I wanted to take a moment today and bring everyone up to speed on the progress we’ve made on the first story Hannah asked me to write into a screenplay. We’ve titled it Hannah’s Dream. The official logline (a one-sentence description of a movie) is: The true story of a gifted Christian woman who escapes persecution in Pakistan and after receiving a prophetic dream of a deadly attack on a church there, learns to use her spiritual gifts to save lives.
As I said before, American me had a lot of learning to do before I could really write this story. I had to learn what it’s like to grow up in Pakistan. One of the first things I did was to watch all of Hannah’s Youtube videos (she had a vlog before that was a thing) so I could get to know her life better. Then, I needed to research the bomb blast of the church in Peshawar. (I learned I had been saying it all wrong. I was pronouncing it Pesh-uh-war, but it sounds more like Puh-shower when said correctly.)
Even after all of the articles that I read and research done, during the writing of the script, I had to constantly pause to do internet searches. What does school look like in Pakistan? What does a school uniform look like (and how is it spelled)?
When Hannah mentioned that she would take walks on the beach with her mom, my first thought was, “There’s a beach in Pakistan?” (I guess having grown up in the surfing mecca of the world, it’s easy to think California has a monopoly on such things.) Again, to the internet I went and was amazed to see you can even ride a camel on the beach there. It seems an amazing place.
Too bad my only recollection of Pakistan was hearing about war zones on the news. In fact, I find myself now with a more vast knowledge of the more morbid things, like how and where bodies are buried, especially after massive bombings when remains are numerous and don’t always come in one piece.
So it is the reality for Pakistan, the wonder and the tragedy. The rich history and the current state of affairs. God knows this place and he loves this people. I hope that through our story and the people who work on and watch the film we hope to see come to fruition, the Christians living there can be helped and delivered to a new life.