Korean today, Spanish tomorrow

There was a woman in the audience today who benefitted from the Korean translation slides. Tonight we're entering Spanish translations for some folks who are coming tomorrow.

Off and running!

We had our first performance of Beyond the Chariots yesterday, and there was a Mandarin speaker that benefited from our translation slides!

On Friday we'll be adding Spanish translations, that were done through our church, for a group that's joining us.

What a classy cast

I had such a great time working on A Christmas Snow!

I played the role of Claud, who was a side-kick to Martin played by Craig, pictured here. Catherine Mary Stewart, who is beautifully playing the lead, will be here until the very end of shooting, which will be after 2 all-nighters Tuesday and Wednesday.

I also had great conversations with Anthony Tyler Quinn, Muse Watson, and Cameron ten Napel, who's playing the 10-year old daughter of Anthony Tyler Quinn's character, Andrew.

I shared the make-up trailer with Danny Cahill, who was the biggest winner on The Biggest Loser. I was SHOCKED to hear that he'd lost 239lbs. He doesn't look like he's ever been overweight in his life. It was so great that he was cast as... the food critic! Brilliant!

The crew was also amazing. Everyone on set was on top of their craft and a joy to work for or with!

My last scene

It's been such a blast to be a part of A Christmas Snow (www.Facebook.com/AChristmasSnow)! Can't wait to see the final product!

My trailer on the set of A Christmas Snow

Crossed the Gulf

I'd flown into Houston before, but always from the north. Coming in from the Gulf of Mexico was a completely different, breath-taking experience.

Crossing the Gulf

I'm now crossing the Gulf of Mexico, en route to Tulsa, where I'll play Claud in the upcoming film, A Christmas Snow.

Here's the video that announced me playing Claud in the film:

Too cool for school

The students here at Christian Clearwater College look out over Tampa Bay for their meals. How cool is that?

Not as cool as what happened last night: At the beginning of my Big Fish Little Worm performance I told the campus how I walked forward after a chapel speaker at my alma mater, George Fox University, invited us to show the Lord that we'd go anywhere He called us. I told the audience that on my walk to the altar I told God I'd be glad to go anywhere, but put in a request that it not be a big city. For 16 years I have LOVED living in New York City, the largest in the US.

[I happened upon this post seven years later, and it's unfinished. I'm guessing several came forward to indicate they'll go wherever the Lord calls them. That happened en masse at a George Fox chapel in 2016.]

Quite a night

During last night's performance I was joined by Coertze Peters, a mime from South Africa that did a piece on Haiti that had everyone in tears. Also, on one of his only days in Florida between an extensive trip to Asia and moving to TN to play Jesus in a long-running musical was David M Sanborn and his mother, Ellen Sanborn. They wrote a song commemorating YWAM's 50th anniversary which they performed at the top of the show. Ellen's husband, Art, who was paralyzed at the same level as Christopher Reeve, stood to his feet and raised a ram's horn for my Gideon piece. His story is told in his book, Walking Miracle.

This is the amazing family that produced Judah Ben Hur in Singapore, where I got to play Simonides, Pilate, and a few other minor roles.

Also at last night's performance was Randi, who introduced me to Sanborns and Barb, who introduced her to the Sanborns. It was a mini Judah Ben Hur reunion!

The Foreigner

While preparing to produce The Foreigner we discovered insurmountable problems with making it work for our program. We're going to produce The Miracle Worker instead. Visit RichDrama.com/TheMiracleWorker for more information.

Good morning Clearwater

Sunrise over Tampa Bay.

RichDrama.com/Itinerary

@FL

Balmy

Everyone's complaining about it being so cold here, and it's true that I probably won't swim in the Gulf of Mexico on this trip... but I'm not wearing a coat tonight. After dodging snow banks this morning it's not bad at all.

RichDrama.com/Itinerary

The Gulf of Mexico

This is as much of the Gulf as I'll see on this trip... Unless we're hit with a heat wave!

Loved the Love Feast

At our church's Love Feast this morning our pastoral team and board served the rest of the congregation. I sensed the Lord's love flowing through us in such a palpable way! We had a visiting band so our weekly musicians could be served, and one of the first songs the visiting band sang was He Loves Us. As we sang, I sensed the Lord's great Love for us all, and I was on the verge of tears the whole rest of the morning.

Later, I helped serve communion in the role of Jesus. While I was handing out the homemade matzo I sensed very clearly that the Lord wanted me to hug a recent widow, to show her He was thinking of her on this first Valentine's Day without her husband. I followed the impulse, and later I told her about it. She said, "I prayed for that," and we both burst into tears.

Prepping for a Love Feast

This morning our church's pastoral team and board is serving a Valentine's breakfast to our congregation: www.WestchesterChapel.org.

Korean translations

A couple of years ago I was flying from Chicago to NYC and struck up a conversation with the people sitting next to me. I told them I'd be performing Beyond the Chariots in China during the Beijing Olympics, and I mentioned that it was my dream to have the play translated into many languages since people come from all over the world for the Olympics. The gentleman on the aisle said, "I think our church would translate it into Korean." They did! And there were Koreans who were able to undertand the play during those performances during the '08 Olympics.

I told the gentleman, Moon, that I couldn't possibly pay them for their time, but I would be glad to offer a performance of the play at their church. I was able to share the fruit of their labors on Sunday in Chicago!

After the play we went out for some amazing Korean BBQ. Yum! After dinner I was given the shirt I'm displaying in the photo with Mrs. Cho, one of the three translators. The other two were her husband, Rev. Cho, and Moon.

Director Talks About A Christmas Snow

A Tulsa news channel interviewed Tracy Trost, the director of A Christmas Snow, in which I've been cast in the role of Claud.

Music from Beijing

A woman attended my acting workshops in Goshen, IN, who works in China. She told me about this album, which was produced by the Beijing International Christian Fellowship, where I performed during the '08 Olympics. It was their lead elder I bumped into in Phoenix, OR, population 4,060: What are the chances?

The CD includes western and Chinese instruments for a truly unique experience.

Heading out of IN

We're driving north to Chicago this morning to perform Beyond the Chariots (www.RichDrama.com/BeyondtheChariots) for the church that translated it for performances during the Beijing Olympics, where we had audience members that benefitted from it!

We're investing now in performances of the play during the Vancouver Winter Olympics later this month, and we'd love for you to partner with us: www.RichDrama.com/Olympics.

Deadline today

Today is the deadline for the Christians in Theatre Arts Sketch Writing Competition: Write a sketch for the world!

Pray for cultural influencers

I receive daily prayer updates for the top 365 cultural influencers on the corporate and artistic sides of media. It's put out by MasterMedia (www.MasterMediaIntl.org), and their president, Larry Poland will be one of our master class instructors at MasterWorks (www.MasterWorksFestival.org) this summer.
Today's entries made me want to share this resource here...
-----Original Message-----
From: Dr.Larry Poland
Sent: Friday, February 05, 2010 3:46 AM
To: Mr and Mrs Rich Swingle
Subject: Daily MLPC: February 05, 2010
Got A Minute?

February 5, 2010

Thank you for taking time to pray for today's people on the Media Leader Prayer Calendar.
Media Leader: Michael Bostick
(Corporate) CEO Walden Media & Bristol Bay, Chronicles of Narnia, Amazing Grace
Cultural Influencer: Sandra Bullock

If you would like to get more information about today's media leader
or cultural influencer, so that you can pray more effectively, you may want to visit:
www.Google.com - do a name search for articles, news, and photos.
www.imdb.com - for biographical information, photos and credits.

Do you know someone who would be interested in joining us in praying for media? Feel free to forward this email to them and encourage them to log into the Mastermedia website at www.mastermediaintl.org and sign up to receive the Media Leader Prayer Calendar daily reminders.

Pain free!

Our first enacted prayer at last night's workshop (www.RichDrama.com/ZionWorkshop) was for a woman with pain in her hip. A woman played the woman with pain, and a teenager played the pain. In the enactment God removed the pain and brought the woman into a dance with the Trinity. The woman was moved by the prayer, and I asked her if the pain was gone. She said she had to walk in order to determine that, so she got up and started walking, and then touching her toes. She felt no pain!

What a great way to start the night!!!

Pray for tonight's workshop as we create a sketch through sociodrama: www.RichDrama.com/Workshops.

The View from the Boathouse

I'm in Winona Lake to teach some acting workshops and for he department head meetings on Saturday. Pray for us as we plan MasterWorks 2010!

The Revelation Down Under

The Salvation Army of Australia ran an article on my performance of The Revelation in Sydney.  It's on page 9 of Creative Ministry, October 2009.

Then in January they ran a feature article on my work: Going Solo.

Article on A Christmas Snow

Here's a great article on A Christmas Snow, in which I've been cast as Claud: Filmmaker Tracy Trost Set to Begin Filming 'A Christmas Snow' - Christian Newswire

The Soy Mulkey Moka

I performed at Metolius Friends Church on Sunday. It's pastored by Ron Mulkey. He and his wife, Deb, ran our youth group back in the day.

They're posing in a café which named a drink of his invention after him. He describes that drink in the folowing article, which he recently published in their church newsletter...

Several weeks ago, I came to the office to check on my e-mails. My office computer was running particularly slow, and a box came up on the screen asking if I wanted to report the operations error to Microsoft. I was frustrated so, I sent the report. Immediately the computer screen went dead, no matter what I did the computer screen was a complete blank.

I knew I was in trouble, all my files/documents from the past 12 years of ministry were entombed on the computer's hard drive. Desperate, at this point, I contacted a friend to try and get my computer working. The problem persisted until my computer tower refused to even power up. Finally, I took the computer tower to the local computer repair shop and they reported back to me that my hard drive was blank, no documents, and no files, empty.

What happened, how could this be? The clerk said that most likely a forwarded e-mail message, that I had opened, had an embedded virus that, without my knowledge, slowly ate away, consuming, destroying my operating system, so that after a period of time my computer crashed.

God how can you allow this to happen? Why didn't you protect my computer? After a time of whining and stomping my feet and yelling, "Rats!" and "Corn Flakes!", I returned to reality and asked the Lord is there something here you are trying to teach me?

This is what I've been pondering over for several weeks. How many times do we read or listen to a message filled with fear ("The sky is falling" or "Big brother is out to rob me" or "Terrorist are going to destroy my favorite coffee shop and I'll never be able to have another nectar of the gods, of course a soy mocha, hold the whip cream please and hot, it's cold outside.") Messages that seem reasonable, yet imbedded in the message is a spirit of fear, a spirit of doubt, a spirit of lust, a spirit of selfishness, a spirit of anger, or a spirit of ____________ ( you fill in the blank).

I'm oblivious to the false spirit, I continue to function in my walk with God as in the past, but something's beginning to bog down my life, I'm beginning to struggle in areas I've not struggled in for a while and I'm wondering what's happening. Gradually and steadily, that embedded spirit in my heart eats away at the truths of God's promises and, if unchecked, my soul and spirit crash.

I wonder why, how? And then God reveals that I've welcomed into my life ideas, thoughts, images that have a deeply embedded virus that destroys my relationship with Him. What I need is a cleansing of my heart (the hard drive of my spiritual life). I need to pray the prayer of David, "Search me oh God and know my heart…Test me and know my anxious thoughts…See if there by any offensive way in me…Lead me in the way everlasting." Claim this promise "…He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." Finally, reprogram your life through truth in Christ, "I am the way the truth and the life…" "Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; mediate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it…"

What's the point of this article? Please be cautious of the things that you choose to dwell upon. Check out the source, is it from God or is it from man? And then choose to dwell upon that which strengthens our hearts, encourages our walk with Christ, and causes us to be transforming agents of God's Kingdom to a broken world.

So we come to Philippians 4. Life, peace, joy, truth come from one source; "in Christ," "in the Lord," "the God of peace." A crashed life comes from filling one's mind with thoughts that are embedded with lies, fear, selfishness, lust, pride or anger...

What thoughts are you allowing to enter your mind? Ask God to enable you to focus on truth through your personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Secondly, be cautious of what you choose to dwell upon that is not directly from the Lord, it may be embedded with a virus that will wipe out the hard drive of your soul. Finally, remember this promise "…I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you." May the God of peace be with you, always.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, Rejoice! Let all men know and perceive and recognize your unselfishness (your considerateness, your forbearing spirit). The Lord is near. Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition (definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God. And God's peace which transcends all understanding shall guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. For the rest, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is worthy of reverence and is honorable and seemly, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely and lovable, whatever is kind and winsome and gracious, if there is any virtue and excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on and weigh and take account of these things . Practice what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and model your way of living on it, and the God of peace (untroubled, undisturbed well-being) will be with you. 

Philippians 4:4-9 (Amplified)