Within a few hours of Nolan's arrival in Turkey we were on a plane to Malatya. This of course was an unexpected and sudden beginning to the filming, but was a necessity because of Susanne's schedule. What follows is an update I sent to supporters following our return from Malatya.

6-19-2008
 
You can never be too careful, right?
 
As soon as the plane hit the ground I started scanning our fellow passengers.  If I saw these people again somewhere else in the city, it meant they were sent to follow us.  Black t-shirt, sunglasses, black hair… suspicious, better keep an eye on him.  Red shirt, big nose… noted.  Black t-shirt, sunglasses, black hair… uh oh, this may get tricky…
 
The airport was about the size of a QuikTrip, and our "gate" was portable stairs and slab of concrete surrounded by miles of farmland.  Every man, woman and child was a potential intelligence agent.  The military base next door (full of camouflage and Uzis) was a bit intimidating as well…
 
The taxi wound through the epic dusty hills to the city, as I scrutinized the driver's every eye movement in the rear view mirror and checked the folds of his pants for guns and knives.  I wasn't sure I liked his face, so I planned some contingency Jason Bourne defensive moves, and convinced myself I could be a hero…
 
Every car we passed, drivers and passengers turned and stared at our taxi.  Maybe they were just staring at the three white boys.  More likely, they were choreographed to box us in at the stop light and drag us from the car…
 
As soon as we got into our hotel room, no lie, I started combing the room for bugs…  I have no idea what a "bug" looks like, and I have no idea where someone would hide such a thing, but I gave it my best shot…
 
As we wandered through the city that evening, I flanked the other two, with my mechanical pencil in my breast pocket, hoping it would be an effective shank in a dire situation.
 
Despite what may seem like paranoia, the fact is, threats are being made, phones are being tapped, lives have been claimed.  And I have little doubt that some reading this email are not really interested in "prayer support"
 
But today we met an amazing woman.  Her husband was brutally tortured and killed because his service was viewed as a threat to a way of life.  Yet from the second she heard the news, she felt no hatred for her husband's killers.  Instead, she forgave them.  When the courts allow her to speak to the men who murdered her father, her daughter wants to hand them a New Testament and share with them the hope she has within her.
 
This woman trusts.  She trusts that God called her family to this city in the first place, and that God has called her remaining family to stay.  She trusts that God is in control, and that "unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds" (John 12:24).
 
As Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the Promised Land trusting that God would give the land to his descendants, she trusts God to bury her husband's body in the city that claimed his life.  They're not leaving.
 
She knows that the only safety is found in unyielding obedience to the Almighty God.
 
This summer, we live in a country of a thousand conspiracy theories.  And the disarming thing is that many of them are probably true.  Precautions must be taken.  Wisdom must be heeded.  But God is the Lord of Turkey.  He plans the rise and fall of nations.  Only He can not only allow, but in fact plan, the death of His Son to bring salvation to the entire world.  Only He can not only allow, but in fact plan, the death of his servants to be the seed of the church in a land of darkness.

Well... it seems the day-to-day life I described in Monday's blog has already gotten the best of me and I have been unable to organize my thoughts in a manner worthy of a proper production diary! 

So instead of a neat and tidy summary of the process of making the film, I will share excerpts of my "update letters" which I sent intermittently to inform friends and family of the film's progress along the way. 

First up is a blog that I wrote a few days before Nolan arrived in Turkey and we began filming.

Into the Wardrobe

Most of the time, it seems like I have a pretty normal life. I wake up sometime between 7:15 and 7:30 and get to work sometime between 5 minutes early and 20 minutes late. I teach algebra to students who don’t particularly want to learn algebra. I get home sometime between 5:00 and 5:30 and surf the internet for an hour or so; maybe I go to a coffee shop and meet friends; maybe I go to something at church. I wait for the weekend. Not too boring, not too exciting. Pretty normal.

Some days though, I catch a whiff of a certain something in the air that reminds me of that summer. Maybe it’s the smell of fried food in a cart downtown, or maybe its the way the wind carries the scent of Lake Austin on a hot summer day. Sometimes I just sit and stare at my desktop picture: in the foreground a string of flags tied to the rail of a ferry boat, extending upwards into the sky; in the background the silhouette of the Istanbul skyline against the setting sun.

Instantly, I am transported back to Narnia. I leave behind the humdrum of schooldays and alarm clocks and and return to that summer. At times it’s hard to remember that yes, it really did happen; this isn’t just a story I heard or a film I saw or a blog I read. For whatever reason, God chose two of the unlikeliest candidates to have a front row seat to what He is doing in Turkey: a 21 year old film student and a 24 year old school teacher. He might as well have sent a shepherd boy with a sling to face a giant. Yet, as we have seen again and again, it must have been our unlikeliness that made us God’s obvious choice for the task. He seems to get more glory that way.

Over the next week, I will share the story of how Malatya was made with one blog post every day, leading up to the April 18th, the National Day of Prayer for Turkey. Please follow along to hear the story for yourself and share the story and the film with your friends and family. 

The story of the Malatya martyrs has changed our lives. and we believe God could use it to change your life as well.

--Steve Husmann, Producer

 Below is a Press Release that we've distributed to relevant media contacts.  If you have contacts in the media who would be interested in this, please do pass along this URL to them.

RE-RELEASE OF EXPLOSIVE FILM SPOTLIGHTS CHRISTIAN KILLINGS IN TURKEY 

Marks Anniversary of Slayings, Deep Cultural Divide in Nation

Welcome to the new website!

We are still working out the kinks and adding pages, but please look around the site, watch the videos, download some banners, flip through the digital booklet - whatever you'd like. And remember, keep coming back to this blog for future updates about the film, related news, stories from Turkey, reflections on suffering, and more!