Tell us a bit about your backgrounds
Amanda: We grew up in several different places. We made our first move so Dad could go to Bible college. Dad pastored a couple of churches and even started one church before our Grandma suffered a severe stroke. At that point, we moved to Kalamazoo, MI to take care of her and Grandpa. We were there for ten years until our Grandpa passed away. Justin and I were homeschooled from Kindergarten through 12th grade. Justin began college prerequisites for nursing school in his senior year of high school. Instead of going to college right away, I started work at a family-owned business, Boonzaaijer Bakery. My experiences there with the regular customers that showed up the same time every week really influenced The Wednesday Morning Breakfast Club. After five years there, I began classes at a community college and got an Associates in Arts degree.
Tell us a bit about your faith journeys
Amanda: I made a confession of faith and was baptized
when I was quite young. In my teens and early twenties, I went through a lot of
doubts and questions about my faith. Had I been sincere? Did I really believe
or was I just trying to please my parents? Was the Bible truly inerrant and
inspired? How do I answer all those skeptics? All of these questions drove me
to read the Bible and read a lot of books by people like C.S. Lewis, G.K.
Chesterton, Josh McDowell and others. After several years of this, I was able
to put my questions and doubts to rest and begin to enjoy my relationship with
Christ. I am actually very thankful for the experience. It’s given me
a lot to write about. Case in point, my first novel The Pursuit of Elizabeth
Millhouse. The best part is that I’ve seen the things I write be
a huge encouragement to other Christians who are struggling with the same kinds
of things.
Justin: When I was a VERY little kid I made a simple
profession of faith and followed in baptism a few years later. The only reason
I followed in baptism was because the church we were going to at the time didn’t let
you partake of communion unless you were baptized. Needless to say, though I
knew all the right answers my profession of faith was clearly not a heart
matter. I went through periods of doubt and frequently asked God to “save me” just to make sure I was saved. Gradually I
became involved in secret sins while keeping my “good boy” appearance at church. The fact that I
shamelessly engaged in these sins without even a prick of the conscience nor a
sense that I had offended my God finally began to bother me. I realized that I
had not repented of my sin and I did not have a personal relationship with
Christ. During a baptismal service I read through some of the testimonies of
the people being baptized and I became so overwhelmed with a sense of guilt and
conviction. I was not right with God. While sitting in the empty sanctuary
after the baptism I confessed my sin and believed that Christ died for my sin
for the first time. It was a rough few months after that because I realized for
the first time that my life had to be transformed and the sins I engaged in
before had to stop.
How did you get involved in
scriptwriting/directing?
Amanda: When I first began to write, my only ambition
was to write novels and short stories. But then Justin got extremely interested
in filmmaking. Since I was a writer and he wasn’t, it just
made sense that I would write the scripts and he would direct/produce. When I
started writing The Wednesday Morning Breakfast Club, I had no idea what I was
doing. I sort of felt like I was stabbing in the dark. But, thankfully, I had
already written my first novel and had years of practice writing my own
stories. So, half the battle was already won. I knew what a good story looked
like, and I had a great story idea that my Dad had given to me. So I plowed
right in and hoped it would turn out okay!
Justin: I was always interested in film. From the age
of 5... I dreamed of becoming an actor and playing heroes like Roy Rogers. Yeah, I
was a bit different than most kids. I always liked the cowboys better than
X-men, Batman, or Superman. When I got older I didn’t really
see a whole lot of future for making money as a filmmaker and I also didn’t see a
lot of opportunities for Christians to be involved in film. Also, my mindset
was wrong about it for the majority of my growing up years because I wanted to
be famous and have people look up to me. I wanted to be involved in film for
only the glamour and entertainment of it. So, I put it aside as something that
I would only do for fun in my early teen years and pursued getting trained in a
profession that would actually make me money. In 2008 Fireproof came out. I
watched it and was so convicted with the message that I almost cried my way
through the whole movie (and I’m not even married yet). I just didn’t ever
want my marriage to get to the point the main characters did. The message of
that film did a work in my life beyond wanting to have a good marriage. I
realized the influence and power of film and media. It struck me how that film
and media had to this point been used predominantly for evil and was taking our
country and churches down the road of destruction. At that point I decided that
I would resurrect my passion for film with a new perspective. The very next
year I met a fantastic Christian photographer named Seth Haley who's work
enthralled me. I called him shortly after meeting him and asked him if he would
ever consider getting into Christian filmmaking and transferring his talents in
photography to cinematography. He had been thinking about that for some time
and was very interested. So, we started making a bunch of little silly youtube
films to exercise our skills. In 2011 I finally decided it was time to try our
hand at a serious film project. I asked my Amanda to write a script. We only
had a vague clue what in the world we were doing. In 2012 we shot The Wednesday
Morning Breakfast Club. Even though the script was not properly formatted, it
was filmed on only $2000 and all but one of our actors was completely amateur,
I think God had grace on our final product. The result, though technically
flawed at points, is a film that has touched many lives, and that’s what I
prayed we would be able to do.
This was your first film project. What did you learn from the process?
Amanda: Oh, my! I learned that making a film takes a lot of people and a lot of money. I also learned that unless the Lord builds the movie, we labor in vain. There were so many reasons for The Wednesday Morning Breakfast Club to fail, but it didn’t. God helped us and provided all of the things that we needed at just the right time.
Justin: The Wednesday Morning Breakfast Club was my
first REAL project. I learned a whole lot! Wow. Let’s see…I
learned that we should have a bigger budget and that a bigger budget is not
easy to get! We learned how to properly format a script…didn’t know
that before (which is why our plans for a 15 to 20min film ended up being a
49min film). I edited the film, so I learned so much about that process. The
list is endless. There are so many things I hope to be able to do different in
our next film. I think one of the best things we learned from this project is
that we are capable of doing good work…we just need the budget
and more people.
Tell us what inspired the story of WMBC
Amanda: The biggest inspirations for me were ten years living with and taking care of my Grandpa and the years I spent at Boonzaaijer Bakery. Those ten years living under the same roof with my Grandpa were not easy, especially the last two years. Once he lost his mobility due to a stroke, Grandpa could never be at home alone. Towards the end, we had to do everything for him—feeding, bathing and dressing. But the experience taught all of us so much. It taught us how selfish we naturally can be and how precious life is even when it’s contained in a frail, aging body. Also, I think for both me and Justin, seeing the elderly customers come in to the bakery from week to week on their appointed days made an impression on us. We tended to assume they would always be there. But then, one day, they didn’t come in, and we’d find out a few weeks later that they had passed away. I often realized how much I took life for granted. We should never do that, but it’s especially foolish to take our elderly friends for granted. They will be gone before we know it.
What are your thoughts about the way elders are treated in the U.S. and the
state of relations among the generations today?
Amanda: I think it’s sad that so many elderly people end up in nursing homes to wait for the end of their days. Most of these people spent eighteen-plus years raising children, and I think they deserve more than a nursing home from their children. Admittedly, not everyone can take care of their aging parents at home. Still, I think if we could put materialism and love of convenience to death in our lives, there would be fewer nursing and retirement homes in the U.S.
I also believe people need
to get out of the “my age-group”
mentality. In other words, we
would do ourselves a favor to cultivate friendships with people in all
different stages of life. For instance, instead of leaving a church so you can
find more people in your age group to socialize with, stay put and invest
yourself in the people God has put in that church, whether they happen to be 9
years old or ninety-nine years old. Life is so rich when we do that, so less
focused on self.
Justin: As it was mentioned before, I am a nurse and I
work in an acute care setting. I am appalled by what I see in the best of
nursing homes. I refuse to work in the nursing home setting, not because I don’t love
the elderly, but because I cannot provide the level of care that should be
given. The situation is hopeless because of government controls. The majority
receive most of the financial reimbursement from the government. The
reimbursements are pitiful enough that an appropriate amount of staff cannot be
hired or maintained. It’s just a hopelessly broken system. You ask any
nurse, doctor, or social worker if they would ever want to end up in a nursing
home and you’ll get a decided, “no way.” Like my sister said I think we can do better
than this for our parents. It’s just going to take a complete culture/mindset
shift to see this.
What are your plans for the future?
Amanda: My hope is to eventually write more film
scripts. I’m working on Duke Street Productions next
script right now. At this point in my life, writing only provides some of my
living. I write part time and I teach music lessons part time. I would be very
pleased if I could write full time and actually make a decent living from it.
Justin: We have enough script ideas to keep us busy
for the next 20 years. I would love to work on all of them if God is willing to
provide. Investors…if you are reading this article feel free to
contact me! haha.
