Media Missionary Focus

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.

posted by Troy In Cambodia @ 9:51 AM