Capturing Gresham's Interest

On September 22, Pastor Josh, Lucy, and a faithful supporter traveled to Wilmore, Kentucky and to Asbury University to be a part of a book release by accomplished author Devin Brown. Mr. Brown has wrote numerous essays and scholarly articles on Lewis and Tolkein as well as multiple books on Narnia and the Hobbit. He is considered a leading scholar on these subjects. As part of the book release, Asbury University brought in Douglas Gresham from his home in Malta for a special interview and discussion of all things Lewis and the Chronicles. While there, Gresham made himself available for additional press interviews and meetings. Brad Johnson, Director of Marketing and Communications stated to us that with over thirty requests for interviews and meetings, we were one of a very few requests that were accepted. This was encouraging to us that we might be on to something if it was worth even just a few minutes of Gresham’s very limited and valuable time. Our meeting was supposed to be at 9:15pm following the book signing reception that took place after the special question and answer presentation that took place between Devin Brown and Douglas Gresham. Unfortunately there were more people than Asbury had anticipated (which didn’t surprise us) so it took until 10:30pm to get everyone through the book signing line and get our chance to speak with Mr. Gresham. Because it ended up being so much later, the meeting was very rushed and shorter than anticipated. Pastor Josh had to talk fast and was not able to show Mr. Gresham any of the video or photographs we had prepared. He has been in a few pressure cooker business meetings before and also met with some profile clientele in his day, but it made the situation no less intimidating and tense for himself. It has been quite a few years since this pastor was in a situation trying to negotiate an agreement that had several hundred thousand dollars on the line. Even though we were not able to get as far as we had hoped or land any big moves or support from Gresham, we were able to make the connection, get a very useful photograph taken with Gresham, and pass along a usb drive with all of our material on it to him. Two important pieces of information we did receive from him that we couldn’t have gotten any other way were an understanding of who owned what and also a person and contact email for who we needed to present our information and proposal to next. So even though we didn’t get anything “big” from the meeting (at least we don’t think so at the moment), we did get what we feel is a next step and that is really all that is important when working in faith with God. He just wants us to trust Him enough to take the next step and do it in faith.