Tom Cruise to close the Games; Golden Summer; Big week for Unveil
3 Things this week and a book recommendation
I'm slipping in my link round up at the end of a beautiful weekend hosting family. Thanks for spending some of your day with Things I Wrote Down.
How are those wall sits and pushups going as you watch the Olympics? I find it so inspiring to watch the athletes give their all as they compete.
Here's to hard work and great feats!
1. Tom Cruise to close the Games
I'm here for it. Tom Cruise will perform an epic stunt to close the Paris Games and preview the next Summer Olympics, which will be in LA.
Performing before a global audience in the age of social media is a high risk game, as we've learned. Striking the right note, while not offending billions could be mission impossible. But if there's any celebrity who can do it, it's gotta be Tom.
2. Golden Summer
What were you doing at 17? What a story out of the pool and how fun to watch with the rest of Canada!
Summer McIntosh is the first Canadian to win three gold medals at one Games. And they pair well with the silver medal she won last week in the women's 400-metre freestyle.
What will the future hold?
3. A big week for Unveil
Tomorrow we officially launch our WeFunder for DANIEL, our new film project. It's based on the incredible true story of the royal, prophet and advisor to kings.
We're aiming for a 2025 release in theaters and believe it will bring thrills, entertainment, and also inspire people in their faith.
Perks and investments start at $100 and go up from there.
Your social currency - spreading the news - is so valuable and helpful too. Perhaps you know someone who loves this sort of thing. Please help us spread the word!
A book recommendation
A few years ago I helped Kel Steiner, write his biography about life as a modern missionary. He had aims to be in the Olympics and achieve glories there. I think that's why the story is on my mind. But his journey took some unexpected twists and turns after a bad, repeated injury, and he pursued glory of a different kind.
Adventures in Saying Yes to God has already been translated into multiple languages, but will soon be available in Urdu and German too.1
The following is an excerpt from the missions adventure biography.
Chapter 1: Wuh Tribe
The words were still fresh in my mind though it had been days since I heard them. It still seemed impossible that I heard them at all but they replayed in my mind more loudly the deeper we went into the jungle.
“Jones to Command, you won’t believe what I’ve just seen.”
The pilot’s voice played in my memory just like it did through the radio days earlier by some miracle, full of static, scratched but distinctly audible. Was what I heard real, or just a dream?
I would soon find out. Ivan, who walked close behind me, had no doubts. Neither did the two young Filipino girls who walked closely behind. They walked with a resolve like I had never seen, just as they promised they would, showing no signs that they couldn’t keep up as they ventured deeper into the trees, further from civilization and the familiar world with each step they took in the humid rain forest. And they were following me.
New Zealand, the home of my childhood, seemed like a distant memory. What an amazing detour my whole life now seemed from the life I imagined as a boy. Musings of my childhood were suddenly interrupted as an American military jet flew overhead.
“An F-5E Tiger!” Ivan shouted as our small expedition looked up overhead through the trees. “I’d know that sound anywhere!
It was gone before we could see it, the booming noise of the jet chortling above, the sound like the tearing of the afternoon from end to end like one massive piece of paper being ripped across the length of the sky.
“It must be another military jet doing reconnaissance in the area,” I said and looked back toward the direction we were walking.
As if reading my mind, one of the girls asked, “How much further do you think we’ll walk today? Soon it will be dark.”
“I know,” I replied.
“It could be dangerous to sleep out here in the jungle. Who knows what animals might be roaming the jungle floor tonight in search of something to eat!”
“Those are the least of my concerns,” said Ivan, smiling. “I’m more worried about an indigenous tribe bumping into us and not being pleased to find trespassers sleeping on their land.”
“We’ll keep walking,” I said, “at least for another hour.” I pulled out the map from my pocket and unfolded its tattered pages. “The officer who dropped us at the edge of the jungle said we would run into a village not far from here.”
We continued to walk, our bodies starting to show their fatigue. I could feel the weight of my backpack, filled with all the contents it could carry, food and medical supplies, digging into my shoulder muscles and neck. My feet and legs burned from the hours of walking higher into the jungle. How many hours had it been in the hot jungle heat? But the words of the pilot urged me on, motivated me to find the mysterious tribe we were led to believe lived high up on a mountain ridge, a tribe few others, if anyone at all, had ever seen.
How long we had walked since the plane surprised us overhead I could not say. We had come to a point in the trail that edged the side of a mountain. Ahead of us was a steep incline, and across from the rock face, vibrant jungle surrounded us. I stopped dead in my tracks. Ivan bumped into me.
“What Kel, are we stopping now?” I held my finger to my mouth and he stopped talking.
We were at the base of a sharp incline, and at the top of the hill stood a man: a warrior. The man had no expression on his face. He was naked but for a covering of vines that was wrapped around his loins. There was a strap across his chest that held a furrow of arrows on his back, which towered above his head. In his right hand he held a bow that stood higher than he was tall.
The four of us stood closely together in a group. We looked up at the warrior and he looked down at us. A long moment passed, quiet except for the humming buzz of insects in the jungle and the thumping of our hearts in our throats, ears, between our temples, and in our chests.
Did he mean us harm?
“You need to say something,” whispered one of the girls, breaking the silence.
“You know the mountain languages, not me,” I whispered back to them urgently, without taking my eyes off of the man.
“It’s not us he’s interested in, Kel, it’s you.”
I looked up the hill and saw that she was right. The warrior’s gaze was fixed directly upon me. I was the leader of the small group that he could see. His interest was solely in me.
The rest of our journey toward the lost tribe, perhaps even our very lives, depended on what I would say to this man who towered over us, holding his weapon, from where he stood on the hill.
And for the life of me, in that moment, I could think of nothing to say.
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Lovely piece and, agree Tom Cruise for the win.