When I first became a follower of Christ twenty-one years ago, I decided on a career change. I decided I wanted to become a missionary. My role models were limited. I remembered having read a book about Albert Schweitzer, who had gone to Africa to care for people’s medical needs. However, I was not a doctor, nor was I a likely candidate for medical school.
Using My Talents
My second thought was to teach people in poor countries how to be better farmers. I’m not sure why I would have thought of that since I had never farmed in my life. I suppose I was motivated by the strong desire to help people. To prepare for this goal, I spent several weeks during late September and October on different farms in Europe to get a feel for agriculture. I was undone by two grim realities: farmers typically get up for work at the hour in the morning I was used to going to bed; secondly, there is a necessary monotony related to farming that my quixotic soul could not embrace. I remember being on one farm in Denmark where I spent most of my time daydreaming about the Vikings and looking in the earth for their artifacts.
Still, I wanted to be a missionary…
That winter of my discontent as a wannabe farmer, I spent several weeks in L’Abri (a Christian retreat center in Switzerland founded by the late Francis Schaeffer). The admissions counselor was happily surprised when I revealed that I had gone to college to study filmmaking and had worked in the field for several years in New York City. “Using your training and talent as a filmmaker will be a great way to serve Christ!” he gushed. I immediately began to sulk. I had already decided this was the last thing God wanted me to do. However, the idea gradually took hold on my imagination, until that idea became Messenger Films.
Twenty-one years later, I’m walking through the bush on a game farm located forty miles outside Johannesburg, South Africa. It is late in the afternoon and the sun is setting. I am alone with my thoughts. I had come to the game farm from Durban where our film, Final Solution, was shown at the Durban International Film Festival. The audience wasn’t very big, but the impact was significant. Many had been swept up in the story, and considered it a truly African story. “This is the way things were in our country during apartheid,” was a typical comment. Numerous people came to me and shook my hand, thanking me for making the movie. Some of them had tears in their eyes. I’ll never forget the Hindu gentleman who said to me, “Everyone in our country should see this film.”
In August, of 1988, while shooting a film in Mexico, I had came across an international version of Time magazine that featured an article about a white South African, Nico Smit, who with his wife had defied apartheid by living in a black township. He was a man of conviction; a clergyman who had undergone his own metamorphosis from racist to ambassador for Christ. I was myself profoundly convicted that apartheid in South Africa was wrong and should be changed.
As we shot the final scenes in Mexico City, it was becoming hard for me to focus on the task at hand. Images from this other story kept coming to mind. Something stirred inside me as I thought of making a new film that would show God’s love and healing power transforming hardened hearts. But life has its twists and turns, so it was not until 1992 that we began to initiate serious research into the possibility of making a feature film in South Africa. I took four survey trips to the country between 1993 and 1996. I met Nico Smit personally and interviewed him, as well as dozens of other people, in an effort to find just the right story to develop into a film. When I finally met Moses Moremi and Gerrit Wolfaardt, the two people on whose lives Final Solution is based, I discovered the basis for a story that would demonstrate the truth that former enemies can become the closest of friends, when love replaces hatred in the human heart.
The first draft of Final Solution appeared in late 1994. Approximately seven re-writes followed, and several grand announcements about the “beginning of principal photography on location in South Africa.” By the end of 1999, however, the film was no closer to being shot than before. No matter. God was right on time — according to His timetable.
In January of 2000, the project received new impetus (read “money”) and the race was on again. I wrote an all-new draft of the script in March, went to South Africa for casting decisions and location scouting in April, and was back in South Africa in May for commencement of principal photography. As dawn broke on May 15th, Gary Wheeler (producer) and I looked at each other and smiled. It was “camera, lights, action” all the way. First day of filming. And while we both knew that a battle was just beginning, we also knew that a major campaign had been won.
Telling the Story
I could never have imagined on that warm day in Mexico, nearly twelve years earlier, that the fulfillment of a vision could involve so many fitful starts, disappointments, and defeats. I think if I had known even a small part of what lay ahead, I would have been on the next ship to Tarshish.
At the same time, I can unequivocally say that one purpose of the intervening years had been to bring me to that place where God wanted me to be as a director — humbled by events and circumstances, and dependent on Him for the grace and help I would need, moment-by-moment, to navigate the waters ahead.
Filming was finished in South Africa on schedule a month later. And the story that riveted our Durban Film Festival audience was finally in the can:
The indoctrination of Gerrit Wolfaardt (played by Jan Ellis) is complete: his family traditions, history, culture — even his church — have taught him that black South Africans are a cancer in the land. Under the eye of prominent members of the government and military, Gerrit develops a diabolical plan to rid South Africa of its “black danger”. Before his plans can be carried out, he meets two people who will put him on a collision course with his future: Celeste (Liezel van der Merwe), an open-minded university student, and Peter Lekota (John Kani), a pastor who challenges Gerrit's prejudice.
His “final solution” meets its greatest obstacle when Gerrit himself realizes he is wrong. The Persecutor becomes the Peacemaker and begins to seek reconciliation between whites and blacks. However, in the turbulent last days of apartheid, there are those who doubt his transformation. One such person is Moses Moremi (Mpho Lovinga), whom Gerrit had once violently attacked. In the film's dramatic conclusion, it is Moses who must choose between peace and bloodshed. Repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation: God's final solution.
A Light to the Nations
As I was walking through the bush, I felt as if God were saying to me, “You have been a missionary to Africa.” It had been ten years since I had begun work on the movie. I could look back over those years and count victories and defeats; hopes dashed and dreams fulfilled; immense suffering in my family. I thought of missionary stories I had heard — years spent in another country with no converts won to the Lord and one’s own family perishing from disease or mental breakdown. A missionary to Africa? Me? But it was in the past perfect tense — “have been.” Was my work over?
Well, yes, my work as the creator of the film is over. Others will carry on with the task of distributing the movie. At 8 P.M. on December 16th local time, Final Solution will be broadcast in its entirety to the nation of South Africa over the SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation). December 16th is a national holiday in South Africa — the Day of Reconciliation. The estimated viewing audience is 20 million people.
I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness… See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare… (Isaiah 42:6, 7, 9a)
I believe that from the day I cried out to the Almighty to serve Him as a missionary, He began to order my steps that I might realize this desire of my heart. In the intervening years I have been able to perceive the path dimly; there has been just enough light to make the journey one step at a time. (Sometimes, it has been pitch black everywhere and there has been nothing to do but sit still.) If I have been a missionary to Africa, I haven’t done it alone. This accomplishment has required donors, counselors, prayer warriors, and the sacrifices made by my own family for me to journey far and wide for the kingdom.
I believe the movie will be seen eventually throughout the world. Some will receive Christ as a result; others will begin (or continue) their journey of faith. All will feel the love of God because the movie expresses His heart. As for me, the privilege and opportunity to make this film is an answer to prayer — the deepest longing of my heart; namely, that God would choose to work through me to declare His glory to the peoples of the earth.
© Copyright 2003 Catholic Exchange
For more information about Final Solution please visit the Messenger Films website.
