The Damascus Road Project - Its History

    The Damascus Road Project started off as a batch of ideas, scribbled out on half-sheets of paper, often in the darkened hours of late night bouts with insomnia.  But the insomnia was the result of these ideas keeping the writer awake, not the other way around.

    Writer Louis Costley began working on the Screenplay for Damascus Road in the mid 1980's.  During this period, he was the drummer for a band call Fortress.  They used to practice in the basement of the home of the singer of that band, and one night after rehearsal Louis and he were just hanging out with each other.  They began to discuss various ideas each of them had for stories, and that was literally the beginning of the Project.  It was a very slow start for this project, because Louis pretty much refused to take it beyond that discussion.  He shared his thoughts on this subject ...

    "It was such a big vision, that I wasn't willing to put myself through the disappointment of NOT seeing it come to be.  I literally refused to write anything down for the longest time.  I mean ... who was I to think that someone like me, a nobody, could make a movie as big as this was envisioned?  Well, the problem is that I would lay awake at night for hours, just imagining the different scenes in the story.  Little bits and pieces of the story ... random bits and pieces.  Eventually, I just started to get out of bed in the wee hours of the night and morning and began to write them down on whatever paper I could find.  This process went on for about a year.  And then, just like that ... it stopped.  So I had this folder 3 or 4 inches thick, full of snippets of ideas, and I wasn't sure what to do with them.  There was really no rhyme or reason to them, and I had to sift through them to figure out where they fit, sort of like a puzzle.  I also had a number of songs that I'd written, and as I put the ideas out on the table, so to speak, those songs began to fit into the empty spaces, and sort of pulled it all together.  I'll be honest, I got very excited as I saw it all coming together into a cohesive unit.  It was like a river flowing through the countryside ... a valley here, a canyon there ... and eventually it all just formed one flowing story."

    He still fought the tug of this project, though, because he had other plans for his life.  He had a combination of things going for him.  Louis was a competitive distance runner, and had recently become certified as a Fitness Trainer.  He was overseeing the fitness and nutrition programs of a pretty successful Fitness Center in the Richmond, VA, area, and was also moving into some coaching opportunities with some local teenage runners.  One of the single greatest influences on his life was his Track and Field coach from his high school days, and this was pretty much the fulfillment of many of his dreams.  Of course, the very fact that he was finding success in this area actually lead him into a life-changing involvement with a project that would have him walk across the country - 2000 miles, from Buffalo, NY, to Nuevo Laredo, MEX.  It was during that period of time that the vision for the Damascus Road Project took its primary form.  When one is walking 12 hours a day, there's plenty of time for God to get a hold of your mind and heart, and that is precisely what happened ...

    "I remember that period of time very clearly.  I had pretty much sold everything I had in order to pay off my debts, and be able to afford to take about a year off of work.  I really didn't know what direction my life would take after the walk, but I figured that with the experience I had as a runner, as a certified trainer, walking across the USA ... I kind of figured I would be able to make my own path after that.  I had packed everything in boxes, and left them with my sister, and told her I would be back in about a year, after the walk was over.   I remember it clear as day ... I was ready to leave town, and I had to go back to her place, because I had this gnawing feeling that I had to take the folder of ideas and songs with me.  So, other than the clothes I was going to be using, the 'Damascus Road' folder was all I had to my name as I headed out on the road.  Little did I know just how significant this project would become in my life.  During that walk, while I was doing my thing, I had a couple of significant and profound experiences that transformed my life.   So often we tell the Lord that we will be available to do whatever He might ask of us.  When you're faced with the actual CHOICE of whether or not to submit to HIS will ... that is intense.  Well, I made that choice, and 20 years later, it turned out to be a very difficult choice.  Most people ... they just looked at me like I was some kind of flake.  They humored me - but didn't buy into the vision.  I have to be honest about this ... until just now, it never dawned on me.  I never made it back to Richmond.  WOW!! ... What if I had never gone back to my sister's place to pick up that folder?  Wow!!"

    From this point on, Damascus Road became the primary driving force behind so many of Louis' choices and decisions.  At the end of the walk, he set some roots in New Mexico.  He finished the primary draft of the Screenplay around 1992, which included 8 original songs he'd written in previous years.  These 8 songs would form the core of The Soundtrack Demo CD.  Numerous attempts were made to get the songs for the CD recorded, but each attempt ended without success.  During this period, disaster struck in the form of the computer documents that had been created for the screenplay were lost.  The hard drive crashed, and the back up of the files were corrupt.  The only redeeming factor was that Louis had a hard copy of the script printed for emergency back up.  Frustration was building, and it appeared that the project had come to a difficult roadblock ...

    "You can't force things to happen when the timing's not right.  When we do that, usually the results are disastrous.  I began to wonder if I had made a poor choice, if I had followed a selfish and grandiose 'delusion of grandeur.'  When we get to that point, no matter what we're attempting to do, it's so easy to lose focus on the objective.  I think that was happening to me.  People kept telling me I was 'dreaming,' and that I shouldn't be wasting my time on unachievable pipe dreams.  It was very, very frustrating.  I'd submitted the screenplay to numerous agents and production companies, only to be told the story was too religious.  On the other hand, the 'Christian' community was telling me it was too secular.  The same scenario was true of some of the music.  The only musicians that seemed to be willing to work on the songs weren't very religious folks, and when they really listened to the message of the songs ... they usually bailed on me.  I didn't know what to do at this point."