by Bethany Beebe
Sometimes finding your place in the world can be difficult, but finding where you belong in a church that is so richly steeped in films can be just as difficult. Laurel Perry had been attending the Voice of Pentecost for many years but she didn’t really feel like part of the family. She never felt as though she had a place in the church. But all that changed when her hobby took her from being a member of the church to being a cast member of Christian WYSIWYG Filmworks and soon to being a household name.
When Laurel was pregnant with her son, Adam, she was laid off from her job. Her husband, Wayne, being the sweetheart that he is, bought her a very lovely and expensive piece of jewelry from Neiman Marcus. As she admired at it, she had a thought come to her, “I could make something like this.”
With that thought, she began to create. She found beautiful beads, created a design, and strung them with wire. When she was done, she had a lovely piece that was so similar to what she had been given by her husband that she began to make more. Eventually, her handmade jewelry made it into some stores. This was in 2003.
Then WYSIWYG asked her to make some pieces for the up- coming movie. Rocki had designed some pieces that were made with metal and large medallions. Since all of Laurel’s previous work had been done with beads, she was not very familiar with these kinds of materials. But wanting to help WYSIWYG, she took a crash-course in metalworking. She was even able to make some pieces for them before they went to Italy to shoot a few scenes for the film. The pieces were exquisite and she fell in love with working with metal.
There was something about the look of these pieces that she really liked. It was as if the pieces had just been uncovered in an archeological dig. They were rustic, beautiful, classic, and yet modern at the same time. They were art. They became her first real line of original design jewelry. It was called Timeless Jewelry for Evening Wear. She had Misty Gazowsky model the line for her and because the look was in the old fashion style Rocki Gazowsky came up with the concept of the French opera theme.
Lorel began to realize something, for the first time she began to feel like part of the church. She felt like she went from a not fitting in, to finding a place where she could work. She never had a desire to be one of the people in front of the camera but with this she felt like she was like the men in the Bible who built the temple of God. They were not priest, they were craftsmen anointed by God and that was what their ministry was.
She even began to notice that her schedule seemed to coincide with the WYSIWYG schedule. When they were busy she was busy creating new jewelry. When WYSIWYG was slow her life got to busy for her to make new pieces. She was riding the same waves.
With everything going so well with her line she decided to trade mark her name, Lorel Perry. When she did this a big company called Escada, which owns many other companies one of which is called Lorel, wanted to take her to court to stop her from trade marking her own name. At this point she could have given up, but instead she went to talk to an attorney. The whole way to his office she was praying in tongues, wanting to know if this was the right thing or not.
She sat in her car at his office just praying, she cast a lot on what to do and it said came up proceed, then she got a conferming scripture, so she knew that she needed to push this thing through. This was a call that God had given her, this was the point where she could walk away from it or she could fight for the vision that God had given her. It would have been easy for her to have left that parking lot that day but she stepped out in faith and followed after God.
She left her Bible in the car and walked into the attorney’s office and told him strait forward that she was a Christian and that she believe in casting lots and on the way she makes her decisions. The attorney said that he was a Christian too, and because of this he said that he would take her case on contingency. That meant he would only get paid if she won the case, which meant it could cost her up to fifteen to twenty thousand dollars. So she was caught in a catch twenty two, go forward and win which would mean possibly paying up to twenty thousand dollars to her attorney, which she didn’t have, or keep going and have the other company bleed her dry, to where she no longer had any money and end up dropping the case all together.
But God told her to go ahead with it and she was going to follow what God told her to do. This soon became the attorneys David and Goliath case, which was what he called it. She had her name wrapped up in this case for over a year to a year and a half, then out of the blue the company calls her with an offer. They said that she could use her own name but they would maintain the rights to it.
Lorel was tempted by this, it was a good offer. But she knew this was not what God wanted. Her attorney asked what she wanted to do, take it or keep going. She said lets go all the way. Then they didn’t hear anything from Escada for a while, suddenly she gets a call from her attorney say they dropped they case. They withdrew their opposition, she could now trademark her name and within a week she had the papers with her named trademarked.
Through all of this, though her craft was on hold she was still riding the WYSIWYG wave. It was the faith that Pastor Richard Gazowsky the CEO of Christian WYSIWYG Filmworks showed in his life that got her through her hard times. She would see how he handled his ups and downs. How he walked in faith radically at all times. And because of this she was able to step out on those limbs that look to thin to hold her dreams only to find that not only could they hold but they didn’t even bow under the weight.
Lorel has no idea why God had given her a desire for jewelry. But she does know that is had gotten her through some of the hardest times in her life. It was a vision a purpose given to her by God and every day she is going to walk it out. She wrote down her vision and God showed her a plan. Every week she will accomplish something even though it may seem insignificant. She has faith in her vision and believes that God will make away because he gives without adding sorrow to it.
Bethany Beebe has worked with Christian WYSIWYG Filmworks in set production and prop-making.
She currently is working with Final Cut Pro, editing a DVD series.
