago in South Carolina. He was a fugitive. I felt the floor drop out from beneath me. What were we doing? What good had we done?

Since then, I have a slightly different perspective about Isaiah’s situation. Tony and I have visited him in jail, while he waits for agents from South Carolina to come get him. He is doing well and seems to have a good attitude about what is happening to him. It’s part of a journey that he has to take. Most of us have made mistakes in our past that we wish we could run from, but we just have to walk it out. His life won’t get any better until he does. I’ll post more about this later, probably on the other site.

Anyway, I was done. I just wanted to have a nice day off on Friday to rest and regroup. Unfortunately, I needed to swap around some ceiling fans in the house and install a new one in my office. I’m not much of a household handyman, so you can guess how well that went. I’ll just cut to it – before the day was done, I had shocked myself on some exposed wiring and for the first time in my life, I fell off of a ladder. At the very same time, Kimberly was driving back from San Antonio when the tread on one of her tires separated from the tire carcass. She was thrown into another lane, but recovered quickly and was able to pull over. Luckily, there was a tire store within sight, so she crossed the median to the access road and got a new tire. Like everything else that was happening that week, that could have gone much worse. Thank you, Jesus.

We hadn’t quite driven until the wheels fell off, but last weekend, I had a friend who did. I’ll tell you about that in my next entry.

jimmy

About a week or so later, Tony had a remarkable experience which led him to meet a homeless man by the name of Winston. They shared some coffee on a street corner near Parmer and N. Lamar, and Winston gave Tony the lowdown on the homeless in that area. He said there was a camp nearby where most of them stayed. Most of them made money “flying a sign on the rail” – translation: they panhandled on the IH-35 access road, at the intersection of Parmer Ln. That overpass also provided shelter when the weather was really bad. Tony took Winston to a nearby Wal-Mart and outfitted him with a new coat and some other supplies. When they got back to the corner, Tony asked Winston if there was anything he would like to eat. He considered the question for a moment and said, “I could really use me some stew.”

The next night, I went back out with Tony. In the back of Tony’s battered CR-V was a huge vat of stew that we had made from scratch in the church kitchen that day. Tony’s wife Karen had also made some cornbread. We stopped at Starbuck’s and bought a traveler of coffee. While we were waiting, the manager started chatting it up with us. When she found out what we were doing, she gave us a huge bag of their day-old pastries.

I should pause here and explain something about how we were approaching this ministry. Based upon a perfectly solid biblical principal, we weren’t going to tell anyone about what we were doing. The idea was to diminish any motivation except to be obedient to our faith and humbly serve the poor. We weren’t going to tell the church staff, we weren’t going to tell anyone from whom we bought food or supplies, and we really weren’t even going to tell the homeless were serving. Clearly, that wasn’t in God’s plan, because it fell apart quickly and when it did, the blessings spilled forth. It started at Starbuck’s that night. As soon as we buckled and told the manager what we were doing, she gave us food. Over the months, that has happened time and time again. Starbuck’s, Whataburger, and Sonic have either just given away food or given us deep discounts, because we told them the food was for the homeless. I never would have expected that from corporate chain restaurants, but they have been very generous.

Anyway, after we left Starbuck’s, we drove towards the same place on Parmer where Tony first saw Winston. I was a little worried that we wouldn’t be able to find anybody, but as we approached Lamar, we saw Winston exactly where Tony had seen him the night before. We pulled into a construction area on the corner and waved him over. He was ecstatic that Tony had kept his promise to come back out. He was so happy, I thought he might start dancing a jig, saying, “I told them you would come back, I told them!” We asked where everyone was and that was when we were first made aware of just how green we were. Winston explained that everyone was probably down for the night. I don’t know why we thought people would be hungry and in need of coffee that late at night. Maybe we thought people were going to bed hungry? In our experience, that’s not generally the case.

We stood and ate some stew with Winston and he told us about some of the other homeless in the area. He went across the street and into the woods, where they camped, but came back saying that he couldn’t find anyone else. At the time, he was particularly worried about one old fella who was sick. He had gout in one foot and the other foot was gangrenous from an incident with a stingray! He wouldn’t let the doctors take his foot, so it was looking grim for him. We never heard about that guy again.

We left Winston and since we had so much food, we decided to just drive down Lamar in the hopes we would find some homeless people to feed. We found one guy, but he had already eaten. He was interested in what we were doing and after we told him our idea, he smiled and said, “Two Guys and some Food.” He got it. No proselytizing. No Bibles. Just food. Just salt. It really was that simple and so, in that moment, he christened our ministry (even though it has grown well beyond just the two of us).

Very soon after that night, we found the real campground in that area and met dozens of homeless. It has been a wild ride so far and we hope to document some our adventures on the Two Guys and some Food website here.

Meanwhile, please pray for these new friends of mine, these brothers and sisters, the lost and addicted, the opportunistic and manipulative, the victims, the thieves, the drunk, the hungry, the down and out, the hobo poets, and the gentle tramps: Winston, Russell “Sparky” Jones, Hugo and his dog Princess, Sherry, Linda, Wilson, Tom, Todd, Isaiah, Grandville, Mustafa, and Suddenly. Yes, I know a fella named Suddenly.

“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”

- Matthew 25:40 (NIV)

jimmy

Willie’s House

We did this service project as part of a larger church-wide effort called 242 Impact (our small groups are called 242 Groups re: Acts 2:42). The idea behind 242 Impact is that the church will fund $1000 for each small group to serve those in need in our community. Each small group can use the money as they see fit. They can spread it around for different projects, or use it in one place. They can also choose whom they would like to serve and the church provided a list of local organizations that could help guide the groups to where they might be needed. The list had organizations that helped children, the homeless, and even exotic dancers trying to make a new start (I was told in no uncertain terms that my heart was to bleed elsewhere, lest it really bleed), but there were no organizations dealing with the elderly listed. My wife has an especially big heart for the elderly, so she and CP Sterns got in touch with the folks at Services for the Elderly, who then gave us Willie’s name.

Willie’s house, located in South Austin, was built in 1937 and is just over 500 sq. ft.. The house is dilapidated. Much of the wood is rotting, it was missing windows, the doors were barely intact, and it needed paint. I was there half the day before I realized that the front door was on upside-down, so that the window was at the bottom. That wasn’t the only thing that was backwards – other residents of the house included a mean Chihuahua and a gentle Pit Bull. Reports from those who ventured inside were disheartening. The house was pest infested and that doesn’t include the opossum being held in a cage. Habitat for Humanity offered to raze the house and build a new one, but for reasons which aren’t entirely clear, Willie refused. So be it. We decided to see what we could do for Willie and his home. With the money we had, we felt like we could install three windows, replace one of the doors, install another small air conditioner, and repaint the house. All of our efforts would be concentrated on the exterior. We would also clean-up the yard and haul away as much junk as we could.

Now, this is the part where I’m supposed to talk about how blessed and joyful we all felt at selflessly serving Willie. It’s true that joy and blessings come from being obedient to the Father. I believe that everyone there that day felt blessed and we each took away something from the experience. But, like so many other things we find in our lives and in our spiritual walks, it was messy. Throughout the day, I think each of us had to deal with our biases. I know we like to think that we don’t have them, but we do. For myself, I found that I was bothered by the fact that Willie is able-bodied enough to walk around the neighborhood and pick-up aluminum cans for money, but he can’t be bothered to pick-up trash out of his own yard. The yard was covered in trash and as I would pull things out of the dirt, I could see that there was more garbage buried underneath. The whole muddy yard was like a La Brea Tar Pit, except it was full of garbage instead of fossils. I found pull tabs from soda cans. Pull tabs haven’t been made in 25 years!

I know other people in our group were upset by the fact that Willie never even bothered to come outside to see what we were doing, until the very end of the day. Maybe he didn’t feel good. Maybe there was a pride thing going on. I don’t know, but some people in my group had to work it out.

Some people were bothered that Willie was keeping a baby opossum to eat. I understand that culture difference pretty well, but others had a difficult time with it.

Willie has a renter who alternately introduced herself as Ann or sometimes Virginia. She seemed very sweet and appreciative and at one point she did ask if she could help us. We insisted that she just enjoy her day. At the end of the day, she hugged my wife a couple of times to show her sincere appreciation for what we had done. But some people in our group may have been bothered by the fact that Ann was drunk from the time we got there at 8 o’clock in the morning. We all had things to work out with God.

The Bible doesn’t say to help those who help themselves, nor does it say to help only those who are appreciative, or even only those who are sober. Where would I be if those conditions were there? There have been times in my life when I was helpless, unappreciative, and drunk. God helped me anyway.

When we first pulled-up to Willie’s house, Ann came to meet us at the door. Nobody had probably ever helped her like this. All she knew was that we were from a church. So there she was at 8 o’clock on a blazing hot and muggy morning, so drunk that nobody could ever really understand anything that she said all day, but she had put on a black dress and heels to meet us at the door. She wanted to look as nice for us as she could. There was something innocent and child-like in her awkward effort. It melted my heart for her and it reminded me of how God wants us to be child-like with him.

The video doesn’t reflect all of this stuff. I put the video together in the hopes that they would play it in church as a way to encourage the other small groups. I just wanted to show what could be done in one afternoon, with $1000, and a small group of people trying to be obedient. It was messy, but it made a difference. If nothing else, it made a difference to me. I hope it made a difference to Ann and Willie. I know that in different ways, we were all blessed that day.

jimmy

Tony Colvin and I thought that attending the arts conference would be a good way for me to jump-start getting plugged back into the arts team at ACF. Besides, it would give me a few days away from the nightmare of living in the miserable mess of our home, while the new floors were being installed.

Our flight was on Wednesday at 10:00 am. Everyone was going to meet at the church (or Starbucks) and then carpool to the airport. Around 8:40 am on Tuesday morning, I was sitting at my desk at work, already started on a busy day of preparing to be gone for a week, when Tony called. “You know that we are leaving today, don’t you?” I froze. The flight was at Tuesday at 10:00 am.

“Tony, I can’t think on the phone. I’m going to hang-up and I’ll call you back when I know what I’m going to do.” I rang off. Stupid ADD. I can’t remember anything. I ran through a couple of different scenarios. I couldn’t make it home and back in time, so that was out. I could catch a later flight, but then I would have to rent my own car. Not a big deal, but I was worried about the availability of flights. Or, I could just go make my flight. After a couple of minutes of consideration, that’s exactly what I did. I stood-up, told the folks at work that I would see them next week, drove to the airport, and made my flight with nothing but the clothes on my back and my gym bag, which was all I had in my car.

My friends got a lot of mileage out of my predicament, but it was all in good fun. I couldn’t help but think that God was having a good laugh, as well. For weeks I had been complaining about the condition of our house and the fact that we had to live out of our suitcases in one room of the house while the floors were being replaced. I could imagine God saying, “Tired of living out of a suitcase? Here, how about no suitcase. Ha-ha!” It’s just like God to humble me and have a good laugh at the same time. He wasn’t finished with me, either.

We arrived in Chicago, rented a car, and drove to the hotel in South Barrington. When I walked into the hotel, I couldn’t believe my eyes. They were redoing their floors!

Look familiar?

Everything was just like at my house – the dust, the fumes, and the piles of displaced furniture. I hadn’t escaped from anything. Okay God, I get it. I get it! Very funny.

I went up to my room and emptied my gym bag on the bed. There wasn’t much that was useful. I could probably use the clean socks and tennis shoes. I had also grabbed a toothbrush and some toothpaste that I keep in my desk. My hair was cut really short, so there was no need for a hair brush or even product (besides, hotel-provided conditioner does in a pinch). There was no need to shave, so I didn’t need any of that gear, either. The hotel provided soap and shampoo, so all I really needed was deoderant. As for clothes, I was wearing my work khakis and loafers. Not much is more versatile than that. If I had to, I could have worn those for the rest of the week and just changed shirts. So I had a plan – get by with souvenir t-shirts until I could get to a real store for a change of clothes.

Just a little while later, we went into downtown Chicago and ate at Giordano’s Pizza. I love Chicago-style pizza. In fact, I love Giordano’s pizza so much that on a previous visit, I flew some back home with me. My carry-on was a box of pizza. I swear. Anyway, we had a great time. We celebrated J.R.’s birthday and stuffed ourselves silly. I also bought a Giordano’s shirt for the next day. It was pretty late by the time we headed back to the hotel, but we found a Walgreens and I ran inside to get some supplies. Niki noticed that they actually had some shirts for sale. There were only about a dozen or so and most of them were pretty bad. One of them was a sleeveless, shiny silver roller disco style shirt. I think another one had rainbows and unicorns on it. Who the hell buys this stuff? Anyway, one of the shirts wasn’t bad at all. It was just a red knit polo shirt. It had some black accents that looked nice, it was 100% cotton, and it was made by Jerzees, which is a name brand. The only questionable design feature was the black and white, checkered flag banding around the sleeves. Probably not something I would normally choose for myself, but I guess I’m a racer kind of guy, so I it could work. Besides, the shirt was only $4! That settled it.

The next day, I chose to wear my $4 Walgreens shirt, since I thought it looked better with my work pants and loafers. I took some shots from my friends for it, but a couple of them eventually admitted that the shirt actually looked alright. After the conference was over for the day, we rushed off to grab some quick dinner before heading back to the church for their regular Wednesday night worship. We went to Chili’s but the wait was too long. Then we went to T.G.I. Friday’s, but their wait was too long, too. Finally, we ended-up at a place called Steak ‘n Shake. Apparently, there is one of these in South Austin, but I had never been to one before. Imagine my horror upon discovering that the decor of the restaurant matched my $4 shirt! I looked like I worked for Steak ‘n Shake!

I was hoping that if the employees thought I was from the corporate office, I would get better service. Not so much. I did get my order taken first, but my food took so long to come out that they gave it to me for free. Since we’re here, I guess I’ll do a quick review of Steak ‘n Shake: The vanilla malt was excellent, the “steak burger” was maybe the most bland and tasteless burger I have ever eaten (it tasted like…water?), the fries were good, but the service was poor.

After the Wednesday night service, my friend Phyllis (who had rented her own car) and another girl from our group took me to Target for some clothes. My souvenir shirt plan just wasn’t working. Obviously, an arts conference is attended by artists. Have you ever seen how artists dress? It might as well have been called an “artist and hipsters” conference, except that the word hip isn’t hip anymore and they would have to call it something else. I don’t know what that would be because I’m old and I’m not privy to the new word for hip. I won’t know it until that word has gone out of fashion, so I still have to say hip. Anyway, there were eleventy-thousand artists at this conference and they all had cool hair, and cool glasses designed by architects, and cool jeans, and cool flip-flops, and of course, cool chi teas and coffees, which they got from the cool Starbucks knock-off inside the church. I was in over my head. I was still stuck in my corporate drone-wear with a shirt from Walgreen’s. Besides, I’m just not cool. I needed help.

So, we hit Target and I put together what I call my Youth Pastor Kit™ – a dark brown and blue pullover shirt that looks exactly like one that I wore back in 1974, flared jeans, and some stylish, square-toed leather shoes. I was a puka shell necklace and feathered haircut away from looking like David Cassidy. I felt ridiculous, but my friends said the clothes looked good and maybe the other attendees wouldn’t think I was a narc.

Afterwards, Phyllis wanted to do some exploring, so we drove to a nearby little town called Elgin. It seemed like a sleepy little place – the kind with old, craftsman-style homes and a historical district downtown. By the time we got there, it seemed the town had shut-down for the night, but we drove around and looked at the interesting old homes and talked about what it would be like to live in a small town. Then we turned a corner and it was like somebody had popped a flashbulb in my face. Right in the middle of this quiet, dark little town was a huge casino! I had a assumed that the town was asleep, but I think what was really happeneing was that the casino was sapping all the power from the rest of the town. This thing was lit up like a jukebox.

From the front, it looked like a regular casino, but it was really a riverboat casino. It never sails, so I don’t know if there is some historical value to that riverboat, or if it just a way to sail through one of those legal loopholes we have in this country that says gambling is bad everywhere except for two cities, Indian reservations, and on barges where there is a good chance a nautical tragedy will drown all of the sinners at once. Whatever. We were there – so we went in. And that was how less than two hours after walking out of a Wednesday night worship service, I found myself drinking a beer in a riverboat casino.

It was actually a pretty nice casino. It was nicer than the cruise ship casinos I have seen and it was even better than many of the casinos I have seen in Vegas. Also, it was late on a Wednesday night, so there wasn’t a crowd (though it was far from empty). Now, I could make a big tall tale out of this, but the truth is, I’m not much of a gambler. If circumstances had been a little different, I might have sat at a table for a little while, just to say I had done it. But, sitting at a Blackjack table in my $4 shirt and a bummed beer (thanks, Phyllis!), while I gambled off of a credit card, sounded to me like a Really Bad Idea™. So, we each had a beer, Phyllis lost some money on the slots, and we called it a night.

The next evening was a real misadventure. The plan was to go downtown and check-out some Blues. But there were so many of us that it would have taken two cars and nobody wanted to take their car anyway, because parking in downtown Chicago is on the order of $20/hr. So, we took the train. There really isn’t a good way to tart-up this story, so I’m just going to spill it out and get it over with. First of all, dinner ran very late. I don’t know why, because we ate at a Chili’s-style restaurant that should have taken no more than an hour, but somehow it took over two. Then we took the train – the miserably slow train. Halfway through the trip downtown, the conductor announced that one of the tracks is down, so they would have to share tracks with another train. The miserably slow train had to stop and wait for that train to pass, before we could proceed. That added another 20 minutes to the trip. All told, I think we were on the train for at least an hour. It seemed like more, trust me. At one point, as my eyes wandered over the PSA posters and wireless phone ads for the eleventy-millionth time, it occurred to me that these were the same trains that were in Risky Business. I was excited for about ten seconds, but then, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t figure-out a way to make that interesting. So, I went back to being bored to death.

Finally, we arrived downtown, but with only had a vague sense of where we needed to go. This part wasn’t too bad for me. I love walking around downtown in big cities at night. Yes, I am being that specific on pupose. I have done it in cities here and abroad, and I just love it. But there wasn’t too much time to just enjoy it, because we were on a mission. A local fella noticed we looked lost and was nice enough to actually walk us to a bar with a Blues band. We arrived just in time for last call and the last two songs of the night. It was a great band, but by that time, it just didn’t seem to me like much of a payoff. There were rumors of another Blues bar that stayed open late, but we were exhausted and a maybe a little discouraged, so we packed it in and steeled ourselves for the long train ride back. It was awful.

I haven’t said much about the conference itself, but that’s only because it doesn’t lend itself to good storytelling. It’s just like most conferences – there are general sessions and break-out sessions. The general sessions began with music and worship, then followed with teaching. The general sessions were really like little church services, except with teaching that focused on the arts. I really enjoy immersive experiences like these. They help me get focused. I’m also inspired just by being around other artistic people and seeing excellent art used for the church. The conference was also a great way for me to hang-out with my old friends that I used to serve with. The idea was that it would create a platform or bridge, from which I could reenter and serve within the arts team at ACF. I still don’t know if that will come to fruition, but I’m pressing-on regardless. Tomorrow, I will go to a training class to learn how to use the new video gear that ACF will be using.

Here is a blog with clips, comments, resources, and background stuff on the 2007 WCA arts conference. Don Miller and the Urban Poets were two of my favorite things about the conference. In fact, it was reading Don Miller’s book Blue Like Jazz earlier this year, that was one of the things that got me back to ACF. In that light, it was particularly awesome to hear him speak at the conference.

2007 WCA Arts Conference Blog

jimmy