What a great year this has been for us so far! We enjoyed the most perfect spring in Wilmington, with unseasonably cool days and not having to turn on our air conditioning until mid June. Despite a much busier than usual first half of the year, we’ve been able to catch up on our editing projects before each international trip, leaving with the weight of a to-do list off our shoulders and coming back from video travels with a clean slate. We are feeling very thankful that God has been working all these details out of our control and giving us a nice rhythm. 

Back in May, we returned from a FIVE-WEEK overseas film trip to document several seminaries for one overarching video. This was our longest stint of time abroad since having a home base, but because our time was split between seven different countries, it really didn’t feel long at all!

The start of our trip began with a day in Singapore before heading on to India. 

Next we filmed on three islands of Indonesia, even getting to spend a few days in Bali for Jordan to surf a world-class wave in Uluwatu (his second world-class wave this year, after getting to surf at Fiji’s famous Tavarua Island in February where he caught the biggest wave of his life!). 

From Southeast Asia, we continued on to the Middle East, stopping about halfway for a relaxing retreat on a private island in the Maldives where we snorkeled with colorful fish, sharks, stingrays and sea turtles in the crystal clear Indian Ocean. 

After we each got impressive tans, we headed to meet Cassie’s parents in Israel for an 8-day private tour of the Holy Land. Taking a private tour led by an Israeli Messianic Jew (“Jew for Christ”) allowed us to create a custom itinerary of the sights we wanted to see and also connect with Jordan’s cousin, a Franciscan monk in Nazareth, and friends from Wilmington who now live near the Sea of Galilee. 

To be 100% honest, Cassie wasn’t super excited about taking a trip to Israel. She prefers thrilling adventures rather than historical trips and since Jordan had already been to Israel 14 years ago, this trip was really intended for her parents. Little did she know how much this trip to Israel would impact her, and not just during our trip. Our time in Israel only continues to build in significance as we read our Bible daily, now having personal experiences with historical places from more than 2,000 years ago. The parts of the Old Testament where Cassie’s eyes used to glaze over now carry so much meaning as she can visualize these places as they are— real places where she walked. The same stories we’ve read over and over in the Bible have a new richness after walking in the footsteps of the Israelites 2,000 years ago, understanding the Hebrew context, and how that relates to us today. 

After our amazing tour of Israel, we dropped Cassie’s parents off at the Tel Aviv airport and hopped on an overnight bus to the Kingdom of Jordan for our next filming project. Jordan’s name was a huge hit with all the Jordanians, starting immediately with the immigration officials at the border crossing! We had a couple free days before our filming began, so we stopped in the desert wonderland of Wadi Rum, where we hiked through Mars-like terrain and did some glamping, and then continued on to Petra, one of the new seven wonders of the world. Petra is a historical site along the Silk Road, once inhabited by the Nabateans who lived in caves. When the Romans came along, they carved traditional Roman architecture out of the pink sandstone landscape, creating a surreal city with impressive facades complete with massive columns. They even chiseled out an entire amphitheater! Despite hiking for miles, we barely scratched the surface of all that Petra is!

Leaving the desert and heading to the city of Amman, we had just one day of filming in Jordan before traveling on to Serbia for another single day of filming and then we were finally hopping on a plane for home just for a short weekend back. We landed at home around midnight, went to a friend’s wedding the next day and then were off for filming at the hospital in Pinehurst. We made it back to Wilmington just in time to celebrate our 10th anniversary with a day trip to the B&B where we had our surprise wedding, and then we enjoyed a delicious vegan sushi dinner downtown before seeing a play at the historic theater downtown. 

It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years since we surprised our immediate families with our wedding ceremony, and we are so thankful for all that God has done in our lives! We are looking forward to many more years on this crazy journey and getting the opportunity to share it with you. 

Thank you for reading, watching, and praying. We love you!

Papua New Guinea is REALLY far away, and that’s coming from a couple that has traveled to Antarctica! We had to take six flights just to get there, crossing the international date line and arriving three days after we left. But as far away as it is, God is in this place, and we had the amazing opportunity to witness His presence and power moving in the lives of the people in PNG.

Psalm 139:7-17: 

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

 

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2022 has been a really big year for us in many ways. We served a lot of organizations and ministries near and far with trips to Malawi, Tanzania, Serbia, Portugal, London, Stockholm, Pittsburgh, and Black Mountain, NC as we continued to follow our calling to serve with our cameras, but we were pushed and challenged in ways like never before with bigger and more complex projects. For instance, we were approached by FirstHealth, the hospital in Cassie’s hometown that has become a regular client since we first worked with them in 2019, to pull off a creative project similar to something they found online— something very different from what we’re used to doing. The production was technically challenging, which involved hiring a lighting company to build a scaffold system for the lighting design we needed and hanging pipe and drape to transform a church auditorium into a film set. It was also our first time directing a large group of people during a video shoot, as 50 hospital employees took part in a social experiment about unconscious bias. It was a challenge, but the film day was a success and we were all extremely happy with the outcome, so take a look!

Another example of a project that pushed us this year was with an organization we have worked with in the past, World Villages for Children, which operates schools around the world where the poorest children are cared for, educated, and prepared for a career that will end generational poverty in their families. They had just opened a new campus in Tanzania and sent us to document several stories, producing six videos total. That all probably sounds like par for the course if you know anything about what we have done in the past, but the catch here was that we would be producing each of those six videos subtitled in eight different languages – a total of 48 videos! The complexity involved in keeping everything straight between the different versions and incorporating changes specific for each international charity’s country-specific branding and language was a new challenge. They also wanted the videos to be in formats that could be shown in theaters, but that was no problem for our new Sony cameras. Wait, did we mention that we completely switched out all of our camera gear in the middle of this year, changing from the familiar Canon brand that we have used for 14 years to a completely different system with Sony? Talk about a challenge! The videos came out great though and we are excited to share these stories showcasing the impactful work World Villages for Children is doing in Tanzania.

Now let’s talk big. Continue reading →

How do you sum up half a year, especially one that has been so full of intensely different experiences? Our typical travel work schedule was interrupted by an unexpected diagnosis, which turned into a complex surgery, followed by a long recovery and complete healing. In just the past six months, we’ve traveled to 6 continents, crossing off our 7th continent just a few days ago— Antarctica! As you can expect, this update covers a lot, so let’s jump right in! We’re going to look back in time to catch you up on all that’s happened.

JULY in Moldova & Greece

The fields of sunflowers in Moldova were in full bloom when we went to document a mission trip for Moldova Mission, the same organization we served with in 2017. But this trip to the landlocked Eastern European country felt completely different than last time because the summer camp was being hosted in a new location, a beautiful plot of land that the local church bought to develop into a camp of their very own. The property was beautiful and progress was amazing. The amenities were much better than the first camp location where they offered a 30-minute window for hot showers, boiling the water to make that possible. The new camp had plumbing to make hot showers possible for all, a luxury experience for the campers, compared to the homes they come from. The camp was also able to host twice as many campers in the new space, giving more kids the opportunity to hear and respond to the Gospel. The Gospel was shared each morning and evening in the form of Bible studies, prayer time, skits, worship, sermons, and sharing of testimonies. This year, we were asked to participate and share our testimonies too, which was a humbling experience to stand up in front of 200 people and share the good, bad and ugly of our lives and how God transformed us from broken individuals into the Jesus followers we are today. 

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After our Colorado project with Christ Church Windsor over Easter, these Appalachian Trail thru-hiking veterans couldn’t leave the area without doing some hiking. We hope you take the time to enjoy this epic blog post of our 11-day epic camping road trip where we visited SEVEN national parks and crossed off several bucket list items along the way, setting up camp from our economy rental car as our base of operations. Because of the pandemic, our plans had to be formulated well in advance, booking campsites and national park shuttle tickets in very specific timeframes, leaving not much to chance. Our plan for this trip was the Four Corner States: Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, and we were psyched for it to finally begin!

COLORADO

I guess technically we got to do some hiking DURING our project, because the team did take a trip out to Rocky Mountain National Park where we strapped spikes on our shoes so we could hike a few miles in the snow to Emerald Lake. The lake wasn’t visible because it was frozen over and covered in snow, but the view and backdrop of the Rockies was surreal.

UTAH

Upon picking up our rental car in Denver, Colorado, we took a local’s recommendation to head to Fisher Towers outside of Moab, Utah. When we arrived, there were only four car camping sites total, and just one was taken. We immediately snagged a spot and hit the desert trail for our first hike on our own.

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We’ve had a lot going on and we have lots of videos to share with you in this post. We can finally share the fruit of our labors from our filming trip to Libera in November 2020, as well as some from a more recent project in Raleigh, NC.

In the below mini documentary you will hear about The Last Well’s 12-year mission to bring clean water to the entire nation of Liberia by 2020. Spoiler alert: they did it.

Going into 2021, we really had no idea what God had in store for us. But, then again, do we ever? International travel was still on hold, so we were excited pretty early in the year when we were contacted by Refugee Hope Partners to do a series of videos called “Stories of Hope” in Raleigh, NC. If their name sounds familiar, it’s probably because we have worked with them a couple times in the past, and we are big fans of their ministry to love their refugee neighbors with the hope of the gospel in partnership with the local church. We produced five videos for them, one of which might be our best video yet. Take and look and see which one you like most.

For many refugees, life doesn’t get easier once resettled in a new country. New challenges arise and many children are forced to grow up quickly and take on the responsibility of an adult in order for their family to survive. Elysee’s story is much like this, helping to carry the weight of his family on his shoulders, but his story is not over yet.

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In November, we boarded our first flight of the year.

It’s a telling sign of how unusual this year has been, not boarding an airplane until the eleventh month of the year, but we know we’re not the only ones who have been affected by this pandemic, and certainly not in the worst way. We went from six months of no work to several months of an outpouring of work thanks to the Foundation of FirstHealth, the nonprofit arm of the hospital in Cassie’s hometown. In fact, we were so busy that we didn’t have much time to think about our upcoming trip to Liberia until we were sitting in the airport. Masked and with our negative PCR covid tests in hand (required by immigration to enter Liberia), we were traveling nearly 30 hours to a country in West Africa to document the work of The Last Well.