Lights, Camera.....Action!

Video Camp in Santo Domingo with Inverted Arts was a blast!

This is our third year in a row partnering with Mark Collier from Inverted Arts.
Mark is great to work with.  We love having him and his team here.  We learn a lot from them as they
teach and minister to children and youth using the arts.  We are thankful for this partnership and are already looking forward to next year!

From left to right: Mark Collier, Sarah Scharn, Travis Scharn and James Collier
A GREAT team!

Art Camp this year focused on video only.
The difference this year was that we were uniting youth from three different churches to work together not his project. 

I was impressed and honestly a bit surprised at how quickly the youth from the different churches became friends.
I expected them to stick together a little more with the people they already knew and were comfortable with, but that really wasn't the case at all.  They dove right in and enjoyed making new friends!

Another thing that was special this year at art camp is that we invited three young leaders from Hato Mayor who had worked on video with Mark for the previous two years to spend the week with us.  They stayed at our home and spent extra time with Mark and the team learning as much as they could about running a video camp like this.  

They took turns each morning leading an ice breaker game....

Leading the devotional....
(after studying for a few hours with Mark and the team at our house in the morning)

And working as leaders/directors with the youth during the filming ...
Lights, Camera, Action!

The youth were totally excited about filming these videos.  They worked together to write the story, come up with the actors, find costumes and props and create the set.  They did it all in just 4 days, and had an absolute blast!

It was a lot of fun watching it all come together!

In both of the videos, the youth focused on problems that happen within families.  In one family, out of desperation the father started selling drugs to provide financially for his family.  In the other video, the parents worked so much that their children felt alone and abandoned much of the time.  In the end, in both of the videos the parents turned to Jesus for help and restoration.  It was easy to see that family and the relationships between children and parents is an important theme for these youth.  

This is the team who stayed in our home for the week!  

Mark working with the youth editing the videos.
They learned a lot and got some great hands on experience on how to put a movie together.  

At the end of the week, the youth invited their family and friends to the showcase.
We dedicated their videos to the Lord and played them for the first time in their finished form.

The room was full and there was soooo much excitement among the youth, their family and friends.

There was lots of smiles and cheering as the videos played and the youth watched
themselves in action on the screen.

We are thankful to Mundo de Fe for allowing us to use this space and for hosting this camp.

We made a lot of new friends and had a great time!

Click here to check out the videos on the Inverted Arts website.