By Michael Ashcraft –
She pleaded with God to take away the grief over her mother’s death when she saw kids running by and playing.
“Sometimes God doesn’t speak with words,” Donna says in the Sound of Hope, Angel Studio’s latest Christian-themed movie.
Donna Martin, portrayed vividly by Nika King, adopted children. She wanted to be like her mother. That was the answer to the grief: Give God’s love to those who need it desperately.
Sound of Hope captures the true story of how Christians in a poor church of Possum Trot East Texas adopted 77 kids, providing for Child Protective Services a loving home for every at-risk kid in a radius of 100 miles.
Their exceptional outpouring of service by the Bennet Chapel Baptist Church was featured on Oprah and People magazine. Letitia Wright of Wakanda fame adapted the story to the movie she produced. Its premier on July 4th comes a year after the blockbuster Sound of Freedom, also from Angel Studios, busted Hollywood’s antipathy to Christianity.
The movie distills inspiration. It will encourage you to either give money or adopt the estimated 100,000 kids in American in the foster care system. Some Christians complain that Angel Studios is Mormon-owned, as if that taints their movies, but Sound of Hope features unadulterated Christianity.
“I’ve been in Hollywood for 20 years. It’s taboo to bring up Christ’s name. It’s taboo to talk about your faith,” says King to The Christian Post. “And here I am in the movie, a real story about the love of God, and having Christ in you, and doing the things that you don’t want to do and being obedient and trusting God and sacrificing.
“This is the happiest I’ve ever been in my life, in my career, because now I know why I have this gift that God gave me, and it’s to glorify him.”
Donna Martin and her pastor husband W.C. get the whole church behind the project of adopting kids. As they face difficulties with the hard-to-place kids, they gather at the church to be reinspired and pray for support.
This is no sugar-coated Disney feel-good story. It delves deep into the difficulties of adoption: Terry first acts like a cat, fights with her “sister” the biological daughter, then runs off with her boyfriend, then hides a knife in her bed.
The gripping scene where she steals a car to – apparently – drive to lake and drown herself will make clear that whoever wishes to adopt must be ready for some heart-stretching desolation and disappointment.
Demetrius Grosse portrays Pastor W.C. so convincingly with heartfelt preaching that I can’t see how he could do unless he genuinely is a Christian. (I couldn’t find anything on the Internet confirming or denying his faith.
Another stand-out is Diaana Babnicova, the Ghanaian child actress, who portrayed the traumatized and rebellious older daughter who is hard-to-place in foster care. Her role was difficult, and she was absolutely up to the task.
The movie educates about the issue of foster children, but it also activates Christians to not be pew-sitters only.
“This taught me that I can do all things through Christ,” King told Digital Journal. “I had to sing in this movie, I had to pray in this film, and prayer is usually an intimate thing. I am praying in my closet, and I am praying in my home. I had to pray on set in front of people so that involved a level of vulnerability that I wasn’t ready for.
“This experience definitely transformed me not only as an actor but as a person as well,” she added.
To learn more about a personal relationship with Jesus, click here.
About these writer: Michael Ashcraft pastors a church in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles.
