I have just returned from a long weekend of filming in Illinois. David Price, my brother-in-law, and myself were filming a conference put on by Providence Church. The speakers were Dan Ford, and Roger Schultz. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to concentrate on what they had to say as I was busy trying to get good shots with the camera I was operating, and trying to get good audio as well. But am told that it was awesome… I will be getting plenty of it while I’m in the edit bay I’m sure .

Saturday, January 21st, I attended the funeral of Connie Mack Waller. Connie was Tommy Waller’s father who appeared in the film A Journey Home. Connie left his temporary dwelling place on January 16, 2006 to be with his Lord and Savior. Connie was loved by all who knew him. I have never, ever heard anyone say a bad word about Connie. All of us left behind him will miss him. But we know that he desired to go, especially in the last days as the cancer continued to claim him.

I realize many of my readers have no idea who Connie is, or if you do, you only know the name. But Connie affected the lives of those around him in a profound way. It was amazing to see at his funeral, so many people that he had touched in some way. Connie was one of those people that taught with his life. I have never seen him get angry for any reason. He never blamed God for his cancer, or for the fact that he would die relatively young. He never complained, he always said his life was in the hands of a sovereign God. His testimony was very, very powerful in life, and as much so in his death as during the funeral many people gave testimony to his incredible faith.

I believe it would be very hard for me to be faced with the same circumstances and not be bitter about them. I pray that as I grow, the Holy Spirit will make me more like Connie in that Connie was like our Lord.

Do you all think I am exaggerating about Connie’s life and testimony? That’s because you didn’t know him. No he wasn’t perfect, but you could clearly see Christ in him. And that’s what I want when people look at me. I want them to see Christ.

Rachel and I went to see The Chronicles of Narnia last night. As one who has never read the books, I thought it was pretty good, and Rachel says that it stayed quite true to the book.

It is by no means as good as The Lord of The Rings series, but it was certainly a movie worth seeing. There also was not the amount of violence that is present in The Lord of the Rings. However, there is definitely violence during the battle and in a couple other parts.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is a wonderful story of betrayal and forgiveness, sacrifice, and good triumphing over evil. I highly recommend this film for most viewers, my only exception might be smaller children because of some of the violence during the battle. Below I will put a small list of ratings in different categories (a lower rating on an undesirable trait is a good thing, and vice versa on a good trait).

Sex and sexual innuendos – 0%

Nudity and/or immodest clothing – 5% (Unless you would really dock this movie for seeing the male upper body on one character, opinions on this differ from person to person)

Good Christian Worldview and values – 95%

Good Story Telling – 100%

Film Making Quality – 100%

All quite impressive scores considering most of the films we see these days. However, I hope we are seeing a new trend in pictures. Possibly a growing trend. Though I wouldn’t keep my hopes too high. Still, pictures like The Incredibles with good family values coming from Disney and Pixar, one can hope there is a change upon the winds of filmmaking.

George Grant appeared to like this movie as well HERE. He also linked to an article that I found really good. The article can be read HERE.

Here are some pictures from the NCFIC conference finally (I took my time about getting them up here, but I’m going to use Thanksgiving as an excuse).

This is the entrance to the conference room in between workshops.

This is the sign to the room we were in at the Marriott in Birmingham for the conference.

It took more than one Mountain Dew to make it through the weekend.

But Boaz didn’t even try to make it through the weekend without a nap or two.

Notice that the Drapers account for the largest portion of people at this table!

Claire needed some sutainance.

This is the conference room all emptied out at the end of the weekend.

Elise is holding Noah Burton.

You knew she would be in here somewhere!

This is one cute group of girls!!! All except the one on the far right is from our Church. I think we should have had the conference in Nashville, there were a lot of people from Nashville.

I hope all my readers (all 2 of them… haha) have a wonderful thanksgiving. We rejoice in this special day when we can remember what the Pilgrims went through and the fact that they were so thankful.

The Pilgrims were thankful to be alive. They certainly didn’t have a lot of food to be thankful for as is often believed. At that first thanksgiving, each plate had only 5 kernels of corn and yet they were so thankful to God. I think we could learn a thing or two from the Pilgrims.

I had the chance to talk to Brett Harris at the NCFIC conference. In case you are unaware (due to my negligence to post a link to them during the film festival) they covered the goings on at the film festival in detail. They seem to be great young men with a great blog. Please check them out HERE