Programs
Healing Hearts: Leah Kida?
2023
Leah Kida? (which means, Why is life like this?) is a 13-part series in Arabic, addressing children’s trauma in the Middle East. We introduce children and their families to Gospel-centered and well-researched trauma healing practices. Each episode is designed to draw the hearts of children and families to Jesus, the healer, and hope-giver, as they see their own stories in the lives of our characters.
A Testament of Faith: A Missionary Story
2019
A one-hour documentary exploring the powerful legacy of Egypt’s native son, Swailem Hennein, who became the first-ever missionary sent out from the Land of the Pharaohs. From a small Egyptian village to the rough terrain of Sudan, Swailem and his young wife never imagined their work would shape the destiny of nations. Journalist Mona Hennein returns to her birth home to discover her parents’ untold legacy — A Testament of Faith whose impact transcends both countries and generations.
UNCHAINED: Healing from Generational Trauma
2018
Unchained: Generational Trauma and Healing, addresses the lingering trauma handed down from the American slavery system and offers solutions to address lingering race relations in our country.
Life Focus
Season 1
Episode 1
Cain’s Redemption
Prison Warden Burl Cain believes that a lifetime is too long a time to live without hope. Breaking with protocol, Cain developed a rigorous daily routine for prisoners in the Louisiana State Penitentiary built on hard work and intense study. In this episode, Life Focus sheds light on the inner workings of this prison that is turning incarceration into rehabilitation, offering hope to lifers like Ron Hicks and causing other state prisons to take notice.
Episode 2
90 Minutes in Heaven
Nearly fifteen years ago, Don Piper was pried from his car with the Jaws of Life after EMTs found him crushed inside his demolished vehicle, hit by a semi-truck. Yet Piper was unaware of the chaos around him; instead, he was meeting loved ones surrounded by the most glorious music he’d ever heard. Dead for almost 90 minutes, Piper was miraculously revived to tell his story of an incredible journey to heaven and back.
Episode 3
Blood Covenant
Michael Franzese was described as one of the most powerful and fearsome Mafia boss in America… until he fell in love with Camille Garcia, a young woman who convinced him to turn himself in. His ‘choice for love’ meant imprisonment and could have cost him his life, but today Franzese lives to tell about it. Don’t miss his riveting interview with Life Focus.
Episode 4
Saved from the Sex Industry
Heather became a stripper when she was 21 years old, making $1,200 to $2,000 a night. Growing up in a small town, she was “the skinny girl,” teased by her peers and abused by family members. In this episode, Life Focus uncovers the reality of the strip-club culture – how young women of low self- esteem are lured into well paying jobs, only to find drugs, mental abuse and despair…and seemingly no way out.
Season 2
Episode 2
On Wings of Prayer
When U.S Airways Flight 1549 crashed into the frigid Hudson River on a 20-degree day, many wondered how all 155 passengers lived to tell their story. The whole terrorizing incident took only 3 minutes and 20 seconds. In this episode, four strangers become lifetime friends bonded by an experience others cannot understand – the trauma of facing inevitable death followed by the opportunity of living a renewed life.
Episode 4
Living by the Book
When atheist, A.J. Jacobs, a New York journalist and Ed Dobson, a pastor from Grand Rapids, Michigan decided to live biblically for a year, they altered every aspect of their lives. Changing the way he dressed, ate and thought, A.J. sought life as experience. Diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, Ed wanted to experience life. In this unconventional half-hour, we examine how two men with opposite backgrounds took a sometimes humorous, sometimes serious path and came to surprising and unlikely conclusions.
Episode 5
Why Does He Do That?
Leah Mayer of Chicago believed she was too intelligent and too educated to be trapped by an abusive man. And when independent thinker Martha Tyler became a pastor’s wife, she found herself believing that her husband was “too good” for her. Both were caught in the mind games, verbal assaults and eventually physical violence that destroyed their self-esteem and deemed them helpless. This Life Focus episode documents a predictable cycle that abusers use to knowingly and slowly take control of their victims.
Episode 6
Convicted to Change
Today, forty-seven-year-old Derrick Gardner leaves prison for the fifth time in his life. This convicted felon has spent 26 years locked up, and now he has yet another chance to rehabilitate. But his tearful sister, Linda Gardner, fears he will go back to stealing and end up right back in the slammer. Statistics show that without any support, she is right. Now with a mentor, Derrick learns to stay off drugs, find a job and reconnect with his family.
Episode 7
The Explosive Family: From Chaos to Calm
Jim and Cindy Shilling of Cary, IL admittedly communicate by yelling and shouting. While they love each other and their children, they cannot seem to break out of their long-learned patterns of screaming. Therapist Steve Yashek provides in-office counseling, as well as “in-home” training to teach these well-meaning parents how to resolve problems calmly and peacefully. In this episode, we witness how this family learns to communicate without their decibel and blood pressure levels rising above normal.
Episode 8
A Mind Misunderstood
Mark and Debra Meehl were on the verge of divorce. Mark’s violent mood swings, reckless spending sprees, and utter irrationality were tearing their family apart. At the root of Mark’s destructive behavior was a complex psychological problem called Bipolar Disorder, the revelation of which would save their marriage and arguably Mark’s very life. When 15-year-old Katherine Finn started cutting herself and exhibited other suicidal behavior, her mother, Kristin, recognized similar disturbing symptoms she had as a teenager.
Episode 10
The Motown Miracle
The list of Smokey Robinson’s accolades is almost as long as the 4,000 songs that he has written in his lifetime. A Motown Legend, Smokey gained everything most people dream of-fame, money, and romance. Suddenly, however, to the surprise of his fans, family and friends, his life fell apart and revealed a hidden but debilitating cocaine addiction that brought him within one foot from the grave. Robinson’s secret was out. Watch the saga of how he fell into and pulled out from this life- threatening addiction without a single trip to a rehabilitation facility.
Episode 11
Oh Boy!
Boys’ imaginations can take them from a backyard to a battlefield where they will pretend to be heroes or villains as they rescue and conquer – and all before lunch. And yet many parents worry, wondering if their sons are simply normal, active boys, or turning into potentially violent men. Chuck and Deborah Hart of Littleton, Colorado, have four active boys. From breakfast to bedtime, these parents are on their feet, running after lively children. We’ll look at this family’s well-studied approach to raising boys and talk to educators and experts who believe that society needs to have a new heart for boys.
Episode 12
Education Under Fire
In the last year, over 36 Chicago children and teens have been murdered — more than one a week during the school year. Among them, Kendrick and Carnell Pitts, brothers killed in separate shootings within two weeks of each other, leaving their parents, Esther and Juan, in shock and disarray. Today, Esther fights back through a new organization to help teens and children traumatized by violence at school. In this episode, we will meet other teens and leaders who began community programs to protect Chicago’s school children.
Season 3
Episode 1
The Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness of Alice Cooper
When Alice Cooper hit the rock music scene in the 1970’s, teens flocked to his concerts and parents wrung their hands and tossed out his records. This “Godfather of Shock Rock” was known for his horror-like stage shows featuring guillotines, fake blood, and boa constrictors. But as Life Focus discovered, there’s more to the world’s most “beloved heavy metal entertainer” than meets the concertgoer. Alice Cooper is a man of wit and wisdom on his own journey of faith, determined to make a positive difference in the world.
Episode 2
A Symbol of Forgiveness
Congregants of First Baptist Church of Maryville, Illinois, watched in horror as a gunman opened fire in their worship service, killing their beloved pastor and leaving his widow and a church in agony. Though no motive was ever discovered, Cindy Winters tells the story of how she came to forgive the man who took the life of her husband and left their children without their dad.
Episode 3
One in Five
Some studies estimate that one out of every five women who attends college or university is sexually assaulted. In this episode, Life Focus goes face-to-face with three women who recount their stories of sexual assault on campus-the pain, the silence and the shame, as well as the path to healing. These women share their commitment to education and prevention as they speak out against an epidemic of sexual violence on campus.
Episode 4
Dealing with Debt
While America still struggles to recover from our national foreclosure crisis, Life Focus meets up with a former Real Estate broker who knowingly misled customers and forged loan applications, realizing the borrowers would most likely go into foreclosure. He shares his regrets, and we meet some of those forced into foreclosure who are now working to move from crippling debt into financial security.
Episode 5
A Tale of Two Professors
Two professors lose their university positions over what many call academic freedom: the right to research and publish their findings. When each professor’s findings go against the status quo, they find themselves under persecution from the academic community, one by publishing a paper claiming the earth must have a Creator, the other by questioning the story of the Fall in the Creation story.
Episode 6
Young at Heart
Adults today live longer and remain healthier for longer than any generation before them. This means there are increased late-life transitions, such as the loss of a spouse, a possible return to work and adjusting to new living situations. Older adults and their children discuss the stresses and challenges of parental aging. We also look at some of the myths society holds about getting older.
Episode 7
Secrets in Suburbia: Teen Synthetic Drugs Use
More teenagers die from drug overdose than from auto accidents. In this episode of Life Focus, we meet upper-class suburban teenagers hooked on
synthetic drugs, available in any drug store. Their parents share the pain of watching their teens’ lives destroyed by “legal” drugs and the path to recovery. Detective Kathy Hines talks about an organization she launched to help educate parents and teens about this destructive suburban secret.
Episode 8
Sex Slavery in America
Julie Schmatz escaped her captor as a teenager, but recalls how feeling like “a nobody” led her into his trap of grand promises and “love”-a trap that quickly turned into forced prostitution. In this episode, Life Focus talks with women who fell prey to a life of drugs, abuse and prostitution the profile of women who are targeted by sex trackers. We also look at the solution of helping women more fully understand their intrinsic worth and beauty.