Laughter from the 27th Floor

I was about to perform Beyond the Chariots for the Mandarin Bible Church, which meets on the 27th floor of a building on Hong Kong Island.

As I was admiring the view I discovered that the great-grandson of Hudson Taylor attends the church. Hudson Taylor is considered the Father of Modern Missions, and Jim Hudson Taylor, III, was a boy in the concentration camp where Eric Liddell was interned. Because the last part of my play takes place in that concentration camp I very much wanted him to attend, but the church secretary told me it's rare for him to be there since he's usually off speaking somewhere.

Thankfully he was able to see it. When he walked up to me, before introducing himself, he said, "It was softball. We didn't have enough room to play baseball." He and his wife invited us over, and for two hours we talked about other adjustments that needed to be made to the play and the publicity materials so we could bring it into China for the Beijing Olympics.