Zoe began sharing with others on the staff what was going on with her, and specifically the way Grace had prayed for her. The two of us had always made it a point to pray before our meals and before I went back to work, and while we had never tried to be showy about it, we didn’t try to hide it, either. Suddenly people started pausing as they passed us while in prayer, watching from a polite distance and hidden behind script books or soda cans as though merely pausing to admire, say, the postlunch disaster that was the catering table. We started praying a little louder to make it easier for everyone to eavesdrop.

Not until one of these “innocent passersby” let slip an “amen” when we finished did we even acknowledge what was happening. This slip of the tongue caused an uproar of guilty laughter from the small crowd that had assembled, and I finally threw up my hands and said, “Good grief, people, no point in all standing around alone when we could be meeting all this crap head-on together. If you want to pray with us, just come over.” Twelve of the twenty or so that were there came up to us at dinner, asking if they could sit with us when we prayed. By dinner the next day we had thirty people gathered around our table, saying nothing while we prayed but obviously engrossed in it.

By the end of shooting, Grace had a following of about ten women from various departments who sought her out on their breaks to ask her to pray with them, to give them advice, and, most important, to tell them about “this whole God thing.” When we finally wrapped, there wasn’t the usual sense of relief and eagerness to move on with the process; instead, people seemed disappointed that we’d no longer be together. So the two of us proposed a weekly party at our house for those who had expressed interest in our beliefs and had been tagging along with us the past few weeks. Twenty-eight people promised to come, and we marveled at how God was using us to influence this tiny corner of the industry.