It has been an eventful week. We have had more visitors than normal :) The Shield family stopped by and today we have had a crew of amazing people( Michael, David, Ally, Will, Stephen, and Vincent) around the office. It was also National Coffee Day! Which meant we had to Cafe Cubono twice this week!
Cafe Cubano... Nom Nom Nom
The morning was off to a bang! Immediately there was a rubber band war and everybody taking cover. They even used our chapel as a safe place! Below is a video and pictures from the week Enjoy!
IMPORTANT In other important news, please take the time to call your senator today! Today is the last day to voice your opinion on a potential rulingthat will be added to our health care. Let us stand up for truth and justice!
Have a great weekend and we will see you on Monday! God Bless You ~ Lumen Crew
Today's blog is inspired by Brian's 2 year old son Jacob:
Over the weekend Jacob would spin around and then fall. Everyone would start to laugh and he would get right back up and spin around again. Do you remember when you were a child and would enjoy being spun around? There was much joy found in just being silly. To start the week off we thought we would provide some laughter. Enjoy watching! Oh yeah this clearly not Brian's son. May God bless your week abundantly. We are praying for you and we ask you pray for us. :) Lumen Crew
THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY!!! Why are we so happy it's Friday here in the office? 1. End of the Week Day 2. Cuban Coffee 3. St. Padre Pio's Feast Day 4. David and Michael's 20th Birthday
We didn't have candles,so we improvised.
David and Michael At film camp
We have been blessed to have 2 great volunteers and interns over the last couple of years. We are very honored to be able to share their birthday with them. David and Michael have attended are film camp for the last 4 years. They both have a passion for Christ, The Catholic Church, truth, and great films. Along with their brother Stephen,they have a passion to create their own movies. David and Michael are incredibly talented and have been great assets to Lumen Entertainment. Recently David has been helping with creating/finding sound effects for Skiff and AJ's Fantastic Voyage. We are grateful for their presence in our office and we ask that you pray for them on their birthday!
This was today 9/23/11 in the office
Today is also the Feast Day of St. Padre Pio. Padre Pio is dear to our hearts and we ask for his intercession every day in morning prayers.Padre Pio Pray for us! We are looking forward to next week when our 2 new computers arrive to help with completing Skiff and AJ's Fantastic Voyage. We thank you for your prayers! Enjoy some Cuban Coffee and have a weekend filled with much joy and laughter! ~Lumen Crew
About 2 weeks ago the unthinkable happened to my eleven year old baby sister Violet. She fell in a cheer leading stunt at a middle school basketball game and was unconscious for about 20 seconds . She was rushed to Shand’s Trauma pediatric ER where she was diagnosed with a skull fracture, but no swelling or bleeding in the brain. Praise God! My mom and Violet were in the hospital for about 72 hours. I would have to say the scripture above summed up my experience of being there for my sister and family. Violet fell on a Wednesday night and it was not till Sunday that it truly hit me with what occurred to her. All of the what if's began to fill my head and I became very down, hopeless, and fearful. An analogy to describe what was happening inside: Deep inside I was a little girl trying to keep my head above the water and calling out to her Heavenly Father, but hearing no response. I didn’t even want to go to Mass that evening and I normally enjoy going to church. As I sat in Mass, I kept calling out to God to please provide His joy back into my life! After I received Him in Holy Communion there was a drastic change in my emotion. I didn’t feel 100% “myself”, but the sense of drowning was no longer there. That night God provided 2 friends to speak wisdom into my life.
The 1st friend reminded me (though I had heard over 1,000x), but I needed to hear it again, that God never left me or my family. She said “Nicol you keep looking behind you and asking God ‘where are you?’ when all you have to do is look ahead and He is right in front of you. He is guiding you along the way.” Her statement was so simple, but yet it pierced my heart. She encouraged me to continue to express my emotions to our Heavenly Father and walk through them with Him knowing that He is leading me, not behind me.
2 Corinthians 1:3-5
“ Praised be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation! He comforts us in all our afflictions and thus enables us to comfort those who are in trouble, with the same consolation we have received from Him. As we have shared much in the suffering of Christ, so through Christ do we share abundantly in his consolation.”
The 2nd friend He provided gave me the Corinthian’s verse above to cling to. From the moment he began to read this scripture verse to me, I started to feel the presence of our Lord. It was my friend who was talking, but God clearly using Him as His instrument. My friend reminded me, the Lord uses the times we feel helpless to increase our Trust and Hope in Him and Him alone. The Lord also uses these times to take us into a deeper and more intimate relationship with Him. As we continued our conversation, the Joy of Christ began to fill me up and I had energy that I had not experienced all day. Before we got off the phone he reminded me to cling to the Cross and to the scripture verse he gave me. He reminded me that these experiences are not just for me, but God gives them to us for us to be able to have compassion and share with others.
The next morning sitting at the breakfast table, my mom and I began to talk about everything that happened. As she began to express her emotions, tears streamed down her face and I could see and hear the sadness that only a mother can express. As I began to share with her my experience from the previous day, the Lord showed me the message that my friend had given me was not just for me, but for my mom! As I began to tell her my experience and the message I was given, you could see peace overcome her and the anxiety she was expressing leave. Praise God!
I have learned from Violet’s accident that God truly does Glorify Himself in every situation. He does not plan for bad things to happen, but when they do He will glorify Himself and remain true to His promises. As long as we remain faithful and persevere in prayer, He will provide and bestow graces and blessings beyond what we can humanly fathom. I encourage you all that as you go through trials to remain faithful to our Heavenly Father. We may not understand why things happen the way they do, but there is a greater purpose to it. I pray that this 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 will bring you comfort in your life wherever you may be and bring you closer to Jesus. May the Joy of Christ fill your heart! ~Nicol
Pat had been hitting the bottle once again. Father(the priest) sat down with Pat to have a talk. Father took out 2 glasses, he filled one with water and the other with Whiskey. He then took out a worm and he put the worm in the glass of water. The worm swam around as happy as can be. Father then took the worm and placed it in the glass of whiskey and it died almost instantly. Father then turned to Pat and said...
Priest : "Do you get what I am trying to tell you here?"
Pat replied in an Irish Accent: " Aye Father, if you drink whiskey you won't have any worms."
Poor Worm
Written by a guest Blogger today Ally Lynch Pirrung:
"For we brought nothing into the world, just as we shall not be able to take anything out of it." 1 Tim 6:2c - 12 Detachment has been the topic for today. The scripture quote from Timothy pin points the reasoning for why we should be totally detached from everything. I would like to share an example of detachment.
I was altar serving for a funeral one morning. The hospitality president came to me and gave me an envelop. She explained that it was from the family and they wanted to say thank you. When I returned home I opened the envelop and found a substantial amount of money. I was dumbfounded at the amount of money she had given me. I began thinking about getting new glasses, school books, cloths for fall that I would be able to get out of this money. However, in the council of my mother, I was going to call the hospitality lady back just to make sure that the money was in deed for me. As I reached for the phone, it rang. It was the hospitality lady calling me and explaining to me that it was a mistake in giving me the envelop. She asked that I return the money and was coming to pick it up later that evening. I hung up the phone disappointed, but at the same time liberated. I found God in the situation and thanked Him for helping me to let go of my will and hold tighter to His.
Updates:
1. We are continuing to stay in our office space, until we hear differently.
2. On Monday, we realized we needed $12,000 in order to render the movie in a timely fashion. We humanly did not know how to come up with $12,000 so we entered into deep prayer and turned it over to our Lord. On Tuesday afternoon, our prayers were answered and a generous donor is helping to provide the money to order the 2 computers we need! GOD IS GREAT!
3. We now have less than 15 seconds of animation left for Skiff and AJ's Fantasitc Voyage!
We thank you for your continuous support and prayers! Don't forget to spread the news around about Lumen Entertainment. Have a great weekend and don't forget to enjoy some Cubano Coffee :) ~Lumen Crew
As you have read in past blogs, we were having some issues with our main computer. Praise be to God we received our new computer in last week. The Avid computer is our main computer, where all the animation computers share file from. Now, due to the network not fully linked up we've had to share files by using thumb drives! This is an obvious example of if we would call our IT guy to come fix the network we'd have greater efficiency! Why, haven't we? Well. We just think were to busy to! LOL! If I apply it to daily prayer, it is always hard to stop work (being sooooo busy) and go to noon mass. But we do, and God must make our day run better, but we can't always tell, because who knows what sort of inefficiencies we would have run into if we did not go to mass. This could get into a deep conversation about the proper place of efficiency, so I'll leave that for you to ponder.
Have you stopped lately to call your heavenly IT guy? Often times we try to achieve much and keep pushing without taking time for our Lord. But doesn't God seem to expand time when we take the time to adore Him? Lets face it, only He can give us the graces we need to continue to accomplish all of our goals.
Eli is a beautiful, intelligent, forthright 4 year old. Below is a scene from this Morning between her and her Papa.
Papa: Eli don't smile, because it will make me happy
Eli: No smile
Brian: After a few seconds go by and noticing she wasn't budging says "Go ahead Eli give him a smile"
Eli:No Smile
Papa: With another attempt to make her smile he sings..."Nobody loves, everyone hates me, I'm going to eat some worms. Big Fat Juicy ones, tiny little skinny ones, I'm going to eat some worms
Elli: Says to her Papa with a straight face..."Papa eat the big juicy ones first, there are some in the back yard."
Fast forward to 2:17 and even Timon and Pumba agree with Eli!
We have to laugh and admire Eli's perseverance in refusing to give her Papa a smile. As we gathered in the office, we realized we could apply Eli's perseverance to our own lives. When trials and tribulations occur in our lives, do we have steadfast perseverance in prayer and keeping our eyes on Christ? Recently there have been many distractions happening around Lumen's office. The Holy Spirit showed us these trials are distractions and to continue to persevere in prayer. With this revelation, please join us as we pray for the grace and intercessions from the Saints to help us focus and continue to finish Skiff and AJ's Fantastic Voyage. We have 35 seconds left! Have a blessed and wonderful weekend!
