Learning to Surf
We have just wrapped up our time back in the states for deputation, and are finally back in Cambodia. But as we were coming back I was thinking about what we learned in the USA this past year, and in particular how we all learned to surf.
We were fortunate that another missions agency owns a few houses near Atlantic City, NJ, about 2 blocks from the beach. For the last two deputation years we have rented one of those houses to live in. So this past summer, for his birthday, Dmetri, who is now 11, wanted to take surfing lessons. That sounded pretty good, so we also came up with money for Alex to take them as well, and the boys ended up spending an afternoon learning to surf! It was really pretty cool! Now, I freely admit, on the east coast we don’t have the big huge surfing waves that you see in all the movies and stuff. Typically, on a good surfing day, the waves are about 4 to 5 feet tall. But that’s perfect for learning on. They loved it!
Lisa and I also learned to surf, but not the same kind of surfing. I’m talking about channel surfing on the TV. Actually Lisa was already pretty good at it, but I was a reluctant participant.
Now don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying Lisa is a coach potato or anything like that, it’s just that her natural tendency is that when there is a commercial in a show she is watching, she will start channel surfing. This drives me nuts! I always feel like the show will come back on while we are on a different channel and we will miss some crucial piece of information, without which the plot of the show will be incomprehensible, so I prefer to suffer through the commercials and just stay on the channel. But this year I reluctantly became a surfer as well.
The problem was what was on the commercials. We would find some good, in-offensive show to watch (which isn’t easy these days), something decent that we could watch with our kids and all, but the commercials on during the program would be completely inappropriate for kids! So off we would go channel surfing. Even channels that advertised themselves as “family” channels weren’t safe.
In the end, it is just another example of where things are going in society. This is a problem world-wide, including in Cambodia. That is a big part of why we are trying to be salt and light in the media community here in Cambodia. We want there to be a positive message of hope available to all the people of Cambodia.
The “That’s just you’re opinion” Myth: How American Idol helps me teach my kids
A few weeks ago I got the shock of my life; I was able to use American Idol, or more specifically the early audition shows of American Idol, to help me teach my son about good and bad, right and wrong.
It actually started with a pinewood derby car my son was making for boy scouts (well, it didn’t actually start there, but that was were things came to a head). I told him it would be a project he would have to do, but I would help him on. So he drew the outline of the car’s shape on the piece of wood, and he had to use a hand saw to cut it out. I helped him start the cut, and did some of it when he would start drifting off the line he drew, etc, but he had to do most of the cutting. It took awhile, and he was pretty tired of working on it by the time he was done, but there was still a lot that needed to be done. He had been pretty rough with the saw, so the cut he had made was anything but smooth, so it needed a lot of sanding. Meanwhile, we were enjoying a stretch of exceptionally nice weather, and he could see friends of his playing in the yard outside, and he was starting to realize that playing with them looked a lot more fun than sanding a pinewood derby car (I can’t say I blamed him). So he was maybe 1/3 of the way finished with his sanding, and he said “Dad, I’m finished. I’m going to go play outside.” I took a look at his car and told him he wasn’t nearly finished yet, that he had to get the surface smooth. That’s when he pulled out the classic “generation me” line; “that’s just your opinion; I think it is good just the way it is. Why can’t you just accept it?”
I am currently reading a book called “Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled – and More Miserable Than Ever Before,” by Jean Twenge. Just last night I was reading a section about the “That’s just you’re opinion” attitude and it brought the pinewood derby car episode right back to the forefront in my mind. The book brought it up in the context of a chapter called “You Don’t Need Their Approval,” that talked about how generation me young people (born between 1970 and 1999) often feel entitle to do whatever they want, whenever they want, in any way they want, and no one has the right or authority to tell them it is wrong, especially if the person trying to tell them that is an older person in some established position of authority. What am I talking about? Think American Idol auditions.
Now I have worked with media long enough to know that producers put people on the air to make a scene. I know there are thousands of average people (in terms of singing talent) who try out for American Idol, but the ones who actually get passed on by the original screeners to meet with Randy, Simon and Paula, are either really good (and deserving of moving on to the next round) or really bad (someone that will just be shocking or funny on the air). So it’s all a set up. Yet hundreds of thousands of people show up at each city to try out, all thinking that they are “IT”. And you figure the people who get passed on to meet with Randy, Simon and Paula aren’t complete idiots; they must have seen the show before and realize that the exceptionally good, and the exceptionally bad, are the only two groups who get through. But it never fails, and in fact seems to get worse every year, that some horribly and tragically bad singer/performer will get in there with the judges, do a terrible audition for them, and when the judges tell them it was bad, their response is that it’s “just their opinion!” Somehow they are still clinging to the idea that they are actually good, and the judges just don’t know what they are talking about. Forget that these three judges have been multi platinum selling recording artists, both as solo acts and as members of a band, have been multi award winning choreographers, multi platinum selling song writers, multi award winning producers, and more! To the rejected contestants mind, these judges don’t know what they are talking about, don’t have any right to tell them what is good or bad, and wouldn’t know a good thing if it fell in their lap!
My family and I, like people all across the world, sit and watch these shows and sit dumbfounded that these contestants can be so bad and have no clue about it. One night as we were watching this spectacle, I commented to my wife that I thought it was just one more example of how the culture is setting up young people for failure. “What do you mean?” she responded. Well, we don’t give grades in elementary school for performance anymore, instead we grade their effort. Forget the fact that the kids did the problem or assignment wrong, they tried hard, and that’s what counts; after all, if we told them their answer was wrong, they would be ashamed and discouraged. Parents throw a birthday party for their child and spend all kinds of money buying presents for the other kids who will attend so that they will also feel special and have something to take home. We have a track meet where EVERYONE gets a ribbon so that no one feels left out. Never mind that we stop rewarding excellence. Never mind that we stop giving kids something to shoot for and an incentive to do their best. Never mind that we fail to teach them to celebrate the accomplishment of others without expecting personal gain from the experience. We abandon teaching and training to a standard in favor of just making sure everyone “feels good about themselves”.
So why should it surprise us when someone with little or no talent gets up on American Idol, does a horrible job, is told that they aren’t good enough to move on, and then they get angry and can’t accept the judges decision? Chances are today that this might have been the first time anyone has ever told them their work wasn’t up to the standard. Chances are they have never really been held to ANY standard. Everyone has always been saying “that’s wonderful” to them so that they would have positive afermation and feel good about themselves, but in reality it was setting them up for failure in the real world where standards DO matter.
So back to the pinewood derby (I bet you thought I had forgotten about that). My son gives me the “I think it’s good enough” line, and all the American idol stuff pops into my head. So I ask him about all the people we had been seeing on American Idol, and shared with him the simpler version of what I said above, and showed him how the job he did on his derby car was going to be measured against real standards, not against what he thought was “good enough”. And then I told him what he really meant was that he wanted to go play instead of finishing the work he needed to do. Did he suddenly see the light? Did a light-bulb turn on above his head as a sign of his sudden enlightenment? Not exactly. What he did was wine and complain a bit more because I made him stay in and finish his job on his derby car before going out to play. But the enlightenment part came a week or so later when his car beat every other car in the pinewood derby by a WIDE margin, and he knew he had done it all himself through hard work.
So yes, American Idol is a pop phenomenon, and a bit of a guilty pleasure, but it also can help a 10 year old see that there are standards, and in the long run it is worth “laying everything aside and pressing onward toward the goal.”
Is The World Flat For Missions?
Despite what you might have heard in school, the world, apparently, is flat. So says a book I have been reading (actually listening to on CD in my car). It is a bestseller called “The World Is Flat” by Thomas Friedman.
The author’s premise is that globalization is creating a world that is flat, primarily economically. It addresses some of the issues facing people across the country, like outsourcing, jobs moving overseas, etc. He then goes on to talk about how some of those issues affect legislation, government, and more.
While all of that is interesting to me, for us as Christians there is much more to think about. It obviously affects us in terms of the livelihood of church members in America, but it also has implications for us in terms of missions.
In terms of outsourcing jobs, businesses here in the USA move work that had been done in America to other countries where they can do the same work for a lower cost. For example, many businesses have moved their customer service call centers to countries like India where they can substantially lower their cost of doing business. Thomas Friedman goes on to say that the jobs that will be more secure and create the new middle class are those that cannot be easily replicated and / or are tied directly to the communities where they are located. Does that apply to missions as well?
In one area we have already been doing this. We have businesses we know here in America that do web site design, yet we chose to go with a Cambodian company to do our site. Why? Well, the US based companies would have charged us somewhere around $1000, but the Cambodian company we used cost us only $300. The savings was clearly worth it (and they did a great job as well). We even did most of our printing in Cambodia prior to coming back to the USA for the same reason.
But what about with regular missions work on the field? In Cambodia we have missionaries working with us from the Assemblies of God of Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, France, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia. And then there are the Cambodian pastors we work with. And don’t forget missionaries from other organizations. Do we just hand things off to them because a plane ticket from Singapore to Cambodia is cheaper than a plane ticket from the USA to Cambodia? What is our place in fulfilling the Great Commission in a world that is becoming “flat”?
I actually think that the answer is the same as it is with the business world. There are certain things that missionaries from those other countries (not to mention Cambodian pastors) do better, but there are other areas where we are still needed. It’s not about needing to do everything ourselves; we have always wanted to empower the national church and “work our way out of a job”. But we are still needed. In media ministries for example, we have been on the same page as the “Flat Earth” for a number of years.
Asia Pacific Media Ministries (the Asia Pacific wide umbrella ministry that we work with) has a philosophy of empowering the national church. Other media ministries groups try to create one centralized location / ministry center that tries to meet everybody’s needs in every country across the region. Asia Pacific Media Ministries (APMM) tries to de-centralize and empower local churches to do their own media production.
But it is still a learning / growing process. Learning to partner internationally with different groups who have different policies and priorities can be difficult.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve been trying to think through lately…
Reality Is More Than What You Think! (Trying To Keep Up With God's Timing)
Reality seems to consistently outpace my expectations. I just spent some time on the phone last night catching up on how things are going with media ministries back in Cambodia, and my thought was “Wow!”
We have been very fortunate to be able to work in partnership with another missionary there from the Australian Assemblies of God named Rebecca Williams. She has been a HUGE help in numerous ways. Let me tell you a bit of the story of our movie project / production company.
I was first approached in 2003 about doing an evangelistic film in Cambodia. I was on a trip to the Philippines working with Asia Pacific Media Ministries (APMM) and I sat down for an afternoon with two of APMM’s key guys, Bill Snider and Jeff Gregory, and an independent missionary/film maker named Steve Cadd and they shared with me about a project they had first tried in Mongolia. They had partnered with the local church to help them produce an evangelistic film, and they had provided the funding and equipment and training for the project, then when it was finished they left the equipment with the people they had trained so that, theoretically, they would have the a functioning Christian production company, including state of the art equipment and trained personnel and a commercially viable movie that would help fund the next project and get the ball rolling to provide the church with a long term voice in the media industry. The jury was still out in some respects on the Mongolia project (it wasn’t yet clear if there would be an ongoing company or not), but they wanted to take the lessons they had learned there and move on to another country and try it again, and they were interested in Cambodia.
Honestly I was somewhat skeptical. Any time you start giving away thousands of dollars in equipment, etc there is a huge potential for problems. I told them of my concerns and about problems that had occurred in Cambodia in the past when something as simple as a musical instrument had been given to someone, but I said I would check with some other missionaries and church leaders to get their reactions. Most of the people I talked to shared my concerns. But when I got to Rebecca and we started talking about it, we came up with a solution that seemed to address many of our concerns; we would take a music production company that she was in the process of setting up and expand it to include a video production arm as well (check previous post for more details on some of the issues we were looking at). So, to make a long story short, I have been working with her and her team to help them facilitate their video production work, and we are in the middle of the film project (training and script writing with filming scheduled for January and February).
The “Wow” factor comes from where they are as a company. The goal was that the film would really help to put them into an industry leading position and help them to begin developing a reputation for quality work. Well, they have jumped right over the film step and are ALREADY starting to take a lead in the industry! Since I left they have started a youth oriented radio program and are in the final stages of starting up a weekly TV show as well. Both of these shows use music and musicians to address social issues and to show how we should address them according to Biblical principles (this fits in perfectly with the company’s goal of using their position in media work and pop culture to give them a platform and voice from which they can then plant an inner city church aimed at Cambodia’s inner-city youth). Now they also just were contracted to direct the TV coverage of Cambodia’s three day water festival in October! This is the biggest event in the Cambodian calendar and coverage goes out to surrounding countries as well! This is HUGE! They are already being seen as being in the top of their field! As for long term impact, this means they are already becoming a commercially viable company, so they will be able to continue to be salt and light in the community, and give a media voice to the church, without outside funding. They are already becoming an indigenous, self supporting Christian entity! In addition, they are quickly gaining a reputation for quality work so that when the movie is released, or when they do concerts or other projects, people will be ready and willing to listen and see what they are saying and doing; it gives them credibility and an existing relationship with their target audience that will allow them to effectively share the gospel!
So all this means that the company is light years ahead of where I thought they would be! Like most things that God is involved in, he operates on His own timetable. Sometimes that means we have to wait for Him and His timing to be right, and sometimes it means we are just trying to keep up with what He is already doing!
Running Without Shoes: The Church In Cambodia
We just finished School of Missions and while we were there I noticed something kind of amusing.
School of Missions is an annual event held at Evangel University, in Springfield, MO by the Assemblies of God World Missions department. Typically, our missions agency works on a five year cycle; general appointed missionaries (like us) spend four years on the field (in Cambodia for us) and then one year back in the USA raising money for the next four years. So, theoretically, every missionary would be back in the states once every five years. During that year they are back in the USA they are required to attend a two week event known as School of Missions. It is a time of classes and seminars and meetings designed to help missionaries keep up on changes in the missions agency itself, new trends and changes in churches in America, and to provide fellowship and networking among like minded people around the world. This year they had about 750 missionaries attending (about 130 of those were new missionaries preparing to go to the field for the first time). Overall it is a very good time for our entire family; they have a kids program running the whole time as well that our kids love. And the thing I noticed was about Alex, our 8 year old son.
To properly set the stage let me go back about 4 years. Back then Alex had some interesting personality traits that had us a bit concerned. He couldn’t stand to have anything dirty in any way. He wouldn’t even set a toy down on a carpet inside our house because he was afraid it would get dirty! He never wanted to be dirty himself either; he would wash his hands numerous times each day. We were beginning to become concerned that he might have obsessive compulsive disorder. But, thankfully, he grew out of it. Over the last year or two it was more common to pick him up from school and rather than being spotlessly clean, he looked like he had been involved in digging a tunnel somewhere.
The other thing you need to remember is that missionary kids tend to be a bit different. They grow up living in a different culture, where different things are accepted and expected. Then mix in international school. Our kids, for example, go to an international, English speaking school that was set up primarily for missionary kids. It’s been great, but it definitely throws them for another cultural loop. The teachers at the school are primarily from Australia, New Zealand and England. The kids in their classes are from Korea, New Zealand, Australia, England, Cambodia, Singapore and a few other places. So the school has it’s own culture as well. And then our home has it’s own culture; we are American in many ways, but yet we don’t always fit in so well among the general American population. As a rule, as evangelical Christians we are more conservative than most Americans, yet as missionaries living in another culture and working with media to find new ways of connecting with people around the world we are often a good bit more open to “different” people and new ideas than a large percentage of the people in most churches. So our kids are growing up in this multi-cultural mix, and consequently they end up developing a pretty unique combination of traits from the different groups and cultures they interact with.
So, back to School of Missions. On one of the last days they have the kids programs do a special presentation for all the adults, so that parents get an idea of what their kids have been doing. The kids were supposed to dress up, so we had Dmetri and Alex get ready to go. Well, Alex didn’t have any nice shoes in our room; he hadn’t needed them before that, so they were in the trunk of the car. Because we were already running a little late, Lisa and Dmetri started heading for the meeting while Alex and I went to the car to get his shoes. He had been wearing flip-flops all week (standard tropical missionary footwear), and he left those in the car and put on his nice sandals. Yeah, I know, I said he had to get his nice shoes out of the car so that he would be dressed up and here we are getting sandals, but that’s missionary kids! So he gets his nice sandals on and we start heading for the meeting. As we came around the corner of the building I could see Lisa and Dmetri a good ways ahead, so I told Alex to run and catch up so he wouldn’t be late. He started to run, and when he was about 15 yards in front of me he stopped, took off his sandals, picked them up, and ran the rest of the way barefoot.
Yes, that’s the end of my “funny” story. So what was the point? Well, two things really struck me at the time. First, was how much Alex had changed. From being a strong candidate for OCD, to running around barefoot on a college campus. He still has his issues, but they are different now, and thankfully not quite as dramatic. Second, it seemed to be a very Cambodian thing to do. It didn’t seem to fit the stereotypical churchgoing model of a preacher’s kid in a conservative evangelical church. But all that is just fine by me. When Alex picked up those shoes and started running I had a big stupid grin plastered across my face. And that isn’t all that different from the church as a whole, and especially the church in Cambodia.
The Cambodian church isn’t too much older than our boys. It was just in the early 1990’s that it got going again. And in the not too distant past we would look at some of the problems and issues within this new church and wonder how they will ever make it. Yet many of those problems and odd behaviors are now long gone. They still have problems. But they are new problems. They are growing, and just like our kids, they have a unique culture and perspective. They grew up in Cambodia, they have been reached by, and work regularly with missionaries from 7 different countries (and that’s just counting Assemblies of God missionaries. The reality is there are missionaries from dozens of countries.). Plus, the gospel presents a whole new set of principals and priorities. We can’t expect them to look just like us. They are unique. And just like I get a big grin on my face when I see Alex doing something uniquely Alex, or Dmetri doing something uniquely Dmetri, I’m sure God has a big smile when the Cambodian church does something unique to them.
New Movie Moves (Beyond the Story of the Story)
I realize it has been a long time since I last updated this blog, but let’s see where things stand on the movie project now…
Another step in the process has been moved along. We have set up an advisory board for the film project made up of 2 Cambodian pastors, 2 Cambodian business men, and 2 Cambodians from the creative arts (all Christians). They met together about 2 weeks ago and we presented the three story options. Initially they seemed to go for the story we considered a throw away idea. In fact, while the other two stories were posted on this blog (see the last two postings), I didn’t even post this one because we didn’t really consider it an option. In short, it was the story of a girl who is engaged to a nice boy, goes out with other friends and ends up sleeping with some other guy. Despite her efforts to cover it up, eventually her fiancé and his family find out about it. She expects him to dump her, but instead he forgives her and restores their relationship. The story is a metaphor for God’s grace and forgiveness. Well, the advisory board liked it because it also addressed a very real social problem as well. This was not what we expected at all. We considered this the weakest story by far, and it would present a number of problems in telling the story without becoming offensive to the Christian community we want to get behind this.
Well, the board members took copies of the three story treatments home to go over, and then they met again a week later to decide what story we would do. Now that they had had the chance to read through all of the stories in detail and think about it for awhile, they had changed there minds (thank goodness!). Instead, they now felt we should go with the story about the boy and the letter from his father (see previous posts for the whole story). This is kind of a sad / tragic story, and those types of stories really go over big here. Again, this wasn’t the one we thought they would pick, but it is the original story we came up with, and we all thought it was good. It also has a few difficult challenges as well. First, the story is VERY character driven, with a young boy playing a leading role. That requires good acting, and getting a good, believable performance is going to be hard. Second, it is set in the time just after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, and the government is very picky about historical details on things like that. So we would have to match clothes, vehicles, etc. to the time very closely, or else the government would not approve it for release.
So now we need to work over the story, write the script, and work with the advisory board on making sure the church can and will use it as an evangelism tool. And that’s just for starters!
We also need to do training for all the technical staff and all the talent. The first training sessions will be in May, with two additional training sessions in August and November, so that we can hopefully do filming in January or February. There is a TON of stuff that needs to be done before then, but hopefully all will go well, and we should be edited and ready for release about the time we return from our deputation year in the States in the summer of 2007.
Evangelistic Movie Idea # 3 (and # 2 sort of...)
If you read the last movie idea, you might be wondering what happened to idea number 2? Well that one is pretty simple; it is the story of a girl with a great fiancé who makes some bad choices, gets involved with another person who is takes advantage of her, the fiancé finds out, the girl repents and he forgives her and takes her back with no strings attached. It is basically a story of redemptive love. Unfortunately the story line itself raises all kinds of possible problems, so I doubt this will be the final choice.
The third idea, however, is another matter. I will copy the idea below (it is a bit long, but the story is more involved), but it stems from a very common problem, both here in Cambodia and around the world. It addresses the idea that “all roads lead to God”, or put simply, if you want to reach out to God through Christianity, that’s fine, and if I want to reach out to that same God through Buddhism, that’s fine too. So the story is designed to be an illustration of why that doesn’t work. This is a first draft of the story, and still needs a lot of work, but here it is.
The Father’s Inheritance
Scene One: visiting the old lady
The father goes to meet with the old lady. He asks his youngest son Virek to take him to the old lady’s house. The father is old and clearly unwell. He walks slowly and with difficulty.
When they arrive at the old lady’s house. Virek waits down under the house whilst his father and the old lady go into another room to talk. The father tells the old lady he is sick and knows he has very little time left. He is worried about his children. He is sad that he doesn’t have much time left with them to teach them and lead them back to a good way of life, and he is worried about the inheritance he will leave. It is significant and he knows the older two will fight over it, and in the attempt to get it could destroy them. He explains that only his youngest son is truly good, and truly understands his heart. He says that if with the remainder of his life he cannot lead them back to righteousness, then he must do it through his death. He tells the old lady of some of his oldest son’s corrupt dealings of late- things he is being accused of, and he knows his son is probably guilty of them. He talks about how his daughter is addicted to ‘gondoiy lake’ and gambling and is surely driving her husband crazy with her ramblings. He tells the old lady that he always thought he would be there to burry her and to take care of her until she died, but now it looks like he will go first. He tells her that he had this planned for many years, a piece of land, a special place where she could be buried after she died. Because he would die first, he leaves the deed and ‘plong day’ with her. He thanks the old lady for her years of wise counsel and friendship and he leaves.
Scene Two: Father dies
The father is in his bed. There is a large framed photo above his bed. It is a piece of land, which is not all that attractive. His breathing is laboured and he is dying. Virek is with him by his side along with his wife Maly. Virek asks his wife to bring him his phone, it is time to call his siblings to come and say goodbye to their father. He calls his older brother Om Rong. Om Rong picks up the phone and he says he is unable to come. He is busy at work (shot goes to him and his guards currently demanding money from a business or a family who owe them money. They are threatening or using violence against that family) He says he can’t come and hangs up the phone. Virek calls his younger sister. She picks up the phone (and the shot goes to her) and she is busy playing cards. She says her child is sick and she can’t leave him to come and hangs up the phone. Virek is disappointed and goes back to sit by his father’s side. He tells his father they are busy but will get here as soon as they can. His father knows what they are like and tells Virek- look out for your brother and sister. When I am gone, keep them together, don’t part and go your separate ways. The father passes away.
Scene Three: At the Lawyers office
Three Siblings and their partners meeting with the lawyer. Their father has just died and left a will. The children are all grown up and Married. Their partners are present with them.
The eldest son’s name is Om Rong and his wife’s name is Rany. The Daughter’s name is Om Rouey, and the youngest son’s name is Virek and his wife’s name is Maly.
The lawyer opens the will. Inside are several letters, one the main will, and a letter for each child and a single, very simple cut diamond ring. The lawyer reads out the will. Their father had $X in the bank and he instructs it all to be given to charity. There are also instructions for closing up the business and a particular person is appointed over that etc. The lawyer then gives each of the siblings a letter, each letter is identical. He tells them there is a diamond ring here and no instructions for it, he is unsure what to do with it. Immediately the older brother comments “He was worth millions and he leaves us one ring to share? I am not in need of rings, and my wife has no spare fingers to put them on.” The sister starts murmuring too “Its not even a nice ring. That is the smallest diamond I have ever seen and it is isn’t even polished. I wouldn’t be seen wearing it” The younger Son, says “I would like the ring, if that is OK. My father gave that to my mother many years ago before she died. I haven’t seen it for a long time.” he takes the ring.
They all take their letters and open them. Inside the letter are instructions on how to find the father’s hidden inheritance- the most precious of all his possessions.
They lawyer leaves them, and they sit down together and each of them opens the letter. The eldest son reads it out loud.
No eye has seen nor mind has conceived of the treasure I have laid up for you.
An end to hunger and end to pain,
A place of rest where peace will reign
Beyond every dream beyond every wish
The humble are blessed and the poor become rich
It’s far for the haughty and close to the meek
It’s available for all those who honestly seek
If you know my heart, if you love me true
The words in this letter will guide you and lead you
So find the straight path that is narrow and free
Follow it faithfully and it will lead you to me
It has no turns to trick or mislead,
But many are waiting to misguide and deceive
Heed my words and hear my voice
Let my life be your compass to guide each choice
Many people you’ll meet many needy you’ll see
You must help the old lady to give you the key
She will shorten your path if you lighten her load
For the way you travel determines the road
And the length of your journey is measure by love
For what you sow you will reap on this earth and above
Care for each other and call for the lost
For the gift of the treasure comes to you at no cost
So be guided by goodness and travel by light
For I have no business with darkness or night
He finishes reading the letter and each of them reacts to it according to their character.
The eldest son is a schemer, selfish and wants the inheritance all to himself. He is quiet, calculated and intelligent. He is ruthless about getting what he wants, even at the expense of others, family included. His wife is of similar character
The middle daughter is talkative, gossipy, believes in fortune tellers, she is not all that intelligent, not very refined or gentle. Her husband is more refined and is a kind man, but not a very strong character. He is calmer than his wife and is not a selfish man, but he frequently gives into his wife’s silly ways to avoid a fuss or a fight. He knows he has married a foolish woman, and tries to live under the radar.
The youngest Son is a gentle person. He loved his father the most of all the children and was the closest to his father. He is not as concerned with the treasure as his siblings, he misses his father dearly and his motivation in following his father’s instructions is more out of obedience and respect because to him the letter represents his father’s last wishes and last words to him and he treasures that. His wife is gentle and well mannered and kind too. He is the peacemaker of the family and the one that keeps them all together.
Each of the siblings is sitting with their partner, lost in the letter, or in the case of the youngest, more in grief. The eldest son takes his wife by the hand and pulls her aside. He whispers to her indicating that he wants to go and find the treasure before his siblings. He says “our father was a very wealthy man. What ever he has left is surely enough that we could easily live the rest of our days without a care and without having to work. My sister is too stupid to handle such wealth let alone solve this riddle of a letter, she would just waste the money anyway, any my brother- he doesn’t care about it- he’ll spend the next week crying over my father and won’t even notice that we have gotten to the treasure before him. Let’s just tell them we will all go our separate ways and who ever finds it first can call for the others.”
The sister sees her brother whispering and wants to know what he is saying. She yells out, goes over to him, asks him what he is saying, what he is planning, accusing him of scheming as per usual. She then asks him if he knows what the letter means and where the inheritance is. He shakes his head, and she suggests they go see a fortune teller. She starts carrying on about how she knows a really good fortune teller and he always gets things right etc. Somewhere in there she gets side tracked in her own rambling and is off on a tangent. (showing her character).
The eldest brother says something sarcastic to the sister indicating how stupid she is, and they start to fight. The youngest brother is the peacemaker. He stops their fighting, reminding them that their father has just passed away, and they are not honoring his memory by fighting over his will. He suggests they all go together, that their father would have wanted it that way, and that the instructions in the letter will be enough to lead them, there is no need for fortune tellers. They just need to be obedient to their father.
The older brother wants to go alone..... the elder two snap at each other again, and the younger brother and his wife suggest they go home and rest. It has been a stressful time and they all need to sleep on it and tomorrow they can talk about it.
They all go to their individual homes for the night. The eldest brother and his wife immediately begin scheming and have no intention to wait for the other two. The wife asks what was the name of the person who must collapse the company and deal with all that?” We must get into his office. Surely we will be able to find all the information we need there.
The daughter is also coming up with her plans, how she interprets the letter and what she is going to do with the inheritance once she gets it. Her husband suggests they should follow the advice of the youngest son, and all go together, after all their father had plenty of wealth, there is no need to compete. His wife starts fussing and carrying on, and as per usual he decides it is easier to shut up and give into her.
The youngest son and his wife are at home reminiscing about their father. They read the letter over and over and the keys and instructions in the letter remind them of times their father did certain things to help others, phrases he always used to use to teach them certain things, etc. Out of all the children he understands the fathers words the clearest. (“... help the old lady to give you the key) He understands that the letter is instructing them how to live, how to conduct themselves.
They call it a night and go to sleep. Before the Virek goes to bed he walks through the house, into his father’s room, missing his father. He stands at the foot of his bed and the picture of the land above the bed is caught in the shot.
In the morning the eldest Son and his wife leave to find this woman who has the keys to his father’s office. The figure someone at his office must know where this inheritance is and they will threaten and do what ever they need to do to find it. They find the woman and she refuses to give them the keys. They threaten her and she gives in. They take the keys and head to the office.
The daughter goes to her older brother’s house and starts calling out his name, knocking on the door and peering through the windows. Her husband stands still watching his wife and after a while calls out to her that their car is not there, they are not home. She starts to curse her brother and call him names, saying it is just like him to run off without her, wants it all for himself. She also turns on her husband saying that he is not smart like her brother, can’t work out a plan..... She grabs her phone to call her brother. His phone is turned off. She calls his work, he is not there. She forgets about the letter and finding the treasure- now she is concerned with finding her brother. The husband is sick of her whinging and fighting and doesn’t say anything. They leave to find the eldest brother.
The youngest brother talks with his wife saying “lets invite my brother and sister over for lunch today so we can all talk about the letter and work out what we will do” they agree and the wife goes to prepare lunch and the husband calls his siblings. The eldest brother’s phone is off. He calls his sister and she picks up the phone and starts carrying on down the phone. He tries to calm her, and tells her to come over for lunch and they can talk about it, but she refuses. She doesn’t want to wait or waste time, she says to him “he is probably half way to the treasure by now and you want to have lunch? I am going to go and find him immediately”. She hangs up the phone.
Virek goes and tells his wife they are not coming for lunch. He sits down with his wife and talk. He is disappointed in his siblings. They decide that the best thing to do is obey their father and live according to the letter and one day if there is such a place it will lead them there, and when they know where the inheritance is they will call their siblings to come and enjoy it all together.
The oldest brother gets into his fathers office. He searches through all his files and looks for clues. His wife is going through each word in the letter with a map in front of him. They start marking where all his fathers business dealings were, where he travelled, has gotten access to his invoicing and accounts to find out where he had sites, jobs, transferred money etc, to try and pinpoint where the inheritance is. He has identified key business associates of his fathers and they plan to go and meet with them to see if they know anything.
The daughter is off doing the tail of the numbers game- turning words into number to work out their significance, and consulting fortune tellers to do it for her. She thinks some of the words in the story are really numbers that will tell her which road she needs to travel down.
After a series of other events in the attempt to find the inheritance the wife of the eldest son asks him. “Maybe we are focussing too much on the road, maybe we should work out who this old lady was, where this key is. Maybe once we have the key we will know where to go. Who may he have been talking about?” The son replies “There is one old lady in a village just outside the city who he considers like a mother. He goes to her when he needs advice or when he needs someone to talk to. He has been doing that more often since my mother died. I know he went to visit her not long before he died. He must have left the key with her.”
In the morning, the eldest son and his wife get in the car to travel to the old lady’s house. They talk together in the car “do what ever we have to do to get that key, and get all of them. We are not leaving a chance that someone else will get to this inheritance before us.- I don’t care what the letter says” They go to the old lady’s house and barge inside. She is sitting under the house on a wooden platform. They march up to her demanding the keys their father left, threaten her and shouting at her when she doesn’t answer “where are the keys, give me the keys” she is confused and frightened. She doesn’t know what they are talking about. She asks them to leave, but they won’t. They walk upstairs into the house looking for keys. She follows them up. They find all the keys in her house and take them, threatening that if she is hiding any other keys they will hurt her. She tells them they have all the keys already. She is confused and crying, and mutters that they are dishonouring their father’s good name and memory, that he would never have behaved like this. As they are leaving the light catches a chain around her neck with a small gold key on it. He calls her a liar and snatches the chain from her neck, causing her to fall over hitting her head. They turn and leave.
Virek and his wife are sorting through their father’s belongings, packing his clothes and cleaning up his things. They come across a photo of the old lady. Virek calls for his wife to go and get the letter his father left. He reads it again and he becomes worried. “My father was very close to this old lady. If my older brother or sister think that he may have left a key or something to do with the inheritance with her, she could be in trouble. My brother has been threatening everyone and anyone he thinks could lead him to this treasure. He is not afraid to hurt an old woman. We must go to her.”
When they get to her house, her family tell him what happened and what his older brother did. They tell him which hospital she is in. They drive to the hospital to be with her. They talk to the doctor and he tells them she is old, and the trauma to her head is severe- they don’t think she will live. She knows she is dying and she asks to go home. She doesn’t want to die in a hospital.
Virek takes her home and he spends time with her. The old lady tells him to go and get a letter out of a certain drawer and bring it to her. She tells him “When I die bury me here. This is the ‘plong day’ of a piece of land your father prepare for my burial. You are just like your father.”
Virek tries to get in contact with his brother. He knows that his brother has gone too far and will have to pay for his actions. He calls his sister to tell her to come and be with the old lady, that she is like a grandmother to them, and she is dying. His sister is half way to Battambong by now as some how she has concluded that the inheritance is there.
Virek and his wife stay by the old woman.
In the meantime the police go after the older brother for assaulting the old lady and it ends in him either being arrested and put in jail or dying.
The old lady dies, and Virek organises to take her to the land that his father put aside for her. Inside the envelop with the ‘plong day’ is a picture of the land. He has seen that picture before, he is sure. It seems so familiar. He takes the old lady’s body out to the site. When he gets there, there is a guard at the site. The guard meets with Virek and asks him. “Do you have the ring?” Virek looks confused. “You must have the ring to enter this site.” Virek looks at his fingers, then at his wife’s hands... I only have this ring from my father.(pointing to his wife’s hand). The guard looks closer at the ring. “Yes, that is the ring. You may enter. I am sorry about your father. He was a great man. He told me one day I would meet you.”
Virek enters the gates and goes inside. He looks around- there is nothing there but a huge empty block of land. It is the same land as in the photo that was in the envelop from the old woman, and he finally realises it is the same photo that has been hanging above his father’s bed all these years.
He finds the site set aside for the old woman and he buries her. When he has dug a grave and placed her coffin inside, he picks up a handful of dirt to throw in the grave, and as it sifts through his fingers, there is a hard rock- a diamond. He sifts through more of the dirt and there are more uncut diamonds.
He realises this is the inheritance.
He goes back home after he has buried the old lady and he takes the photo of the land from above his father’s bed and takes the back of the frame off. Inside attached to the photo are instructions and the title to the whole land- a field of diamonds. He re- reads the letter and finally it all makes sense to him. The ring his father gave his mother, that his wife is currently wearing was the first diamond discovered on that land, and no other diamonds have been mined there since- he left it all for his children.
His brother is gone, but he calls his sister. She starts rambling that she went to Battambong to the place where the fortune teller told her to go and there was nothing there. He tells her to come back to the city. He needs to talk to her. She tells him she has to keep searching, can’t come back, but her husband stops her- “you’ve tried it your way and it hasn’t led you anywhere good. Why don’t you try listening to your brother for once.” She stops talking, and nods her head, and says to her brother “OK, I will come back. I will see you tomorrow”
scene with the Virek and his wife Maly......
The sister and her husband come back and meet with Virek and Maly. He explains what happened to the old lady, and that he wants to take her to see something. He takes her out to the site their father left them, and then he hands her the letter and instructions attached to the photo that was hanging in his room. She starts asking “So where was the key, what was the road the letter was talking about, I don’t understand” Virek explains to her, it wasn’t a real key- it wasn’t an actual road that our father was referring to. He was trying to tell us how to live, to care for others, and that is what would lead us to happiness and to the inheritance. I found this because I went to help the old lady, when she was dying.
