(Digital Media Editor's Note: This article was published first in the December 2022 print edition of The Stand HERE.)
For generations, frogs, flies, and lice have filled flannel boards with lessons on Moses and the plagues of Egypt. First, blood polluted the water while locusts, hail, and fire devastated crops. Sickness and boils afflicted livestock, followed by ominous, consuming darkness.
But Sunday school teachers rarely explained how the Egyptians survived those first nine plagues. Where did they find water and food for their children?
Perhaps they stole from the Hebrew slaves. After all, God spared His children and their resources – until the final calamitous visitation.
For Egyptians and Hebrews alike, the tenth plague required the blood covering of a spotless lamb. But what if theft had decimated their flocks? How would a poor Hebrew couple procure a lamb to save their newborn son?
That is the premise of Twinbolt Media’s first production, The Tenth.
Kaleb and Kyler Cook are the brains and the spirit behind Twinbolt Media. The deep-thinking brothers recently spoke with The Stand about how their project emerged during the COVID pandemic.
Kyler was a high school English teacher and realtor, while his wife Lauren was a fully invested stay-at-home mom of three. Kaleb worked in the marketing department of Penn State University. He and his wife Sarah also ran a business planning and filming weddings.
A few months earlier, Sarah had been diagnosed with breast cancer and undergone a mastectomy and extensive chemotherapy. As the pandemic raged, no one could come into their home to help with her recovery or with their toddler and preschooler. It was a dark and lonely time.
Confronting deep questions
Though they lived far apart, the brothers kept in touch often. In one of their talks, Kaleb poured out his heart, sharing his anguish – and his troubling, unanswered questions.
“What’s the point of all this?” he asked. “Is it just to live, go to work, then go home and suffer? Is this all there is?”
God answered in a roundabout way by inspiring a creative project combining Kyler’s love of literature and writing with Kaleb’s gifts for filming and editing.
Subsequently, the storyline of their 26-minute film, The Tenth, explores those same questions as the film’s young Hebrew parents desperately seek a sacrificial lamb to save their infant son.
“The Israelites understood,” explained Kyler. “This was the first plague that was going to impact them. They had to be on their guard and ready. The idea of a spotless lamb was almost impossible without God’s provision.”
Concerned with provision
The question of provision plagued the newly formed Twinbolt Media. Ironically, it came down to the pandemic – the COVID relief money, to be exact.
The brothers wisely invested most of their stimulus funds in highly skilled actors and craftsmen. Though it was filmed in one room with only five actors and a $5,000 budget, response to The Tenth was tremendous.
It was nominated for four awards at the 2022 International Christian Film Festival, winning Best Lead Actor and Third Place in Best Short Film.
“I think this just goes to show,” concluded Kyler, “it doesn’t take a lot to tell a story, just honesty, authenticity – and God telling the story.”
But the story of Twinbolt Media has just begun. Plans are in the works to make The Tenth into a feature-length film.
Kyler and Kaleb are in awe of how God is using their storytelling efforts that all began with heartfelt questions concerning cancer and COVID.
Amazingly, God’s answer came through the storyline of The Tenth. It was the same answer that faithfully resounded from Abraham’s altar on Mount Moriah to the hilltop of Golgotha.
It echoes still: God provided His Son as the sacrificial lamb – and that is the greatest story ever told.
(Watch The Tenth on RedeemTV at watch.redeemtv.com, and learn more at twinboltmedia.com.)
