Letters from the Other Side

11. Adventures of a Media Missionary - Part 1: A New Hope

Prologue – The Faith Journey

Dear friends

My three months at a Christian Film and Television Production school in the Cape, are over and I can only marvel at God's goodness to me. What a benevolent and faithful Father we serve.

As most of you already know, the past three years I worked as an English TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) teacher. Though I loved the diverse students, I hated the antiquated and pedantic education system. A problem I also experienced when I was teaching in Thailand for two years, which caused me, as a creative, no end of frustration. Life was one big, bitter, disappointment. I was demoralised and losing heart.

Then a certain key person in my life, someone I had looked up to and hero-worshipped since childhood, wrote me a letter and congratulated me on giving up on my dreams and becoming a realistic adult. This was the road to success, they assured me. Well done for growing up and remember, you can always minimize your dream to a realistic size as a hobby at the weekends.

Something in me snapped. 15 years in the world of work had left me in the rat race, on the breadline, barely scraping by on a minimum wage and never getting anywhere near realising my dream. I had been an obedient family member, taking everyone's advice and just doing anything I could to survive and keep the wolf at bay but everything they promised me never materialised. I would take one step forward and life would push me two steps back. I was dejected and forlorn.

Then and there I decided the time had come to follow my dreams. If I was going to be poor, I was at least going to do it in pursuit of my dreams. I would be poor but not miserable.

Like desert crocuses scattered in the dry ground, Jesus spoke to me through many true friends. Rory told me about a film school in Cape Town and her friend Eunice, who had also had a heart full of dreams but an empty pocket. God had provided supernaturally for Eunice. So He would do for me too, Rory assured me.

My colleagues at the TEFL School, Vera and Priscilla, prayed and believed with me. Priscilla was my life coach, encouraging me to follow my dreams and Vera was my prayer partner who released her faith, with mine, into the atmosphere. They believed with me after I quit my job and there was, as of yet, no sign of the money for the tuition fees. 

The Holy Spirit challenged me to "quit my job" in the beginning of July 2017 and go to the Film School in Cape Town. It might as well have been Canada because I couldn't afford a ticket to either. Both were equally preposterous. 

The money that was withheld at work, was finally paid to me, after many people prayed. I felt challenged again by a C.S. Lewis quote I saw in the movie "God's Not Dead". (God speaks to me through movies). 

To paraphrase: "Only if there is real risk is it real faith". It spoke to me.

I had to act out my faith. I had to do something that cost something. Take a real risk. I realized I had to do it quickly and without telling anyone or they would try to dissuade me and thus steal my faith seed. 

So, that day, I took my small, minimum wage salary and bought myself a plane ticket to Cape Town.