Bedouins International Haiti Film Premier

Keith and I have been doing what we can to help out with a really great non-profit here in Birmingham for almost a year. Honestly, Keith's accounting skills make him way more useful than me, but we really just enjoy getting to be a part of something good and have loved making friends with these guys. The organization is called Bedouins International (to evoke a sense of nomadic wondering . . . not really because it has anything to do with the people group . . .yet). They do photography, videography, web, and graphic design--basically all things media, for missionaries and non-profit groups with really important stories to tell, but no money to tell it well. For these groups, they do the artistic work for free. For other groups that can afford to pay them, they use the money to fund the work the do pro bono. And they are quite talented. Check out their website at bedouinsinternational.org and the founder and photographer, Stephen DeVries' website/blog at stephendevriesphoto.com. 

We will actually be taking a trip with them in May to do a project for an organization that we have known for a long time now called Hearts for the Children, in Guatemala City, Guatemala. We'll be doing a media presentation with still photography and audio to tell the story of a woman whose life has been redeemed by Christ through a project of Hearts for the Children that walks women through a rehab program to get them out of prostitution and a life on the streets. We're pretty excited. If you'd be interested in helping support this trip or the organization, you'll find ways to do that on the Bedouin's website.

All that to say that they recently finished the documentary, Caribbean Gold, they made for an organization down in Haiti that runs a school for children in a remote jungle village and has implemented a strategy to help these people to self-sufficiency by teaching them how to grow and produce vanilla, a crop that when it's producing is more lucrative than cocaine. On Friday night they had a premier of the documentary and a gallery of the amazing photography and Stephen let me take pictures of the evening. Here are the shots he posted on his blog: