By Gregory E. Meeres

These Vancouver-based filmmakers (left to right) Gregory Meeres , Amy Robinson and Kevin Shannon spent several weeks in Africa last month, gathering footage for a film with the working title Paths of Dust and Hope. The purpose, writes Meeres, “was to follow two green missionaries as they worked on a Water Filtration Project in Zimbabwe and an HIV/AIDS Education theatre program in Mozambique.” They also hoped to work elsewhere in Africa. However, as he recounts in this article, circumstances – and divine providence – took the team in surprising new directions. The film, with its new focus, will be released some time this year.

WE HAD put almost eight months into planning all the details, and thought we were ready. But as the departure date for Kevin Shannon and I approached, those plans started to come apart.  

With one phone call, our plans for Zimbabwe were tossed. The political climate there had reached a critical point and it was no longer safe for us to enter the country.  

I was told, by a BBC colleague in South Africa, that a white man attempting to cross the border with a camera would face 50 years in prison. That’s a pretty long time without Hockey Night in Canada.  

Around the same time, we learned from  our missionary colleague Amy Robinson that a ministry we were counting on to produce an HIV/AIDS theatre program in Mozambique had no resources to spare.

“You gotta be kidding,” we thought.  All that planning, all that effort – for what?  

Kevin and I frantically tried to force something together.  But in the end, we took the advice of many around us and went to Mozambique without a plan.

“Trust in God,” they said. “His plans are always greater than our own.” Wouldn’t you know it? They were right.

Instead of the HIV/AIDS education project, our focus became five stories of young men who are not only changing their lives, but are changing the face of their country.

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It is through Jeff Hakes and the young men of Project Benjamin that I see hope for Mozambique. And it is through God that I see these men, and tell their stories. God had taken care of all the details; his plan was perfect.

The stories we captured rose up like a phoenix out of the ashes . We had no idea that the muddy waters of ideas and misconceptions were the exact thing we had to wade through to find the gold in the lives of these young men and women of Mozambique. The ‘fatherless generation,’ the first generation of educated Mozambicans, the joy of a nation bound by horrific cycles of poverty and sickness, all came through before the lens of our cameras.

We spent time with Admiro, our young law student, in Costa de Sol at the small village where he grew up. We spent time with Pedro at his college where he is studying engineering; we listened to his testimony, his hope to one day be the dad he never had, to be the father who never leaves.

We followed Calisto to the market, where Jeff was teaching him how to responsibly handle finances. We prayed with Seraphim to find the funds to build his first house, to provide a home for his future family.

We laughed with and eagerly listened to the profound words of Filomena’s poetry and her story of what it is to be a 22 year old woman in Mozambique. We sang with Maria, grandmother of many children abandoned by her own sons and daughters.

We clapped and shared the joy when we found out Almero passed his first semester of grade seven and when Verdiano graduated and became a certified mechanic.

And we cried when we saw and heard the broken hearts of our beloved brothers and sisters, and how desperately they wanted to see a better Mozambique for their children.

This is what the Lord has done. He works all things for good and never gives us anything he knows we can’t handle. And this is the story of the possible beyond the impossible.

- Additional reporting by Amy Robinson

pathsofdustandhope.com

Winter/Spring 2008