So we make our way across the US and find ourselves tired and excited and pulled over by the police and laughing and (from time to time) we sleep. Through it all we are managing to film a documentary. The stories and faces we have seen are more amazing than the words we have to describe them. Our hope is to capture some of this journey and put it out there for the world to see. It started in Tiskilwa, IL, and has carried across the the north and northeast and up into Canada. Today we are breathing and catching up in Illinois. Here are a few pictures to bring it into perspective.

                                                         

So, Canada. Toronto to be exact. We crossed the border with minimal difficulty. Although the question was brought up, “Have any of you guys been arrested?” To which we replied, “Um… arrested?” We defaulted to answering questions with questions. After a bit more in depth explanation of our legal histories the Canadian border patrol let us ALL through. We hit Niagara Falls and booked it to our host church/community in downtown Toronto. The city is beautiful. It is perched on the edge of Lake Ontario. The city is very diverse in terms of faces, races, languages, and architecture. They have a law in the city that won’t allow folks to chop down trees over a certain diameter without a permit. Nice! I can’t wait to get back up there and sink in a bit seeing as how we sort of skipped across the surface with our short visit. Thanks Canada. We got back across the US border without a problem… We simply stated our purpose and presented our passports. The border guard waved us through with a smile. Thanks US.

Looks like CNN’s listening, or at least it’s on their radar. Let’s see how they tell the story, or better yet which story they decide to tell.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/29/evangelical.campaign/index.html

One of my favorite stops so far has been Hartford, CT.  Our host venue was a little elementary school outside of downtown Hartford.  The Catholic Workers had a house just up the street, equipped with a beautiful garden, fire pit, and a group of friendly faces who welcomed us with a delicious meal. The fingerprints of students on the walls outside and hand-crafted art inside, along with the urban setting, made this stop seem a little more at home for the lot of us who are used to the inner city and it’s signs of life.  

Hey all,

Here’s a little something your audio/ visual nerd friend Jamie Moffett shot last night while additionally filming a three camera shoot of the Washington DC stop of Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw’s Jesus For President book tour.

Used a Canon EOS40D with a timer to shoot a frame every three seconds.  Created the image sequence at 24fps using QuickTime.  Pretty fun.

And then there was Cincinnati. We met back up with quite a few of our PAPA friends. In particular, Les and our coffee friends who would be hosting us at Rohs St. Cafe (www.rohsstreetcafe.com)– a welcoming location full of familiar faces and bottomless mango Iced tea and homemade sweet potato pie. A side note **JP we still want you to be our official sound guy! ** Les has been creating relationships with coffee farmers in guatemala to assure they are getting paid directly and fairly for their beans. This allows the families to retain their land and sustain their businesses. Purchasing Fair Trade Organic Coffee is one of the ways we can commit to spending our money in a way that directly supports people. We stayed with Brandi and friends at a community house that is working closely with neighbors educating in home maintenance and gardening with the local children after school. It was an honor to see them again and run around in their town for a minute.

Hey All! Here is a look at how the road trip is going:

Hey all,
Just got an email from Chris Smith of Doulos Christou Press in Indianapolis. It’s the story of a member of the community who’s given most all his possessions away and lives as a full time volunteer.
If you know folks like this in your community, let us know!

**************************
Jamie–

Hope that the tour is going well and that you’re staying sane!

Kyle came around for our church dinner on Wednesday, and I had him walk me through his story. This morning, I had a chance to write up the conversation.

Peace,
Chris

——————————-

Six months ago Kyle Schlenz had a decent job and was living on his own in an apartment, with all the typical stuff that a twenty-something guy enjoys: video games, movies, etc. Kyle had dropped out of college a couple of years earlier on the realization that his degree in English would not offer him many opportunities to eliminate the debt that he would build up. Such a debt, he believed, would be like “promising years of his future,” committing him to focus his life on paying off the money he owed. So, he set himself to working a variety of jobs. Having grown up in a fundamentalist church and having more recently felt compelled to deconstruct those religious roots, Kyle wrestled to understand what the shape of his faith would look like in this new, independent phase of his life. However, he had found a new church home that offered him the freedom to question and wrestle with challenging issues. At the same time, he was reading the Gospels, especially Jesus’s teachings on wealth and poverty, and had a nagging sense that he was only building up his own kingdom. Stories of gross poverty from around the world helped him to realize that despite his modest means, he was – as an American – very wealthy. It seemed to him that the church of his youth, and many other Christians, were quick to dismiss or explain away the Gospel teachings about wealth. Over several months, God used these troubling realizations to lead Kyle to relinquish control of his possessions and indeed his life. He sold or gave away everything he owned, except for a few odds and ends that would fit in his pickup truck. He finished out the lease on his apartment and decided that for now his truck would be his home. He had a strong sense that his church would help him with any needs as he followed the call of Jesus in this way.

Today, Kyle serves his church in urban Indianapolis for no pay, doing whatever needs to be done; he helps with the church’s tutoring efforts, and with their work of providing affordable housing. In the urban people that he works with, Kyle has seen profoundly that a primary factor in homelessness is an individual’s isolation and thus the lack of an adequate “support system.” Thus, even though he lives out of his truck now, he does not consider himself homeless, and he is deeply grateful for God’s abundant provision for his needs through the church. He has had people offer to help support him, without his even asking. He is being mentored by the church’s pastor and he has a passion to connect people in his church that have resources with those who have needs that such resources could fill.

This is a new adventure for Kyle, and he realizes that challenges will come his way as he continues down this road. He will soon have to take on some part-time work to meet his needs, but those needs are much fewer than they were six months ago. But in the face of uncertainty, Kyle reads the scriptures, thanks God for the ways in which he has already been provided for and trusts unswervingly that God will continue to use the church to meet his needs.

It’s exciting to see folks interested in talking about this movie while still in production! Honestly, we’ve got suuuuuuuch a long way to go to really have this piece ready to show, but we’re honored to have people asking the hard questions about who we are and what we’re trying to accomplish with this film. On behalf of the 10 people currently in production on this movie, I’d like to thank the folks at Jesus Radicals for starting the dialog. Stop by and add to the conversation, and let us know if there are other forums and groups talking about these important topics!
Thanks so much for walking with us on the journey,
~jamie

The Ordinary Radicals Documentary forum on JesusRadicals.com

Thursday Tiskilwa’s population more than doubled with P.A.P.A. fest participants. Tents were pitched an almost instantaneous community was formed. We met our new neighbors and shared our camping stove. Vegan pancakes (made with applesauce) and coffee from Les warmed us in the morning and the Psalters raised our heart beats in the evenings as the fest-ers pounded out their praise and the dust rose, a physical manifestation of prayers to heaven. The days were filled with Learning Sessions which discussed Martin Luther King’s, Beloved Community and How to Create an Intentional Community and the Skills Sessions taught practical skills such as Animal Husbandry (not what it sounds like) The Medicinal Uses of Herbs and How to use Waste Vegetable Oil in Converted Cars. Stay tuned to PAPAfest.org to catch a glimpse of some of those sessions.

At the end of PAPA we were shades darker being constantly kissed by the sun. That night after a 5 hour drive we pulled into Koinonia House in Grand Rapids, MI we discovered we weren’t that tan at all, we were just incredibly dirty.