What a wonderful season in our Church we have entered. Though this is a time of prayer and fasting and much self sacrificing, we can also look at Lent as a joyous time. Fasting from things that lead us to sin and being stripped of our selfishness, pride, vanity, ect... will bring joy into our lives. For we have recognized the vices and use this time to ask God to heal those areas. No longer are we living in the dark, but we are living in the light and walking in God's will. What could be more joyous than that? So rather than looking at fasting with an attitude of "man I have to give up_____ for 40 days! ," look at it as a time to grow deeper with our Savor!
Carlos Showing Stephen
At Lumen for .5 seconds we thought about giving up Cuban Coffee, but who are we kidding? Instead we are praying about what God wants us to do as a company during these next 40 days!
Today we had an office packed with volunteers and meetings. We are jazzing up our website for the Spiritual Adoption! So far we have 409 babies Spiritually Adopted! Please continue to tell your family and friends! Our goal is to get 1,370,000.00 adopted. Please don't hesitate to ask anyone!
Below are some pictures from today and we also released our 2nd Fruit Basket video
Enjoy the pictures and the video. Don't forget to get some Cuban Coffee
in this weekend, unless you gave it up for Lent. Have a blessed weekend
and we will see you Monday! ~Lumen Crew
We play "Kill the Ant" game to pass the time as we wait on scenes to be finished...
February has arrived with a bang! It's only February 3rd and much has happened here at the office and in the states. At Lumen we were a little excited to hear that the Komen foundation defunded Planned Parenthood, but then our joy was turned to sorrow when the news came they reversed their decision. So now it's back to praying for the Susan G. Komen foundation and that their eyes and hearts will be opened to the truth behind Planned Parenthood.
In other news, today we began to film for a side project "The Fruit Basket." Tune back in on Wednesday February 8th(next week) for all the details. Until then we have pictures to share with you below. You can also visit ourFacebookpage to view all the pictures. As you begin your weekend, don't forget to have some Cuban Coffee. We pray you have a blessed and joy filled weekend. Don't forget to laugh and share a smile with a stranger. ~Lumen Crew
Good Morning from the Lumen Crew to you! The above picture was taken as the sun was rising this morning(2/26/12). We realize we have said we would share pictures form the march around the Jacksonville Courthouse, but we have had some computer issues and lost our pictures. We are in the process of fixing our computer and retrieving our pictures. Please pray for that!
This morning we want to share with you Christ's Joy! We pray the Holy Spirit will fill you with His peace, joy, and love. May His love radiate from you to those around you, just like the picture above. You all are always in our prayers! Have a wonderful day and we will see you tomorrow for a full blog filled with all the pictures and an update on Skiff and AJ's Fantastic Voyage. Joyfully through Christ~ Lumen Crew.
From Nicol:
So you might be wondering why the title of today's blog is about Poop and what the heck is the picture above... Yesterday(Thursday) Benoit( the owner of the Magnificat Cafe, the restaurant we work above) wanted to trick Brian into thinking there was a rat in the office. When I arrived to work Benoit informed me of the plan and how he was going to place "rat poop" on Brian's desk. Don't worry, there was no rat and it wasn't poop at all! It actually was burnt crust off of a quiche he made that morning. Hearing Brian's disgust and frustration was a great start to the morning! He truly believed our fabricated story and fell into our trap. muhahahahaha! This prank provided great laughter and a joyful start to the day, at least for us maybe not for Brian!
Where did all the bubbles go? As I started to make the Cuban Coffee I realized we didn't have much white sugar. I tried to make it with brown sugar and I was completely unsuccessful. All we had left was sugar packets and it was ok. Note to self, if you have sugar packets, open all of the packets first before making the coffee. As you can see there are no bubbles and the spumitais non-existent in the picture above. :( BUT the good news is it still turned out delicious. So... 2 lessons from this blog.... 1. Brown sugar is not the sugar to use to make the perfect spumita. 2. Make sure all sugar packets are pre-opened before beginning to make the most epic Cuban Coffee!
Please continue to keep Lumen in your prayers and Skiff and AJ's Fantastic Voyage. We pray you have a wonderful and joyful weekend! Don't forget to laugh a lot and have some Cuban Coffee. Cheers ~Lumen Crew
What a wonderful feast day in our Church. We pray that you have had a great weekend and our enjoying your Monday. It's been a quiet day in the office for the most part. Brian and Carlos are working extremely hard on editing Skiff and AJ's Fantastic Voyage. Nicol is busy updating our data base and working on the final amount that was raised during the month of December. We realize we said we would have the total last week, but more checks are still coming in. PRAISE GOD! We know we have met our goal for the fundraiser. We are truly grateful for all of your financial donations!
Song of the Week:Marvelous Light Sung by Thomas and Timothy
Challenge of the Week:Now that Christmas has officially ended on the Church calendar, are you still radiating Christ's peace and joy from Christmas? Remember Christmas peace and joy isn't found just in one season, but it is meant to be spread year around.
Quote of the Week:"Give me grace, O Lord, to do as you command, and command me to do what you will!" St. Augustine
Scripture of the Week: "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God."~1Corinthians 10:31
Prayer Requests for the Week:
1. For Skiff and AJ's Fantastic Voyage
2. All who are working on Skiff and AJ's Fantastic Voyage
3. Continue financial and spiritual support of Lumen Entertainment
4. All of our benefactors
5. Lord will bring people to us to help complete Skiff and AJ's Fantastic Voyage
We pray you have a wonderful and an abundantly blessed week. ~Lumen Crew
This week it seemed instead of Jesus multiplying the fishes and loaves, He multiplied papers! We are working on mailing out over 2,000 letters containing information on our Final Push fundraiser. With Nicol, Carlos, Ally, Mama Shields, Alex, and Michael working tirelessly and suffering through paper cuts, all the letters were folded and envelopes were labeled! All that is left to do is stuff the envelopes! So who is down for helping next week? Anybody Anybody? :)
All the Letter folded! Take with Instagram
Some of the letters
It was fun having everybody in the office! We had great laughs, conversations, and of course Cubano Coffee! If you are here in Jacksonville, FL and would like to donate your time, email us at info@lumen.tv to let us know if you can make it! Below are pictures from the past week! We pray you all have a wonderful weekend and may it be filled with much joy! ~Lumen Crew... Oh yeah! Don't forget to pray for us and for our mailing!!! Thanks!
Androids and iPhones are becoming more popular as each day passes. The number of people who use different social networking sites is on the rise. For about the last 6 months or more people have been very fond of "checking in" where ever they may be. Some people even check in at their own house! Here at the office we looked at this comic and it got us wondering, "How often do we check in with God through out the day and/or week?" Some people may have a very good and deep prayer life, but the reality is most Catholic-Christians and Christians do not spend more than 5 minutes in prayer a day. As a society we spend numerous hours on the computer, phones, iPod, iPad, and in front of the television, but not much time is alloted to our Heavenly Father who created us. Our Father loves us so much and it brings Him joy when we check in with Him through out the day. There are many ways to check in with Him. It could be as simple as, "Hi Jesus", "I Love you Jesus", "Thank you Jesus." Maybe take 10 minutes out of your day and dive into the Scriptures. If you have the chance to visit Him in Adoration or daily Mass, even better! Though our lives may be hectic, there is always time to check in with our Heavenly Father. Even though there are football games on, different fall festivals to attend this weekend, and the list can go on, try to "Check In" with Jesus this weekend, outside of Sunday Mass :)
We hope you have a great weekend! Please continue to pray forLumen Entertainment, for the film, everyone who is working on the film, and for our monetary needs. Thank you and have a wonderful and blessed weekend. ~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
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
