A mid-journey report

We've come to London to share my play about Eric Liddell (RichDrama.com/BeyondTheChariots) during the Olympics.

Last night was the debut of the Tamil translation, which was well received. They translated it for seven people who had come from Sri Lanka and India to attend the International College of Officers for the Salvation Army.

This morning a woman told us how integral Eric Liddell's story was in her coming to faith, and there she sat in the William Booth Officers Training School, where she'll start attending in the fall, watching a play about the man who had inspired her to go into ministry! The things that our Father orchestrates are so far beyond what we could ever plan!

Before we came here we performed the play in Romania with Hungarian translation slides. It was in Transylvania, a region that used to belong to Hungary, and the people we visited were Hungarian speakers. One of the men there asked us to tell him more about Jesus. We stayed up until 1am. In the end he prayed that Jesus would cover his sins, so that he could be in a relationship with the Father. The next morning he walked into our room radiating joy, but he still wants to see miraculous signs to confirm this. The next day, when we flew to London there were seven specific Appointments that we knew were all about confirming our friend's new relationship with the Lord. The highlight was when we discoverd that our waitress was from Tirgu-Mures, Romania, the city from which we'd flown only a few hours before. We'll also tell our friend about the woman who will start training school and her story. We're praying that these Love letters will encourage him to grow in his new relationship with the Lord.

On Friday we'll have breakfast with 120 Olympic athletes (some of which will be sitting at our table) as the Eric Liddell Award is given to two gold medalists who exhibit not only outstanding athleticism but also a strong committment to the Father.

filled with Hope,
Rich

2 comments:

joy vincent said...

Awesome! It's all those little miracles, "coincidences", God-winks that always make my knees buckle a bit when I realize He really does have us in the palm of His hands. Who are the two medalists who got the Liddell awards? Looking forward to seeing you when you get back.

Rich Swingle said...

Joy, I'm sorry I missed your observations and questions when you posted this!

The female athlete was British rower and double Olympic silver medallist, Debbie Flood.

The male recipient of the award was the 2008 Olympic decathlon gold medallist from the USA, Bryan Clay. We saw him compete in the 100m hurdles, discus and pole vault in the Bird's Nest Stadium during the decathlon at the Beijing Olympics. We got back to our room and turned on the TV to see Clay jogging the mile! We thought he was injured since there were no English subtitles. Turns out he'd already won the gold medal and his margin of victory was larger than since the 1972 Olympics. He was using the event as quadruple victory laps.

Here's an article: Christian athletes honoured with Eric Liddell awards.