Iris After Hours - Episode 19 - Sondra Martin Hicks

welcome to iris after hours casual conversations with inspirational speakers off the clock hello welcome to iris after hours i am here with nathan kotzer come on i'm crystal human and we are excited very excited to introduce our guest sandra martin hicks she is a gifted storyteller she has been making films for over 30 years come on she's a documentary maker award-winning documentary filmmaker an actor originally come on hey what's up that's exciting and are learning things yes what very important thing so many things these are very important things and without further ado we are here with sandra thank you for being here glad to be here sandra welcome thank you thank you for coming out of your way all the way from texas texas come on now all the way now yeah i do apologize i didn't bring my boots but i was afraid to create a shadow on your face nathan oh i mean my hat not my booty i was gonna say how's it gonna do that right here they have big boots man i want to see those boots right here um this is super exciting thank you you've you it's great to have someone who you know has been doing what you're doing for so long and you're obviously a woman of faith um so let's go back let's i would love to start there have you always been a christian how did how did you encounter god were you a teenager what what what's your god story well it's pretty simple um i accepted christ in bible school when i was young but that was about all there was to it and then when i was the barber school like as a young adult school vacation bible school oh yeah yeah vbs and now this is real spiritual my family quit going to church and when i was in eighth grade my boyfriend went to church a lot because his dad was a deacon so i joined the youth group so i could see my boyfriend hey i tell you god uses everything loving all the right places baby and um i got involved in the youth group and we went on a youth trip and before that they had a um what they called a lay witness revival that's what they call them back in the baptist churches back in the dark the baptist churches so it's just normal people sharing their god story something like that and so yeah like people means like people in the congregation yeah every day run of the mill i discovered that there was something called jesus could be the lord of your life which i had never heard of that right and it changed my life and i think i decided at age 13 14 or 15. i uh felt god calling me to be a full-time missionary no why well so like 14 or 15 but that's amazing you know back in those days a woman either became a missionary or married a pastor right and even at 14 i was wise enough to know with my attitude no pastor could keep his job with me as a wife missionary it is best that's right i'm going to marry jesus on that mission field okay so anyway long skinny as i go up to school i backslide get hurt in church and all that kind of silly stuff in them yep it happens i i came out to hollywood in 1979 or 80 or something like that were you when you came out to hollywood 19 i was gonna be the next carol burnett and let her get off her throne and take over you know so hollywood was still the big deal when you were 19. this is like as it is today no hollywood's not really the same like i mean it doesn't with all the new stuff and technology you can make films in lincoln nebraska in your basement you know but anyway so um so it was so hollywood was more important than you when you were 19 that is oh yeah oh yeah he was the place the only way you can make films is if you were one of the select few but anyway i got married had kids blah blah blah got into he got here no i went back to texas too i met my husband right after i went off to college and i still came out to california so even though i was hot and heavy in love i left him there and went no no i gotta go and wow my heart kept pulling me back holding me back so i guess this is right when you started acting out here in pasadena at the arts college yeah american academy of dramatic arts come on wow but anyways did you study just i'm curious did you do like stella adler's work or like stanislavski no jellinger a guy named joe okay yep you know so um anyway i wound up getting i went back finished school got married and i guess it's the right thing to do it's been 35 years well i got married i went to school in o.u moved to houston because i'm married to norman and was despondent depressed and lost because i was in texas with no job no career no friends how many babies none i was married for a long time for i had kids okay but i um i kind of stumbled into somebody that did corporate films and talked them into hiring me and i did you knew did you know filmmaking was what you were passionate oh i got a degree well i did i had got a degree in filmmaking after this i went back to school and uh got a degree it was just kind of a fluke it came to be i didn't know what to do but i got a degree in filmmaking so i actually you know had i learned a 16 millimeter film video was just coming into the as i was leaving school so i never had any classes video goodness i had just self-taught so anyway literally cutting film to edit yeah that's literally the way we did you splice the tape the scotch tape and blah blah blah it's amazing so i uh i um went to work for him and then at the ripe age of 25 because i didn't know what else to do i started my own production company come on and i was you know even though i was backslidden god obviously had his hand on me because he brought a man who hired me to do a job for him and he turned out to be like a father to me wow and i didn't know he was such a giant in business and he turned out to be in the human resources hall of fame and um he this film i did for him it won like all kind of international awards for not because of what i did but because of the geniusness of what he had done still been the only one like it ever in the world created this whole program the way it worked and he would people would come from all over fortune 500 companies would come to his place in princeton new jersey to uh to go through this program and he would i would went down to new york every six weeks and i was to hit a castle that he built and i would stay in the castle oh his house was a castle and he would say at just the right time he would have me come in and he would tell everybody i was in the area doing production and he talked me into coming over so everybody could meet the producer of this program called map and i mean i was just sitting there getting mark just like um from like esteem i mean just big name companies i want to say but a lot of big new companies because scott would say if you need production she's the one to do it and he was so highly revered and respected he just built my business i i love that man guy i love that man and um so we were grateful he tried to get me to go into business with him and my husband we couldn't live in new jersey because he was the old man so anyway i did that for that was september 1984 when i started and then in 1997 um i did my first faith-based project called pray usa it was an initiative where countries around the world they called for prayer for america for 40 days fasting just one second so where did the journey go from you being backslidded into the company to you doing a faith-based project in 97 what happened how tying those two worlds together in 1990 probably three um a friend said i have a friend that i told about you she needs to do some little educational video or whatever and i told him to call you and i thought are you kidding me so this woman calls me up and wants me to talk to her about making a video for her she did a program called whole language versus phonics she had this little high squeaky voice and i was so arrogant i thought you've got to be kidding me i would have said no but a friend you know when a friend sends you you have to be doing the courteous thing for your friend absolutely am i doing a favor and my i'm not kidding you in my little arrogant mind i said you're going to go down there you're going to have lunch with me you're going to get in you're going to get out you're going to give her a few tidbits of advice she's going to be thankful she met you and you're going to get out and i went in there at 11 30 and when they were changing the taser was over and people were coming in to sit for dinner at 5 30 we were embarrassed and left wow the woman had so much god on her without even talking about god she had so much god on her that i fell apart i went home because you know i had a good marriage i had a new baby she was about two but and i was making lots of money and all that but i had a hole in my heart as big as texas because once you've known the lord and you walk away there is no peace and it just was this hole and i went home and i got down on my knees and i changed my life and i haven't gone back since and so she became a mentor a great friend and um the thing is she kept saying to the lord lord i don't have any money to pay her i got to cancel this meeting and every time she'd pick up the phone to call me the lord would say put the phone down put the phone down and she thought i'm wasting her time i'm going to get her down there and i have no money and in the course of this meeting with her i was so taken with her i said you know what i got an idea instead of you paying this how about if we just do this for you and then you just pass the royalty as you sell it wow you just felt to say that yes i just said it that's so awesome yeah exactly so such a good reminder to stay humble yes and be open and yeah it's just incredible yeah so um that was the beginning of god putting amazing amazing people in my life and changed my life and she said to me right after that she goes there is still such a call in your life it's like neon flashing the lights you've got to get back to it and so one day i was walking across my den i was going to teach in a christian school they asked me to teach senior class in production so i was going to do it just for fun and i remember walking across my den to get a book and i froze i was like in a vice i couldn't move and i heard the lord say i want you to reclaim the airwaves and what i didn't know what that meant and then over the next 15 years as i traveled all over the place i would meet other filmmakers from all over and god was telling them almost the same thing so what i began to see is that god was building a media army in the earth and then when mel gibson did the passion of the christ i don't know about y'all but i feel like that's when the barn doors were kicked down and that's when things really started changing yeah yeah and actually you know i never thought about that so that's why we said he kicked the barn doors down wow and so you know wow and from then your faith became an important part of your filmmaking right you kind of ended up so then in 1987 i did this thing on pray usa and i was so excited to be able to do something for god that i remember when i edited that thing i spent the whole time editing i sat at my edit table i moved my chair and i stayed on my knees and i edited on my knees almost the whole time because i was so afraid i wouldn't do the right thing or i wouldn't do what god wanted i was so new in all this and i was new and the charismatic i was just just really wanting to do the right thing and they told me that they god put his anointing on it and people would see it and they said the churches would just break out in all night prayer and without saying a word anyway that was that's when i went to see that because if i were to just look at it now i'd probably go what was the big deal with that but what i learned then is it really doesn't matter what it is if god puts his anointing on it that's all it takes come on you know wow that's yeah so i kind of got a wisdom right there i got hooked on it and then it just kind of started going more and more that way and then i started doing documentary features uh and things and you know short stories and i just i love true stories i love love love tree stories and so i've kind of lost my taste for the business stuff anymore i'm very grateful because i had it for a long time and i learned my craft while getting paid and doing the service for businesses but it's good now feed the kids that's it pay the mortgage and now i can just um now i just do the things now i feel like i'm in a place where god has said don't do projects just for money and i want to go but have you seen the bank account one time yes but you know it's it's a faith walk and so now i just turned down a big somebody asked me to do a big project on a an important topic but i thought you know it'll take me away from what i'm doing for probably six months and it'll be very difficult and emotionally draining because a lot of the stories god's had me do has been very difficult like i did my last feature film was on faith under fire on the first time a mass gunman burst into a church in the united states and committed mass murder 30 years ago yeah one of the first people was a seven-year-old girl you know like you're more likely to get killed in church than in school even with all the school killings because of you know there's a lot of family drama and violence and stuff being played out in churches now but anyway that was a hard story and i've done on child abuse i just get a lot of these hard stories so anyway oh just decided fox said the other day on news that chris christians are the most persecuted religion in the world it's official for this year wow yeah well that's what donald trump says too yeah yeah you know he's got something this is correct um anyway what brings us to and what brings me here connected to iris is that a number of years ago god gave me the idea of something to create that i'm working on and i i felt that the lord began to tell me that he was going to have me do heidi baker a story with heidi baker come on to be the first one and i thought hmm and i actually met the first one of a series of this series of this new thing i'm doing but i actually met heidi in 2010 and i think this is kind of the way prophetic antennas worked i was speaking i had distributed the film furious love a number of years ago and and was distributed all over the world and i was there speaking about it and and heidi when i came off the stage heidi says i need to talk to you she wanted to introduce me to somebody via phone that was working on a project about her and i think what that is about is i think our prophetic antennas were kind of tuning in that there was assignment for us together but it wasn't for them right so i i met her in harrisburg in october and i told her about the story i wanted to do and and heidi and i have a lot of personality traits in common so i knew that before my conversation was over with her i would have a yes or no because she's like me she makes fast emotional decisions this is very true yes and you either feel god on it in like five seconds or forget about it and and i knew it i knew how to talk to your mother because we're just like that way so anyway uh we did and um so uh i showed up in um mozambique she said yes and a month later i was in mozambique with the crew there was five of us and um it was last year or this year just a couple months ago wow yeah and uh i kind of got sidetracked and what i was going to tell you about that's what was what are we talking about we were back talking about your journey with in faith and meeting heidi back in 2000 the first time you met her how it was it didn't work out then it was a pre-figuring for for now yeah well god wants i believe with all my heart and you probably too too you know all these big revivals and stuff that people have prophesied about like bob jones the billionaire you know it has to come through media come on i mean it has to because we can only go so many places and talk to so many people and so it's kind of you know that many people i know it's going to come through media i know it is and it's going to come through the internet it can't like you know if you get something here on cable well that's only going to stay in the united states but think about it we can post something on the internet and people all over the world can see it in one day yeah and so um i'm taking the story with heidi it's a seven part tv show 48 minute episode seven of them and it's called walk with me and it's a story about how god pursues his children because he loves us so much and it's about it's about how when we say yes to him it's about the incredible life we can live when we really just turn it over and let him lead and and go with that and so he comes in he like takes you know we get consumed with him and then we can go out and here's fruit now now you know him and now you go out nathan and then you reach her and then she goes and that's really how the church was built yeah you know and so that's what it is and so the way we're doing it it's not just it's not a typical let's in fact i have not interviewed heidi at all i don't ever interview or we get her on the fly doing things but it's never about sit down interviews it's just about it's about her everyday relationship one-on-one with god i mean some of my favorite footage we were going on an outreach um we happened wherever your dad flew us on a plane up to wherever and i asked your mother where we're going and she goes does it matter do you really know if i tell you and she goes absolutely not i just want to see if you knew where we were going so right are we just going to land something yeah i don't know where no i don't know we flew up it's like an hour and a half flight somewhere all right so anyway when we get there the the powers that be the the tribal leaders or whatever they kept saying no you can't come no so we got turned down four times so instead of being able to to go and do what we're gonna do we had to make a plan so we were on this van and we had to go into maputo or somewhere for your mother to go into the grocery store to buy food for everybody because the plans had changed so we followed her with the camera and the grocery store it looks it's just so fun it's a reality show we're in there and and um a guy comes in and says we've got another phone call we've got canceled again she gets so she goes can we just not film right now right i'm a little stressed out yeah she was i showed it to her later and she died laughing i go yeah you were a little upset but i said it's good tv exactly so so if you love heidi baker what you're going to see in the show are things you don't ever see it's the day that day behind the scenes it's what does she do in disappointments and how do what is she struggling it's about praying and then um i just went to israel with her uh last week and wow sorry that was my tummy wow that was long no i don't mean that i mean wow that i get to go to israel all right because i thought that's what you meant i wasn't entirely sure because and we ate i thought my stomach won't make noises in the interview but there's my stomach what are you gonna do so uh we were you know she invited you to israel she's right she is she tricked the israel yes it was she goes i can't believe this is your first time i said i know but my first trip is not on a tour it's with it's with my hero of the faith come on that's not getting better right and so i mean get this so i'm over there we're over there like four days together and um it's just she and i for most of it and and we go into this place that's like the upper room she calls the upper room and supposedly it was and it's just the two of us down on that floor with our heads together crying out to god and i mean you know she comes over and she just got her she takes her hand on me and she's just praying for god to crash in on me and i just thought how am i here right now it's pretty wild yeah yes yes yes we just it was just a time i think to get to know each other and and trust each other and all and say because you know that's important it takes when you're working with a in that intimate way of and i think you need that connection i said i just you know i want you to know how much i appreciate the trust because this does take trust yes you have to trust that it's god but you have to trust me that i'm going to take care of you and do the right thing and um and i will i told her i said i will never let this out and until she sees it and likes it and blessing but what's there not to see i mean you know heidi baker's the real deal i mean she's a human and of course she has flaws like all of us another but she loves i mean like there were people making us crazy like you know i'm trying to film our work and there's all these people wanting to stop and do this and and she really does this one guy who stopped and was just wanting to call her and talk to her he didn't know who she was and she just looked and she goes do you have a drug problem and i thought oh that's what it is see i'm so clueless i don't see all that and she she takes the time to connect him and talk with him and it didn't matter who was she just wouldn't hurt any i go can't we just tell them we can't do no because that will hurt somebody's feelings she just won't hurt anybody's feelings and you know i can see why god would would choose to use her to share what it's like to walk with him wow you know there was i said to her i know you talk to god a lot when you're swimming can we take a drone and film you swimming out there talking to god and she goes okay there's a jumps in the water yeah and goes out there and um i was with her when i brought her a guy and i said this guy's deaf and she got all excited and she prayed and it took about 30 seconds he could hear and he had never spoken a word he couldn't hear he had never spoken and his friend his best friend was didn't really know what to do he went i've not we've been friends since we were a little bitty i've never heard a word come out of his mouth so he could hear and heidi started teaching him words right there you know as we filmed and then there was another guy i brought and i said this guy can't hear either then we were out on the street one day and i said she was talking with a guy and we were taking a widow home and buying her groceries i said that kid over there has a blind eye she goes where where so she went over and she prayed for him and he could see oh my goodness wow wow did this experience filming her and being in mozambique did that how did that compare with your other projects that you've worked on did it has it felt like something new something different or dessert well i came home and i had two dozen women over to my house for lunch and they're all we want to see footage because they'd all prayed for me while i was gone and i i showed them i put together the drone footage of heidi's swimming with some music and just some footage i threw it together and they thought it had been 30 i showed him 35 minutes worth and they went that was only seven or eight minutes we want more and i went no it was 35 minutes no way so anyway i went to the kitchen to finish cooking when it came back out some of them were shaken they were crying so hard that every single woman in there was crying and weeping and i looked at him and i said wow when they said the presence of god on that foot is on that footage like you can't believe and i have to say in 35 years of filmmaking i have never been so aware of god's anointing god's hands god touch on raw footage it doesn't matter who i show the raw footage to and i showed raw footage of like dirty water and clean water wells and in about three weeks without trying without asking anybody over sixty thousand dollars was donated to iris to buy water wells and to give water to widows just from looking at the footage wow how amazing is that that's isn't it that's the power of media yeah you know media is the most powerful communication tool we have and it's um you know when when i was with your mother and in her house and she allowed us into a prayer room to shoot some stuff and um anytime i shoot a story or do a tell somebody story a true story i feel i just feel like i'm walking on holy ground i mean because this is like this is your mother's life that i'm exposing and it's her life and i put it's her on the line not me yeah nobody knows who i am um wakes up my friends they all know me i'm really famous and one of my friends you know they all know who i am so um i don't know it's just this is such an honor gosh this is such an honor to do this story i'm i can't i tell everybody i can't wait to see how it turns out yeah me too you know usually whenever you do like a reality show or any kind of project you go you do research you scope it out you feel it you say now on tuesday we're going to shoot here and we're going to need this kind of equipment over here and over here on wednesday and all i knew is that your mother said yes i'm in i assembled the crew raised the money assembled a crew and flew over there and i'm telling you i was trying really hard not to be a nervous rat because i didn't know if your mother what i wanted to do was different had never been done before and i didn't know if she was going to like it i didn't know how much access i would have i didn't know what her life looked like every day does she sit at home working on the computer is she out in the dump what is she doing is she in church what i didn't know and i couldn't get answers to anything wow so when i got over there i texted her and i said i'm here and she says well come to my house after church okay and i saw some people and i go are you upset and i go no i'm not upset i'm scared to death i'm a nervous wreck i don't know if she's going to like this or not and what am i going to do if she thinks my idea is crazy i've got all these people over here of raisins money what are we going to do i mean you know shoot beach videos for a week what do you do so yeah anyway um so if i got time with your mother and we went out and sat in the yard and my my friend that was with me on on the crew she was praying and she looked over at the body language and i guess heidi had a certain body language i had a certain body language and we both looked like we were not seeing i i am my friend we were having a great time i said well that that just runs that whole thing for body language out the window i don't know i feel like i've seen it is it ted talks about this so i tell it all the hiding and she goes i like it it sounds very powerful i knew it you like it we can do it i said well how much time can i have because by this time i'm thinking man we might get i was gonna say this probably wasn't a very very s perfectly scheduled trip i imagine no no and so when i said how much time of day can i have i went i waited for her to say maybe like two hours and you know what that sweetheart said she said just climb into my life and go with me wow yeah come on sounds about right gotta what you have to do and she said let me tell you something sandra i have people call me literally at least one a week asking me to come film yeah and i tell them no i get a lot of those emails too she says no i say no and i said well how come i'm here and she said because i felt god i felt it was god and so she did she was very kind they were all very kind and she we had access to almost everything i mean we could film just about everything we wanted and we were at our house multiple times and and they flew us on that private plane to the to the outreach and right i mean there's this one little shot i didn't even remember we were out when she prayed over those that boy that was deaf those two boys that were deaf and she's standing over there back she was so excited she never gets tired of it doesn't matter if she's seen 80 000 people healed she's just as excited on every single one of them she's just as excited and and he she was teaching him and i'm just standing there next to her just crying like a baby a nurses i put together this little photo book for that i gave her you know in israel and there's this one picture where she's praying over the boy and i'm standing in the background uh i was like cheering her on like go go and uh i don't know she looked over at me in this shot i was just bawling and she just comes over and she just puts her head on my shoulder and just smiles and just i don't know just wow i don't know i feel i feel so honored that um god would let me do this story well i mean i just really don't want to get all choked up but i just really do because you just want to say you know lord you know that song at christmas if you've been naughty or nice i guess yes i guess god's not looking at that list going i'm sure i've been naughty you must be on the good place i don't know i don't know this is fantastic it i can't uh it's called walk with me when will we see it do you think man as soon as it's done come on that's a great answer it's called but it's called walk with me but me is god because this story is told from god's point of view like i said we have drone footage and whenever you see drones of heidi it's god talking and you hear conversations between god and heidi but it's it's scripture i'm not i'm not making up words for god it's scripture and um gosh it's it's just very powerful and that's the direction you felt to go from the lord yeah when talk about that moment when you well i did i watched you yeah and you thought why would i go filming more after i had it after i was set to go i watched compelled by love one more time and i went to bed that night and i said god you know i love heidi i'm very excited about going but really why am i going there is so much media on this woman why would i need to go the story's already been told what why am i going and i got up the next morning and i was i was having coffee and the lord said you remember a year ago i told you whenever you tell stories think of me as your client i want you to tell us from my point of view because i want the world to know that i love i'm their father and i love them with a father's heart and i said okay okay wait i gotta tell you this the day he told me this this was in july of like 2015. he said he told me that and then he said i need the people to know how much i love them and i said well lord you know this isn't a real stretch for my theology i could have had this conversation with my head could you just give me like a scripture or something to back up that what you just said was really you [Music] and this verse came to my head jeremiah i don't know where it is now 31 3 32 wants something 533 no no it wasn't a scripture i knew which at my age there's not a lot of those i could remember i i it was oh i remember it was like right in front of me like i didn't hear it it was like i saw it right in front of me this big fat bold font like you would never use it in marketing because it was an ugly font and i remember thinking oh i would never use that font in marketing anyway but i heard it and so i had the message right in front of me and i opened it up and this is what the scripture said i've never stopped loving you expect love love and more love i said well all right so then two weeks later i was in colorado and it was my birthday and so my husband rented a convertible camaro convertible because that's what i drove when he met me and we had the lid off and we were driving down the highway with the oldies playing thinking we were hot stuff you know the michael jackson the bee gees and all that i introduced my son five-year-old son to the bee geez well there you go how deep is your love baby so anyway the next morning it was my birthday and i heard the lord said i'm gonna give you a birthday present i'm gonna give you a sign that everything i've told you about this media is going to come to pass and i said i don't know lord i don't i don't need a sign i just need to walk by faith and he goes no no i want to give you a sign and i said well okay lord if you want to would you just know i'm not asking for it and i heard he goes here's your sign and i heard this song playing in my head and it was an instrumental and i thought really well okay lord i'll be listening so the next day got the convertible down got the tunes up halfway to where we were going two hours into this drive that song came on the radio and i just blurted out bawling and i grabbed my cell phone i stuck it in the dash and i'm recording it and my husband thinks i'm fruity but i'm recording the song and now when you see it it's sideways of trucks coming at us but you can hear the song and you know what the name of the song was love's theme and you know what the name of the artist is love unlimited wow right only god oh my god yeah it's pretty specific anyway so i'm sitting out on the porch one morning having coffee after i saw compelled by love and i said what what is it you want me to do and all of a sudden i just i just like to see the film just once it's a bit of my head and what it was is you know because i'm doing this for we're showing it in the middle east and in israel and there's all places around the world we're showing it where people don't know the lord this is if you're a die hard you're really committed you'll be inspired because you can never see heidi baker and not be expired and what he's doing more but if you don't know him this is to create a hunger to know him and so people always think about god's in heaven they always think he's up you know what i mean so my thought was this is the thought he gave me take a drone so we took a drone to mozimbi and we shot a lot of footage of heidi from a drone like swimming talking to god walking along the beach up on the mountain from the car everywhere we shot a drone footage of her and whenever you see a drone shot it's the lord speaking and he speaks scripture like for instance i sent i sent heidi a clip of this i said look this is kind of what i'm thinking but you're going to have to use a lot of creativity because i'd like to use a deep african voice to be this voice of god and so in my test james jones yeah and in our test of this we had uh my oaky girl voice so in my oaky girl voice imagine this pitch bended a little bit yes and the oaky girl voice i put this shot of heidi walking along the beach and i put in something like i know you heidi i saw you in your mother's womb i created you in the innermost parts you know i've i have plans for you whatever you know it was and i sent it to your mother and i thought man that's going to take creativity to get past this little oaky girl voice and i wasn't exactly performing it very well and she sent back a text and she said that made me cry i love god more than life itself i just want to be with him and i just want him to be pleased wow and i thought wow if my oaky girl voice made her cry then we must be on the right track come on come on you know so awesome it was it's a really special project i'm just telling you never i've never seen anything like it i was going to ask you that have you have you seen anything like this no no no i've never seen anything and you know the bible says his word will not return void so if we're putting scripture in there and it it doesn't say romans chapter 3 verses 2 it's just he just speaks it like conversation the word is still going out so it won't return void will it you're right yeah exactly yeah but did you find that there were many challenges you didn't anticipate about shooting there and then no your mother's schedule is the most challenging right i was going to say but that everybody changes by the minute doesn't it that poor woman that poor woman i don't know how she does it people are pulling and demanding from her all the time and she's literally running like from place to place sometimes she does that when shooting she goes no no run run you have to keep running run runs oh yeah we've been there i don't know that's just supernatural that she can you know deal with that oh yeah yeah even when we were in israel i would like try to block where people can see her walking by stores because people would know her and you know oh that's yeah poor thing oh yeah it is it's like traveling with the movie star i know yeah in some circles for sure um i was gonna say did you feel like there were those challenges but that because the lord was on it the time that you did get was we came home with more than i expected exactly yeah which is just we came home with more than i expected and just you know i didn't really go with any expectations i got a prophetic word a long time ago that the lord would send you places when you wouldn't know where and he said to me you know i'm sending you there was another place i went a few months ago he said i'm sending you and you don't know where you're going and you're going anyway and that pleases me so i'm you know what if i feel him tell me to do something i don't have to know why it's like it's like i told your mother i said i'm going to need to know basis with god when i need to know he tells me yeah because she i told her something she goes you were being a rascal with me i said no i was being a rascal with you it's just what it whatever god tells me six months ago or yesterday i mean he tells me what i need to know yeah when i need to know he tells me that's right that's awesome yeah are you busy with simultaneous other projects as well or is this kind of your main focus right i normally am but uh god made it very clear to me to get rid of everything and just stay focused on this and so i'm so excited usually when i get through shooting a project i'll take it and i go back and i i leave it in the can so to speak for three or four weeks and then i go back and i see it fresh and i'm so so so excited about this project that i was even looking at it on christmas day i don't have a hard time i i can't put it down i can't put it down wonderful i can't i'm just i just look at the footage and it's it's beautiful it's like i told your mother i said you know you think of me when i text you but let me tell you i'm looking at you seven days a week all day every day i feel like we've been like best friends since we're like four maybe because you know whenever you're doing a project like that you just you're like consumed you just eat up with it and that's i eat it i sleep it i drink it i think it i'm yeah it's always on my mind the other night i went to bed and i'm thinking okay i could do this i could do that i could do this yeah and just just looking at the footage takes me back to that place and you know you you look i look at your mother's face when she's with these people i said to her when i was in israel i said you know you know heidi i look at you every day and when i see your face when you're in africa that's not like where you are anywhere else i mean she's still heidi but there is a light and a joy that is on her when she is with the people in mozambique that is her life that is her call that is her heart that is her passion and it just it just it just glows and just comes out of her she just she just loves it so much and she loves those people so much and you know she took me back she goes i want to take you to go see jose and albertino that was the former witch doctor and you know this woman she tells the story and probably many people you know woman had leprosy all over her hand and and the man comes with these snakes to kill her and when he comes up we have a couple of video updates about that story oh yeah on youtube if people want to rewatch it heidi takes this woman's hand and you can see her you know her fingers are she has these leprosy sores all over and the witch doctor's standing there with those snakes and heidi has his girlfriend wives whatever her hand and she's kissing her hand with all these leprosy sores on it and she's telling me about how she's talking to this man and i said okay so how long after he showed up with these snakes how long did you have to talk to him before he put the snakes down and came to christ because i'm thinking i'm thinking if this was under two or three hours this woman's gonna impress me and she goes about five minutes i broke out crying five minutes isn't that crazy whoa it's the power of love yeah that's what i've learned from heidi baker is the power the power of love yeah you know unconditional love it's a it's a weapon like no other it is a yeah it is the most powerful force yeah in the universe and what israel with her this you know this was her time i said heidi i know you wanted to come to israel by yourself this is your private time why am i here and she said well i said the lord told me to come to israel and he said to bring you and i said well i hope you argued with him she said well i went back to him three times and he said to bring you so she i mean i kept saying go do your own thing no no she wouldn't let me she she she kept me right with her she took it serious and the places would be praying i'd want her to just be you know seeking the lord and i'd be videoing her and everything and she'd go you're gonna have to put that camera down and get down here on the floor too you've got to get in on this i said yeah yes mom i will i put it down i'd get down on the floor and as soon as she would film she said the same thing down there she's not her attention's all about me and how god's going to touch me and all that i mean she just she can't help but give herself away she can't help it it reminds me of roland's words you probably remember it from compelled by love when roland said she's the one woman i know that has never said no to god she never says no to anybody really you know i mean not not that needs anything and of course roland when we got there the first sunday i didn't see roland and we'd turn around and there he was he's just giggling and he'd go hey everybody was just like flowing wham there they go yeah the guy that was the girl that was with me i turned around to say something to her and she was going down i went roland i'm holding the camera don't get close to me was your film crew pretty impacted by that trip as well um i saw i saw them change right in front of me wow yeah do you are you bringing back the same team with you when you go in the summer i don't know i don't know if i'll bring as many i'm um i don't know i'd like to bring my daughter my daughter does audio i'd like to bring my daughter on the next trip i have a son that would like to go to harvest school so i don't know what i'll do you know on this trip i prayed and i said lord who do i bring and he brought the names to me and i asked them and i asked him to think about it pray about it and they all said yes and you know awesome it's an adventure unfolding it's really awesome it was because we didn't it was crazy because we didn't know what we were doing when we went over and you never take a crew of five people with all that gear and all that equipment you never just show up without necessarily especially 89 000 trillion miles away in the third world country and people will say well why are we going and you go i'm going to tell you when i get home it's not an easy trip i don't know that's amazing how can people keep up with this that is a great idea okay yes glad you asked our company is called hearthstone pictures hearthstonepictures.com slash walk with me so we've got a page on our website on hearthstone pictures there's lots of stories in there you can see in lots of testimonials and shorts and films and all but we're having a page just with this walk with me and so as we go along we're going back i'd like to do um if we can work it out we'd like to do some live facebook things from the actual shoot when we're shooting there again i think we're probably going to go back in june would i would go sooner but i don't think heidi's going to be back she's going to be doing a lot of traveling so i imagine we'll go and it's also not as hot that is a good time for people to go yeah slightly more comfortable yeah and so what if people want to follow it uh if they'll if they want to come to this page they can come back often or give us their email and we'll let them know like at this stage once a month i want to start posting some clips and some footage because everybody that sees it just is like wow and they want to see more and it's really blessed and then we'll start posting you know a couple minutes a couple times a week then as we get closer uh more and more but i'm thinking just one more trip to mozambique i'll probably get us get us done and then and then we'll roll them out then we'll release them all at one time you know also that's right it's a series it's all going to be released at one time but then there's also going to be a lot of like behind the scenes stuff and extra footage that you can see there's things that you know won't make the cut and yeah i had a great conversation with your mom one night when we had gone to see uh the former witch doctor we were on our way back and i sat i got up in the front because i was gonna tape an interview with her but by the time we got out there it was dark and as you know there's not a lot of lights so we had a microphone on her and i think she forgot with the microphone on her and we had the best girl talk um yeah that's awesome yeah there's probably gonna be a little stuff in that and i said so i said i said so heidi you're just so fearless i mean how long were you a christian became before you became so fearless like you know to kiss a hand with leprosy because most of us probably wouldn't want to touch him let alone kiss him and i said she goes oh instant i go instant instant she goes well i will be honest i was a little afraid when i got stoned because it kind of hurts yeah stone isn't literally with rocks and stuff yeah yeah she said i get kind of scared with that because it hurts but you know no i said you know honey i i think god must have just touched you in the womb because that's not normal it's not normal at 16 to be that bold yeah yeah and she goes well i agree i think it i think it was a calling yeah i said you think yeah right yep yeah definitely needs to be but you know there's nothing that she has that we can't all have come on well nothing now that you've said that this million soul harvest it's only going to happen through media yeah i've just a lot of that's going to happen through media or most of it yeah i would say there's a lot of people out there even the ones listening to this podcast right now that are going to be making things and doing things have you got any advice for young filmmakers you just do it it's like nike you just have to do it the way you learn storytelling production i do believe in studying i i have been doing this 35 years i'm still in screenwriting classes i'm still wow i'm constantly stunning i'm not really that's what diane says about acting because we had her she's our guest on you're never previously yeah you need to be wow that's great advice i spend a lot of money studying and the most the most i can afford is the most is the where i go you know and i study i study i study i listen to seminars i listen to works i read i do all those kind of things i don't really on production anymore um i don't feel like i really need to take a lot of classes on how to hold a camera so to speak i mean you know i'm not doing that kind of thing anymore but it's the story the story the story the story is right so i still invest in a lot of that and i i think you should always be a student always always always be a student but wow the way to learn storytelling is to start editing your own work because editing is where you learn storytelling and when you learn to edit that's when you learn how to be a director and everything it's it's editing and you learn how to work and and i believe in following your gut instincts my gut instincts that's holy spirit whatever but gut instinct instincts i think you know always lead you in the right direction and because you know what god often will come through that gut and you know at my ripe age i'm the same age as heidi i'm i still talk to myself about owning it you know owning your call owning what's inside of you and knowing who you are because when you do know who you are in christ that's when you really get set free to be who you are because there's an enemy of our souls that will try and take us out of that yeah place of identity of who we are and yes think it's a lie i think we're not that person not we're not called to do that so it's important to be on the front foot and i'll tell you i probably spent 25 or 30 years or however long um i know i spent a good 20 years praying and praying and praying for creativity for more creativity for more creativity i know a lot of people pray for the gift of healing and all those and i'd love to have all that but the thing that i really really want for what my call is because my call is to tell god's story come on through media that's my story and that's my call and so i i pray i pray for yeah it's creativity creativity so i you know because i want to be able to see things differently and i want to be able to tell stories from the way he sees them and and you know it kind of it's like the things we're doing like with the drone and and there's there's about three or four different elements to the story i'm doing with heidi that i haven't really seen done this way before and because i want it to be fun to watch and i want it to be a surprise and a joy and a mm-hmm wow i never seen that before yes that drone footage just with music is enough to put you under the floor and then when you add god's voice it's it's very very powerful come on we are super excited about seeing that's awesome yup wow and the ideas well sandra we have five questions four questions now can we ask no we kind of just how do i stay looking so young your skin regimen oh yes yes what products do you use no um we ask a few questions to every guest and um i suppose the first one i want to ask you is what is your favorite movie well you're gonna think i'm a total dork no i'm not i'm excited i have a lot of favorite movies but probably the movie i've watched the most is the sound of music ah dork that is amazing well you know it was considered corny and sugar coated and all that when it came out can you sing your favorite song i could we don't actually you would need healing you would need healing if i did so now the center music incredible i bought it my five-year-old who he's already four he loved it as a four-year just had four it's wonderful i've got the remastered version but i love a lot of movies but that's just the one i've seen the most that's solid it's a classic everything and the music and the songs and i love julie andrews i think she's funny and all that kind of stuff oh yeah and there's crazy god moments in that film too really beautiful oh yeah yeah yeah god probably does like that movie because a few years ago brock and i were talking about it now we watched it as kids and we loved it and we hadn't seen it in years yeah and a guy showed up at our new year's party and gave us that movie that night so wow so god must like it i don't know it literally was that day and we hadn't seen it in years and we're like oh the next day that's cool i love it okay what's the other question do you have a favorite sound that's interesting i don't know if i have a favorite sound but i can tell you this i was you know your mother was in dallas and she and todd white were in dallas and the night todd white spoke the worship came on and this doesn't normally happen to me but god came in so strong i my friends were trying to hold me up and i was waiting like oh just sit down i sat down and god like showed up and he started like taking me around the earth and as i go around the earth he was having me release these different things but i could hear this sound and it was a certain sound and i would hear it in this language and then we'd go to another country and i'd hear it in this language i could hear this sound in many different languages around the world and what he said to me was i'm going to send you around the world to capture that sound of worship because see like let's say if you're in mozambique and they're worshiping it stays in mozambique for the most part and if you're in china it stays in the underground church and he says captured it and then release it on the airwaves to release the sound of the earth because you know you know like the first i love lucy show the sound is still out in the atmosphere somewhere it the sound once it's released through the airwaves stays forever wow that's a little that's what he said to release his sound how interesting is that i know i don't even understand what all that means i just know that's what happened that day so you know it changes the atmosphere i don't know what it's about i just know that's what he said how cool is that for nancy that's pretty cool yeah i'm just saying that that stumps most people but that was amazing but yeah that whole thing of this the air staying it's whatever's release stays it is everything ever released through airwaves up there forever wow it's kind of bouncing around i love that that just made me feel like wanting to set up big speakers and just like release stuff i can see you doing that actually for sure well if i if i see you doing that on the news i don't know where you got that come on um if you could pursue any other profession what would it be cosmetics no [Music] well probably a few months ago i would have given you a different answer that i'm going to give you now i would want to do what your mother's doing whoa i told heidi i said you know i don't understand this heidi but ever since i got back from mozambique my heart keeps pulling me back and i just i want to go live in the dirt for a while and she said i think you need to make time to do that keep doing what you're doing but you need to make time to do that and i i do i just want to i would like to try that you know i've lived my life no more surprised i mean you know what i mean i just like to do something different and my kids are grown and yep i'd just like to see what it feels like to really give myself away completely totally so yeah yeah wow if i could hang around and do what your mother's doing for a while i think it'd make me a better person wow so that's kind of a funny answer but that's what i do wow that's beautiful well the other question's a bit on this vein when it's all wrapped up and and your time is through on earth here and you meet jesus in heaven what what are the first words you'd love to hear from him about you i love how you loved this has been a big year for me learning about love the last couple of years and um we can kind of get addictive you know you know especially when i was younger like you know 30s 40s whatever i was pretty hot-headed and and if somebody said something i didn't like i had to tell them how i felt about it and you know the whole injustice and everything yeah and this is not so important to me anymore it's um you know i went through some family rejection and all that kind of stuff and anyway i've just learned a lot about love and the father's love and you know i had some times where jesus would come to me and one time i was a little girl on a playground and he walked me around and he said this is what you need to understand the family that you have on earth is the they're a vehicle to bring you into the world and they raise you and there's that special thing but i am really your dad i am really your mom i'm really your brother and i'm really your sister and what i think what i say about you is what matters and i mean wow you know what i mean you know everybody has family hurts and all that kind of stuff but it just really shifted my perspective that and really you know i'm just a vehicle for my kids too i'm the vehicle that god uses to bring into the world and help grow them up but they're not mine [Music] you know and i don't tell them that i tell them yes we'll edit this part out yeah super sweet wow okay that's four one more no i think it's just no we've gotta end on that one yeah you can't that's it we're not gonna get back that's a great yeah you've answered those questions amazingly yes um but love yeah what a what a place to end that's yeah that's really well heidi heidi always says you know her saying is love looks like something we had a talk the other day in israel we were talking about levin she says we know love is an emotion but it's also an action and she was talking about how when you don't feel the emotion you have to do the action and then it creates the emotion well yeah yeah yeah that's we get you you get caught up that you have to feel the emotion first but that's not true for it to be genuine yeah and you know sometimes i think it might even be easier to love a former witch doctor and his wife of leprosy sometimes that's probably easier to do than loving like family that can so hurt you because you know family gives you a lot of opportunity to learn grace and love and forgiveness and yes and you know what but you know i'm going to end on this to tell you that there was a time number oh like 20 years ago i was just complaining to the lord about my husband and this and that you know just really complaining because my life would be a lot better if he would just toe the line and straighten up and get this way and never does it so i was talking lord and i heard the lord say something to me and i think i must have really went it did like that and i started to cry you know what the lord said to me so have you ever wondered what kind of deal he got yeah i know right what do you say i was speechless i was in uh turkey when god spoke that to me and i came home and i waited after my trip and i was i was gonna tell my husband about the trip and i thought no i'm gonna wait until god tells me it's okay so i sat down one night to tell him about my trip and i was going to say we went here we did this we prayed over this we did a blessed hit and i opened my mouth and when i opened my mouth to tell him about the trip i just blurted out crying and started apologizing for not being the wife i should be and for just all the things god had showed me and i i had no expectations of saying anything like that whatsoever oh my goodness and um i can say that was a that was a benchmark day that i can tell you changed changed my life when i opened up and and you know he just began to cry too and just said i just want you to be happy i just love you i mean he was very sweet but um why god had to take me halfway around the world to change my life i don't know but he often seems to take you out of your environment to do that yeah you know so even when we don't think he's paying attention or whatever he's always he's always got a plan he's always working wow always always even when i was a backslider he made sure i got a film degree yeah he doesn't he doesn't waste any moment does he yeah and the convergence of your whole life coming together and now that you're released to do something like this with heidi it's just it's a beautiful journey it is but i i will just say again if if people are watching this then they obviously are iris global supporters fans lovers of that and i just want to watch sandra martin fans because they've googled your name and this oh yeah oh yeah yeah come on yeah i'm really big i'm really important like i told you everybody that knows me knows me if if you are a person that appreciates iris global and the work that heidi and roland do and everything i i just want to encourage them to come to heartstonepictures.com slash walk with me or just hearthstone pictures you can check out some of the stories and and just start enjoying some of the footage um that we shot because it's it's probably not some of it maybe this what you've seen before but for the most part i think it's footage um that they haven't seen before yeah that's exciting and they're going to learn things about heidi and even roland that they haven't known before and i mean you know there's footage of heidi coming out to a bus giving everybody fried chicken and just in the grocery store and at home and just you know yeah it's just who she is it's just life doing life it's just doing life come on yep it's beautiful yeah it's good we're excited to see the journey of it too unfolding me too yeah well it's been great talking with you guys yeah thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to come and talk with us and and share and for being obedient to god and and coming to do the project with heidi so yeah it's an honor obedience it's um it's the greatest honor of my life so far wow it really is wow i can't wait to see where we go from here wow yeah wow whoa well guys thank you so much for listening today thanks for joining us this has been incredible we're super excited about what god's doing with sondra and heidi and and this whole walk with me so well and if you want to follow what's happening let's just say one more time the website is heart stone pictures dot com dot com slash walk with me walk with me and yeah we're excited to see the journey and thank you sandra for being with us if you have any comments or questions you can leave them in the comments section on our iris global youtube channel and until next time this podcast is presented by iris global for more information or to support the work of iris global please visit us online at dot irisglobal.org you

Channel: Iris Global

Views: 3,894

Rating: 4.7948718 out of 5

Keywords: iris after hours, iris after hours podcast, iris global, iris global ministries, iris global africa, Heidi Baker, Rolland Baker, Nathan Kotzur, Crystalyn Human, iris missions, iris missionaries, stop for the one, iris ministries, christian missionary, christian missions, missionary NGO, missions NGO, free, encouraging, testimony

Id: 1n6OLa3pcT4

Length: 63min 31sec (3811 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 16 2017