We were in the middle of Nevada on scenic Highway 80, headed west for Pacific Union College in Angwin, California. I was driving a late 50s Chevy station wagon painted highway-cone orange and affectionately dubbed “The Carrot.” With me were 5 or 6 college students from BYU. We were on our way to a weekend at PUC to perform 3 short stage plays that I had either written or adapted as part of a creative thesis in drama.
My thesis was to study Seventh-day Adventists’ reaction to a simplified stage technique called Reader’s Theater. SDAs are typically thought of as being against most forms of drama, and I had created a study to see if they might be open to something less theatrical but equally educational and entertaining.
Back to Highway 80 westbound. We were about 220 miles into our 800-mile trip and chatting among ourselves aimlessly, as college students are apt to do now and then. I don’t remember exactly what we were discussing, at the moment that I happened to glance into my rear view mirror. The sight was not entirely welcome—a spectacular cloud of blue smoke spewing out of the rusty tailpipe of “The Carrot.” Hmm, could be cause for concern, I thought to myself. When I alerted my crammed-in cast of our situation, everyone turned back and verified that there was indeed a thin blue cloud stretching back toward the distant mountains of Utah.
Well, as providence would choose to have it, we were just passing an Enterprise rental car office on the right and coming up on a local wrecking yard. That is where we pulled in and obtained permission to leave “The Carrot” until after the weekend’s activities.
What to do now? Well, prayer seemed like a good start. After that, I picked the most respectable looking girl of the group named Becky and we began the walk back to the rental car office. Fortunately I had shaved that morning and was dressed neatly. Becky too was well-groomed, so we gave the appearance of a respectable young couple in a jam. With God’s help I’m sure, I was able to rent a much newer and better-running vehicle for the rest of our journey. We all managed to squeeze into a somewhat smaller vehicle and took turns breathing until we reached Reno, Nevada. Here, one of the boys had a family who took pity on us and let him take a family car. That allowed us to resume our journey west in much greater comfort.
Well, long story short, we performed in the PUC music hall for Friday night, Sabbath morning, and ended on Saturday night with a standing ovation. All had gone well performance-wise, and I successfully collected all my reaction sheets for my thesis and all was well—sort of.
The pressing need now, was how to get home? Well, we had informed our audiences of our need, and one of the students told his parents, who took pity on us and sold us an older model station wagon for $1. Thus began a series of gifts from God, through people I didn’t even know.
Another incident happened some 20 years later, after we had finished rewriting and producing an audio dramatization of The Pilgrim’s Progress. God had impressed me to put our script into book form, and I was nearly finished with the manuscript. But how to package and publish it? Our family had grown to 5, and we were pioneering a piece of property in the foothills of Northern California. Any funds we had were either spent or allocated to building materials.
What to do? Well, prayer seemed like a good start. Then came the phone call. Was I Jim Pappas? Yes, I was. Had I produced The Pilgrim’s Progress Audio Drama? Yes, I had. Could she and her husband pay us a visit? Yes, they could. At the end of their visit, after spending the night in an unfinished bedroom in an unfinished house, the dear lady thanked us for our hospitality and left, giving us a check for $25,000. That check enabled us to publish The New Amplified Pilgrim’s Progress complete with cover art by the world-famous artist Nathan Greene.
So here I am again, trying to produce something that I have no visible means of bringing to fruition. At my present pace of recording volunteer actors, and catching snippets of time to edit, it looks like many years downstream before I’ll be able to release Joseph: Prince of Pain, Master of Mercy to the world.
But having been in this place more than a few times before, I already know that God will make a way. Help will come! From what source and in what form, I cannot anticipate. The most likely scenario is that God will impress some person of means to provide the funding for hiring additional help, for post-production expenses, and for music editing and composition.
I’ve embarked on the biggest project of my life, and when finished it will certainly be the “Magnum Opus” of my career in sacred drama. It’s an exciting journey I’m on, and you are certainly invited to join our mailing list, if you’d like to keep up with or be a part of production miracles as they happen. Thank you for your interest, and may God bless and prosper you to your benefit and to His glory and praise.
Until next we meet, walk with God.
Jim Pappas
Author/producer
Leave a Reply