NOBLE – Valuable Truths this Missionary Story Taught Me

I am still reeling. As if caught in this love/hate relationship with the film. I want to run from it, close it out of my consciousness.  Pretend I didn’t see it, so I don’t have to write this review.

But, I DID see it. I WAS compelled to pre-screen this movie. I WAS drawn to blog about it (though I NEVER do these…regardless of how often I am asked)

So, this movie. It just spun me, and it’s almost if the content, the realism, the catching truth of orphans hurting, left me where I cannot stand. 

NOBLE is about a woman, Christine, who experienced loss, abuse, neglect, and manipulation from a very young age…

NOBLE is also about a vision given to Christine during the darkest hours, during some of the most hopeless days of her life.

What I love about Christine is that she is a fighter. A woman who didn’t let the title, “Jesus-talker” scare her away from fighting for the 700,000 children she ended up giving refuge to in Vietnam.

Christine was a woman born for adventure, who did what some thought impossible.  A woman who never conformed to the limits homelessness, orphan-hood, and nuns or religious leaders put on her…

She was this somewhat out-of-the-box, adventurous tenacious soul that never stopped even when her circumstances or the world continually told her, “no”.

Often times when we look at orphan care, adoption, foster care, or third-world missions work, we can idealize it, color it up in well-dressed pictures, or spiritualize it as if just the “doing” will alone simply save the world.

But Christine in NOBLE had two things that made her plight saving hundreds of thousands of lives work. She had a God-given vision, and she had tenacious courage and unrelenting hard-work ethic, trailing her strong convictions.

What I have learned personally while pacing the floor with abandoned children, or from driving little ones in the middle of the night to care centers so that they can get the health care that they need. What I have learned from staying up night after night with drug exposed babies, or listening while mending the wounds of a child emotionally is…

Vision alone won’t save the world; we must have resolve, unrelenting work ethic, stubborn will, accompanied by tenacious courage.

At the same time, I have often seen callings laid in people’s laps, opportunities come knocking on people’s doors while it seemed all they had to do was take one step and their entire purpose and mission would come to pass….

Yet, they walked away.

And I have seen people work hard, day after day, year after year…but somewhere along the way, their Spirit fails, their works become their greatest source of discouragement.  Often times people like this can become cold and bitter, living for works as if their “go-to mentality” could replace, a true calling from God.

And whether we try hard, or walk away, whether we live to please people, or try doing ministry in our own strength…all great things fall if they weren’t inspired by some original calling given to us by God himself.

Sex slavery. This movie was also riddled with the abuses sadly so common while in the trenches, helping children.  In orphan ministry, we as foster parents aren’t estranged to the terrible things done to children as young as two, or sometimes even younger.

And while this part of the movie made me want to scream, run, pound something in the room, it also made me realize…

If we don’t see the reality of vulnerable kids in this life, if we can’t face the dark truth of children who are victims in every sense of the word, (whether out in the world in Vietnam or in neglected homes here in America)….we won’t have any real influence…

And without somebody seeing them, these children could be trapped indefinitely.

Christine so bravely went head on with things like abandonment and sex slavery, in the movie, NOBLE.

But, what I love most about this movie was that Christine didn’t appear to be some over-spiritual saint. She was real, scared, broken, humbled, someone who faced immeasurable odds, and yet overcame anyway.

When we look to Christine, we don’t see some untouchable saint far away in a third world country.  We see me. You.

For this reason, Christina’s life seemed do-able, almost achievable and a model for the average person to follow their calling with the same firey faith and perseverance.

If I had to sum up what made Christina successful in her mission to go from a beat, rejected, a lost Irish orphan to a giant of the faith, a world changer, a present day deliverer of the street kids; I would say, it was her tenacity and her calling, but above all it was her transparency, her willingness to stay humble, her determination to talk to God continually regardless of what life brought her…

Don’t be fooled….Christina wasn’t some prosperity loving believer who followed God only when He did great things for her. She chased God, cussed and cried out to God, she lay broken, desperate, needy, dependent, never breaking the ties of communication with God.

Time and time again, wherever she was, whatever she faced….she spoke with God, and He spoke with her.

As a result, God opened doors where all the self will, any calling alone couldn’t have brought her to.

Yes, this movie shook me. I can still feel my soul-cry for those children both in American and in places like Vietnam who are victims to others atrocities…

Still, I am glad I didn’t turn away. I am glad that women who are humble, have vision, have a life goal of accomplishing something significant in these few short years can look to Christine, and not just hope, but believe….their life can truly make a difference too.

How is God calling you to change lives, help the orphan, spread the gospel, follow the vision for His great cause?  Good work ethic, determination, a purpose that no one else can question or tarnish…

Isn’t it time each of us go out and do what we were made to do?  Because kids like the 700,000 who once combed the streets of Vietnam are waiting, waiting for people like me and you…

To do something.  Not just turn away, and pretend they don’t see the pain.

** NOBLE opens today, May 8th, in theaters in cities all throughout America.  Will you look for this gripping movie at a theater near you today?