A Million Dreams - 4th Place Small Human Video | 2018 National Fine Arts | Houston, TX

Placing 4th in the nation, A Million Dreams was performed by Capitol Hill A/G based out of Oklahoma City, OK. This human video is based on the true story of Mark and Gladys Bliss and their amazingly beautiful story of sacrifice through missions. The story is as follows: Mark and Gladys Bliss were called to be missionaries in Iran. They had three children—Karen (13), Debbie (11), Mark Reid (3). One night they were traveling in Iran with a local pastor and his wife (Haik and Takoosh) and their six month old baby Joseph. They had been at a prayer meeting that lasted longer than expected and were driving late at night on the winding, two-lane roads to Gorgan. “Then, all of a sudden, he was blinded momentarily when an oncoming vehicle did not dip its lights. The Volvo ploughed into the back of a tractor-trailer loaded with grain. It was parked half on the road and half on the roadside. There were no lights on the tractor or the trailer. The impact was devastating. All the children – Karen, Debbie, Mark, and Joseph – died on the roadside. Mark, Gladys, Haik and Takoosh were taken to a local hospital with basic facilities. Mark had minor injuries compared to the others who spent months recovering. All four survived physically. And they survived spiritually.” *** “Despite the terrible grief, Mark and Gladys never wavered in their faith in the ultimate sovereign goodness of God. They have set an example to all believers that Iranian Christians can say with Job – ‘The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.’ They are also witnesses that in these times of intense grief, God is real. Looking back, Mark said – ‘God did not desert us. Instead He moved in with His love in a deeper dimension than we had ever known. We didn’t have to reach out to touch Him. He was just so close to us through it all. His love kept us up. We were like a cork on the water – we just couldn’t go under. There was so much prayer in the Iranian church and God was showing us so much love.’” Mark recently spoke before his passing away about what happened in the following years. He mentioned how him and Gladys had gone back to the village where the man who was driving the tractor that night was residing. They expressed to the man that they forgave him for what had happened that night, and immediately conjured a small prayer gathering. That man ended up converting from Islam to Christianity because of God’s immense love. A couple years after that day, Mark and Gladys heard about the entire village coming to know Christ because of that miraculous expression of God’s love and the three seeds they had planted in that village (“transforming their three dreams into a million dreams”). Mark has recently joined our Father in Heaven, while Gladys Bliss resides in Springfield, MO. Team: Meagan Aynes Riley Bishop Molly Church Savanna Ragsdale Written and Coached by: Adam Ragsdale