Submitted by: Omar Miranda
It all began in 2002. I was doing a lot of counseling for a community agency that dealt with families and children in horrible situations.
I wrote a story, “Soul War: The Beginning,” as a way to answer the questions of the kids, teens, and parents whose lives were being destroyed by pain, conflict, divorce, crime, sin, death, and sometimes just straight-up evil. More specifically, this is a project that would be able to answer the questions of those people who are interested in Christianity, but believe the devil's lies saying God created evil, sin, pain and death, and it’s all His fault.
The story opens with Satan and his generals in God’s throne room in Heaven. They are gloating about Adam and Eve’s recent decision to sin. The story is a dramatic, humorous, but always insightful look into the plan of salvation and the great controversy. It features a lot of Christian, and specifically Seventh-day Adventist, theology and doctrine.
Everybody who read the story absolutely loved it and told me the same thing: “Omar, you should totally turn this into an audio book, a movie, or a graphic novel!” I thought it was a great idea, because, to be honest, I didn’t think a lot of kids and teens were interested in reading 17 pages of writing. But, one thing stood in my way — money!
I began to feverishly pray about it. I felt God wanted me to do the same, so I spent a lot of years, on and off, contacting schools and organizations to see if they would be interested in recording and/or performing this play … for free! Nothing happened.
Well, days turned into weeks and weeks into months … fast-forward 15 years later.
It was late 2016. I was frustrated and couldn’t stop feeling that I was letting God down. So, without any prior experience, I created a website on my own, posted the story, and reached out to Chad Mutchler, a fellow Calhoun, Georgia, Church member and musician. I asked if he would be willing to write at least one original song for the story. Little did I know that Chad would totally blow me away with his creative mind, his vision, his enthusiasm, and most of all, his connections!
All the glory goes to God, because in one-and-a-half years things came together. Chad and I partnered financially with our local church in Calhoun, and God consistently showed up. Both the illustrator and the composer of the original music score work for some prestigious clients. Through God’s miraculous work and timing, we got their services for a fraction of the cost.
Lastly, the members of our own local church in Calhoun gave us tons of prayers, their voices, acting talents (all voices except one are from our church), and more importantly, their money.
This dramatized audio story entitled “Soul War” (http://soulwar.org) is now a reality. It has a totally interactive website.Visitors can listen to the full story, as well as download and personalize evangelistic materials for their local area. They can also search for the closest local Adventist church, interact with additional Bible study resources, and donate toward future stories or episodes.
This is an amazing worldwide evangelistic digital opportunity that has surpassed all of our team’s dreams.
I know that my trust and faith in God has been stretched and strengthened, and I can’t wait to see what miracles God has in store in the future.
Georgia-Cumberland | August 2018
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