98th Anniversary of Eric Liddell Breaking the World Record

I was so blessed to celebrate the 98th anniversary of Eric Liddell breaking the world record in 400m at the Paris Olympics with my friend and fellow Liddell fan, Timothy J Mercaldo! 

Click the image to play our Facebook Live tribute...

Here are the links we mentioned: 

www.RichDrama.com/Updates 

www.RichDrama.com/Donate 

www.WorshipPlus.org

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See the rest of Olympic champion Eric Liddell's Chariots of Fire story in Beyond the Chariots. Watch it online and book a live performance. 

The Sword of the Spirit Interview

This morning I got to chat with with Donald James Parker on his first video interview for The Sword of the Spirit. You can watch below, or if you're receiving this via email, visit www.Blog.RichDrama.com.



Here are links to some of the things I mentioned:
• Beyond the Chariots
• Providence

Donald James Parker joined us for the
premiere of Providence.

• Beyond the Mask
• Alone Yet Not Alone
• The Unexpected Bar Mitzvah
• My other films
• Rocky Mountain Christian Filmmakers Camp
• Lamplighter Guild
• The Giant Killer and Escape from the Eagle's Nest
• The Salvation Army Territorial Arts Ministry Conservatory
• My Workshops
• Schools where I've taught
• In Chariots of Fire it was Jackson Sholz who hands Eric Liddell the piece of paper saying, "In the old book it says: He who honors me, I will honor.” (I Samuel 2:30) In reality it was an American masseur who gave him the paper.
• Eric Liddell Centre
• On Wings of Eagles
• Judah Ben Hur, the musical in which I performed in Singapore
• Drama Evangelist for the Church of the Nazarene
• My bride, Joyce's performances
• Eric Liddell's student, H. K. Cheng
• Eric Liddell's daughters
• What it means to live in relationship with the Lord

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See the rest of Olympic champion Eric Liddell's Chariots of Fire story in Beyond the Chariots. Watch it online and book a live performance.

Seven Men and the Secret of Their Greatness

Eric Metaxas, who kindly let us use his testimony for a site we set up for people we encountered in Russia during the Sochi Olympics (www.WhoistheFish.com), has written a brief but thorough chapter on Eric Liddell in this book featuring six other luminaries in the Kingdom of God. Metaxas is a skilled writer, and he brought me to tears with material I’ve known for years. I was also delighted by some surprises.

He found an interview with Horatio Fitch, who raced Liddell in the 400 meters at the Paris Olympics. Fitch had broken the world record in one of the semi-final heats, and in his interview in 1984 Fitch said, “Our coach told me not to worry about Liddell because he was a sprinter, and he’d pass out 50 yards from the finish.” The 1981 movie Chariots of Fire shows how Liddell was expected to prove himself the fastest man alive in the 100 meters, but refused to run a heat on a Sunday, the Lord’s Day. Liddell ended up breaking Fitch’s world record in the 400 meters, beating him by five meters. It was decades before the spread between first and second in that race was greater.

The new film about Liddell, On Wings of Eagles, shows him being challenged to run on a Sunday in the internment camp in which he was incarcerated in China, and the movie does not really flesh out that challenge. I had been meaning to look up more about Liddell refereeing athletic events on Sundays because fights were breaking out when he wasn’t there. Metaxas captures that with a quote from Joyce Stranks Cotterill, who later married one of Eric’s roommates in the internment camp, Joe Cotterill. Joyce said Liddell

came to the feeling that a need existed, [and] it was the Christlike thing to do to let them play with the equipment and to be with them…because it was more Christlike to do it than to [follow] the letter of the law and let them run amok by themselves.

In the new film Eric’s reason to run was also more Christlike than following the letter of the law, in fact he saw it as a matter of life and death. Joseph Fiennes (who plays Liddell in the film) does a fine job carrying the weight of the challenge in his countenance. I was just disappointed that it wasn’t explored more in the film.

My favorite discovery in Metaxas’ book comes from a blog post quoting Eric’s teacher in college (high school in the American system), A. P. Cullen. I call him Uncle Rooper in my one-man play about Liddell, Beyond the Chariots. It was a childhood nickname that somehow followed him into adulthood. Eric followed him to China where they taught alongside each other, and they were later imprisoned together in the Japanese internment camp. Cullen recorded what he said at Liddell’s funeral:

He was literally God-Controlled, in his thoughts, judgements, actions, words to an extent I have never seen surpassed, and rarely seen equalled. Every morning he rose early to pray and read the Bible in silence: talking and listening to God, pondering the day ahead and often smiling as if at a private joke.

Metaxas does a brilliant job summarizing every chapter of Liddell’s life but one. There’s no mention of Liddell’s world-class running that continued in China. Beyond the Chariots portrays how he tied the winning times for the Amsterdam Olympics in 1928 at a meet in China with Olympic athletes from France and Japan. For a fuller exploration of those athletic exploits I recommend David McCasland’s Pure Gold: Eric Liddell and John Keddie’s Running the Race. I count McCasland’s the authoritative biography on Liddell, and Keddie was a Scottish runner himself and tied Eric’s time on at least one track.

I believe the fact that Liddell continued to run at world-class speed after moving to China only one year after winning Olympic gold amplifies his sacrifice to leave all of that glory behind to give his all to the One who gave His all for him.

See the rest of Olympic champion Eric Liddell's Chariots of Fire story in Beyond the Chariots. Watch it online and book a live performance.

Friday's chat after On Wings of Eagles

We were delighted to rewatch On Wings of Eagles debut on the East Coast and to field questions afterward.

You can hear the questions and answers below, or if you're receiving this via email you'll find it at the top of www.blog.richdrama.com.



Unfortunately I miscalculated how much space was left on my recorder, and it ran out just before a woman in attendance shared how she had the theme from Chariots of Fire played at her wedding!

Seeing it as second time there were a number of details that caught my eye and ear that I'd missed the first time around.

Early on there's a glimpse of A Tale of Two Cities, which Eric Liddell loved because of the Christ-like giving of one life for another. He was memorizing that chapter while pumping water for people in the camp.

There's a line in which Flo says, "I know what kind of a man I married," and this time through it reminded me of something I'd just read in David McCasland's Pure Gold: Eric Liddell. McCasland made the comment that before she married Eric she never hear anyone say a negative thing about him. In all the research I've done, and in all the dozens of people I've met who remember him, I can't recall a single negative statement about him!

I'm doing one more talkback after tomorrow's 11am screening. Find details and my full review of the film at www.RichDrama.com/OnWingsOfEagles.

See the rest of Olympic champion Eric Liddell's Chariots of Fire story at www.RichDrama.com/BtC or by booking a public screening or live performance.

On Wings of Eagles

A new film about Eric Liddell is being released on November 3 in select theaters and online simultaneously. I'll be fielding questions after two of the screenings in NYC. This is an answer to a prayer I've been praying since 1981 when Chariots of Fire won four Academy Awards. I wanted to know more about what the supertitles ending Chariots of Fire hinted at: “Eric Liddell, missionary, died in occupied China at the end of World War II. All of Scotland mourned.” Click here for more about my connection to Eric Liddell's story. In the year 2000 I started researching for Beyond the Chariots, my one-man play that tells the rest of the Chariots of Fire story from the perspective of Eric Liddell. My performance of the play at the Singapore Expo is now available: www.RichDrama.com/BtC. Since I first started my research at the Eric Liddell Centre in Edinburgh I've tracked no less than seven attempts (including one of my own) to tell more of Eric Liddell's story on the big screen, so I'm overjoyed that this one finally made it across the finish line... but being so tied to the story, I feel let down on certain fronts. Before I get to that, there is plenty to love about On Wings of Eagles. I'll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum, but there are a few things I just have to mention.... Joseph Fiennes portrays Eric Liddell coaching his track team from the Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College. Xu Niu is far left. Though I did submit for the role, I'm completely thrilled with Joseph Fiennes' portrayal of one of my lifelong heroes. He captured the good natured charm and indefatigable joy I've picked up in the biographies and interviews with more than a dozen people who remember Liddell. On Wings of Eagles is a total reworking of a film entitled The Last Race, which was released in Hong Kong and China last year. Producers Jim Green and Mark Bacino told me they took the raw footage and have reworked the storyline and introduced a narrator, the older voice of Xu Niu (played by Shawn Dou on screen and voiced by the older Bruce Locke). Though I haven't seen The Last Race, from descriptions I've heard I believe this is a much better film for Western audiences. After my performance in Hong Kong on 08/08/08, the opening day of the Beijing Olympics with Leone and Jim "Jamey" Hudson Taylor, III, Chuck Allison, Steve Wible, and H. K. Cheng. Xu Niu is, from what I can tell, a fictionalized runner on Liddell's track team at the Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College. He follows Liddell throughout the story. In my play I also have a fictional student of Liddell's in a pivotal role. I call him Mai Ker. An actual former student of Liddell, H. K. Cheng, saw a couple of my performances of the play in Hong Kong, and after one of those performances he was kind enough to do an interview, which we hope to release soon. I asked him if the fictional Mai Ker was similar to any of Liddell's actual students. He immediately thought of a classmate! As a young runner I was inspired by Eric Liddell the athlete. As a Christian I loved how Chariots of Fire showed Liddell refusing to run on a Sunday in the 100m, where he might have proven that he was the fastest man alive. Instead he trained for the 400m and broke the world record at that distance. One of the things I love most about On Wings of Eagles is that it shows Liddell turning away from fame and fortune that was promised after his Olympic success to minister to the people who nearly killed his family shortly after his birth during the Boxer Rebellion. Jacob Shams in his otherwise excellent review of the new film gets one thing wrong. He says, "...after his racing days were over, Liddell returned to the home of his birth, China..." Liddell's racing days were far from over! He broke the world record at the Paris Olympics when he was 22, and he left for China the very next year. I'll post more on Liddell's athletic accomplishments in China later, but the short version is that during a meet in China hosted by Japan for the Emperor's coronation, Liddell tied some of the winning times set in the 1928 Olympics earlier that year. Liddell (Fiennes) races against Chen Quan (Simon Twu). Though the new film never shows Liddell running in his prime, there are two races, and in both Fiennes does a great job of showing him run beyond what his meager rations should allow. At one point we see him sharing his rations with children, which is a beautiful picture of who he was. At another point eggshells are being ground, and, indeed, they would add shells to meals to get every bit of protein they could. Doctors in the camp told Liddell they weren't eating enough for the youth to take place in athletics, but Liddell said without their bodies engaged, their souls would wither. Fiennes portrays Liddell as a science teacher at the Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College. The new film is shot in China, in Tianjin (spelled Tientsin when the story takes place), where Liddell taught science (not English as Shams says in his review), and in Weifang (spelled Weihsien when the story takes place), in the actual compound where Eric Liddell and his fellow Allied prisoners spent the end of World War II. There are a couple of scenes summarizing Liddell's life as a teacher and missionary before it cuts to him on board a ship with his family before it disembarks, carrying his wife Flo and daughters Patricia and Heather to their family home in Toronto. Flo (Elizabeth Arends, who made no attempt at a Canadian accent) was also pregnant with Maureen, now Maureen Moore. After seeing one of my performances of Beyond the Chariots, she described that first trip as being in a cab with the windows rolled up. I was blessed to see the photo of Maureen as a baby take such a prominent place in the storyline, as Liddell was separated from his family during his final years. The farewell on the ship is a scene that may have been inspired by the Prologue in my favorite biography on Liddell, Pure Gold, by David McCasland, who saw my play and set up a tour of Tianjin for us. I'll post more on that later. In both the biography and the movie, it is quite a moving scene. It's not long (in the film and in reality) before Pearl Harbor is bombed and citizens of all Allied nations are put into internment camps. I performed my play for Jim "Jamey" Hudson Taylor III, the great grandson of the prominent missionary to China. Jamey, his three siblings and his grandfather were in the internment camp with "Uncle Eric," as all the students called him. After two of the three performances of my play Jamey saw in Hong Kong, he described how Uncle Eric was a father figure to so many children who were separated from their families. The new film captures this, in part with a sign Jamey Taylor mentioned to me. There were so many visits to Uncle Eric's flat that his roommate put up a sign indicating "Uncle Eric is IN" or "Uncle Eric is OUT." Yoshinori Yumoto (Shigeo Kobayashi) There's a moment in the film that a Japanese officer, Yoshinori Yumoto (played by Shigeo Kobayashi), interrupts a wedding ceremony that Uncle Eric is conducting. He takes the wedding rings from the couple. Though it's a fictional element of the story, it reminded me of how Jamey told me the Japanese put labels on people and things that read, "Property of the Japanese." The couple is separated when they're brought into the internment camp, but the new groom insists on married housing. Yoshinori Yumoto asks for proof that they are married, but of course he's taken their rings. Uncle Eric says, "What God has joined together let no man put asunder." Yoshinori Yumoto tells him, "My emperor is the god here." That much is in the trailer you can see below. It's Uncle Eric's response that is one of my favorite moments in the film on a number of different levels. I'm planning to talk about that after the NYC screenings. From Stephen Metcalf's interview in Olympic Hero in China. I love that there is an allusion in the new film to praying for their captors. Uncle Eric taught often on the Sermon on the Mount, and dedicates the better part of a chapter to it in his book The Disciplines of the Christian Life. In Olympic Hero in China, the documentary I helped create and for which I do the English narration, Stephen Metcalf, who was a young runner in the internment camp, said that one day Uncle Eric was teaching them the passage from the Sermon on the Mount that says, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you...." Metcalf said that Uncle Eric said, "'Prayer changes the whole situation. When you hate somebody, you're self-centered. When you pray for someone you become God-centered.' And so he said, 'I've been getting up early and praying for the Japanese.' And he challenged us to pray for the Japanese." Metcalf took up the challenge, and after carrying Uncle Eric's coffin to the grave he said, "I promised God that if I came out alive, I would go to Japan as a missionary like Eric." Metcalf served as a missionary to Japan for 40 years.  The Music Department of On Wings of Eagles had a high bar set for them since Vangelis won the Oscar for his soundtrack to Chariots of Fire. My brother and I listened to the record the night before every cross-country and track meet. The new film's orchestrator, Steve Greer, arranged for a live orchestra in Macedonia to perform the music, and I think they did a wonderful job. There were two songs in particular that brought joy to my heart. From Maureen Liddell Moore's interview in Olympic Hero in China. The first was "The Ninety and Nine." In Olympic Hero in China, Maureen tells the story beautifully of how, as a young boy, her father would always ask to sing that hymn about the story Jesus told of the shepherd leaving the 99 sheep to go after the one who is lost. Young Eric would always cry when the family sang it. Maureen said, "...it helped me to understand that even as a young child my father had a strong, strong desire to reach out and touch people with the message that they were all loved and they would all be safe and they could all come home." The second song that moved me was "Be Still My Soul." It was Uncle Eric's favorite hymn, and the new film introduces it early and it has a prominent place in the end. This brings me to my disappointments with the film. Whenever a story is taken out of history and told as a movie there must be choices to fictionalize certain elements in order to make it work in the format of cinema. Sometimes those choices upset those who know the real story well. After a performance of Beyond the Chariots in Milwaukee, an audience member Lucy Storch gave me two letters she received from Uncle Eric's sister, Jenny Somerville. She said, "The girl playing myself (Cheryl Campbell) was nothing like me! I was never against my brother running....The scriptwriter (Colin Welland, who won the Oscar for it) said you need a conflict in a film, so I was the conflict!" With the eldest Liddell daughters and their husbands after one of my performances in Toronto. Though the use of "Be Still My Soul" at the end of On Wings of Eagles has its own artistic beauty, I missed the beauty of what actually happened. Uncle Eric's middle daughter, Heather Ingham, told me the family still has the slip of paper upon which her father wrote down the hymn's title while he lay dying in the internment camp's makeshift hospital. That slip of paper was delivered to someone in the Salvation Army band (alluded to in the film by a trumpet we see lying around in one scene). Prisoners were allowed to bring a few personal items into the camp, and band members had each brought their instrument. They played that hymn outside Uncle Eric's window on at least one of his final days. I'll post more about the Salvation Army band later. At a certain point in the new film, Xu Niu's subtitles indicate that he used the word hell as an expletive. I was sorry to see this because hell is a real place, and no matter how the cultural narrative downplays it, it is not temporary or benign. There is nothing in Scripture that indicates it is a lukewarm lake of fire. Though the use of the word was used to give shape to Xu Niu's character arc, I think it's a shame that the word was used in a film that should attract impressionable youths. Early on in the film we see Uncle Eric looking the other way when a bribe being given. Even if such a moment occurred, with only 90 minutes to flesh out his life, I think it was a very poor choice to show him benefiting from an illegal act without speaking against it. In another moment Uncle Eric is forced to run on a Sunday. It is true that he eventually decided to referee games on Sundays in the internment camp because, without his presence, fights were breaking out. But to hear the challenge without fleshing out the mental anguish that would have gone into such a choice is wrong. I hope audiences reflect on the fact that the stakes were much higher than the personal glory Uncle Eric walked away from at the Paris Olympics. Liddell (Fiennes) in the church of the internment camp, which was originally a seminary. My biggest problem with the film is a single sentence. Xu Niu describes "Uncle Eric's message: His faith in the essential goodness of mankind touched the edge of my mortal soul." After spending the entire film showing, often in very creative ways, that every good work Eric Liddell did was through the inspiration and by the power of his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, this sentence reverses and undermines it all! As a Christian Uncle Eric most certainly did not have faith in the essential goodness of mankind. He believed, as all orthodox Christians do, in the fallen nature of mankind and our need for a Savior. At the moment that Xu Niu says, "Uncle Eric's message..." we're seeing a tight shot of the Cross. It is my prayer that viewers see the statement in the full Truth of that image: Uncle's Eric had faith that through the Cross we all have hope of goodness. As 1 Peter 2:24 says, "He (Jesus Christ) himself bore our sins in his body on the tree (the Cross), that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed." If people miss that, I pray they'll see the statement about Uncle Eric's message as an observation by someone on his way to seeing his need for a Savior. If you see your need for a Savior, you can reach out right now to the only One who bridges the gap between fallen humans and a Holy God: Jesus Christ. Visit www.RichDrama.com/MyPassion for more information. I'll speak and take questions after two NYC screenings of On Wings of Eagles on November 3 and 4 at Cinema Village, 22 E. 12th St., Manhattan. We're planning to record the Q/A session, so if you're outside the NYC area, post your questions in a comment below, and if there's time I'll answer questions that are posted here. Here's the complete list of theaters showing it, starting November 3: 1. Kansas City, MO; Barrywoods 24 2. Atlanta, GA; Southlake Pavilion 24 3. Cleveland/Akron/Canton/Solon, OH; Solon 16 4. Philadelphia, PA; Cherry Hill 24 5. Denver, CO; Highlands Ranch 24 6. Houston, TX; Gulf Point 30 7. Dallas, TX; Mesquite 30 8. San Francisco, CA; Deer Valley Stadium 16 9. Pasadena, CA; Laemmle Pasadena 7 10. Manhattan, NY: Cinema Village Viewers should know: * The word hell is used as an expletive. * "My G_d" and "da_ _it." * War violence.   -A young boy is blown up.   -[SPOILER ALERT] Another young boy is electrocuted and it is said that he will stay on the hot wires for a week. A real electrocution in the camp probably inspired this fictional element. See the trailer below, or if you're reading this in an email visit www.RichDrama.com/OnWingsOfEagles.

See the rest of Olympic champion Eric Liddell's Chariots of Fire story by watching it online or booking a live performance of Beyond the Chariots.

High School and College Track

I thought I might have posted this photo of me running steeplechase in college. I hadn't, but while searching I discovered a site that has posted my times in high school cross country and college track. At some point I'll have to pull out my track journal to update the high school track and college cross country times.

See the rest of Olympic champion Eric Liddell's Chariots of Fire story by booking Beyond the Chariots.

What could Eric Liddell have done on a rubberized track?

Eric Liddell's world record in the 400m was 47.6 on a cinder track with hand-dug starting blocks. The current world record is 43.03.

Liddell's time in the 100 yards of 9.7 seconds in 1923 stood as a British record for 35 years. That race is only 91.44m. A 100m preliminary during the 1924 Paris Olympics fell on a Sunday, so Liddell decided to pull out of the race. So we'll never know if he could have held that pace another 8.56m. If he could have that would have given him a time of 10.6 seconds. That was the Olympic record that year, set by his nemesis, Harold Abraham. The current record in the 100m is 9.58 seconds.

When I was in high school we had a cinder track, but there were many rubberized tracks around. We were always thrilled when we got to run on the newer tracks because we always had faster times. It would be interesting to know what Liddell could have done on a rubberized track with solid blocks and the kind of training athletes get today.

See the rest of Olympic champion Eric Liddell's Chariots of Fire story by booking Beyond the Chariots.

Second Interview with Harold Hendrick

Here are links to things I spoke about in my second interview with Harold Hendrick, which will air on KSIV-AM 1320 in the St. Louis area and online at www.BottRadioNetwork.com on January 19 at 1:45pm Central:

Beyond the Chariots
Jamey Hudson Taylor, III
The Rocky Mountain Christian Filmmakers Camp
Providence
Eternity

You can hear the first interview by clicking here.

I play a lead in Providence, a modern silent film opening in theatres coast to coast starting February 12.

Registration is now open for the 2016 Rocky Mountain Christian Filmmakers Camp.

Also, we're now taking sign-ups for Rio Ready.

First Interview with Harold Hendrick

My first interview with Harold Hendricks aired January 14, 2016, on AM 1320 in St. Louis, MO. It is now online, and you can listen by clicking here.

Here are links to things I spoke about:

Performance in St. Louis
Big Fish Little Worm
Grandpa's Memorandum
Beyond the Chariots
The Rocky Mountain Christian Filmmakers Camp
Providence
Eternity

The second interview has now aired and will post to this blog soon.

I play a lead in Providence, a modern silent film opening in theatres coast to coast starting February 12.

Registration is now open for the 2016 Rocky Mountain Christian Filmmakers Camp.

Also, we're now taking sign-ups for Rio Ready.

An article on a performance of Beyond the Chariots

From the in the Macon County Chronicle on my performance of Beyond the Chariots at Christ Alive Church the morning of the premiere of Providence.

Used by permission.

And the follow-up:

Also used by permission.

Sign Up to get the announcement when registration opens for the 2016 Rocky Mountain Christian Filmmakers Camp.

Also, we're now taking sign-ups for Rio Ready.

Broadway Blessing

I'll be performing an excerpt from Beyond the Chariots, about Olympic champion Eric Liddell at this year's Broadway Blessing, in anticipation of performances during the Winter Olympics.

Interview with George Flores on Star 99.1

I was interviewed by George Flores on Star 99.1FM about next Saturday's performance of The Revelation, among a number of other things.



Here are links to more information on some of the things I mentioned during the interview:

www.RichDrama.com (click Feature-Length Plays for information on all of my plays that I mentioned)
www.WestchesterChapel.org
www.WestchesterChapel.org/Revelation
www.SamhillRoad.com (the band playing at The Revelation)
www.itinerary.richdrama.com (for information on the performances of Twelve Angry Jurors in July)
www.RichDrama.com/MWF (my report of last year's MasterWorksFestival theatre program)
www.RichDrama.com/Indescribable (The film in which Joyce and I play husband and wife)
www.RichDrama.com/Updates (to sign up for information on the troupe of performers we're organizing to bring to the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
www.RichDrama.com/Africa
www.RichDrama.com/BeyondTheChariots (my play about Olympic runner, Eric Liddell)
http://blog.richdrama.com/2008_08_01_archive.html (Our adventures in China, Hong Kong, Macau, and the Philippines during the 2008 Olympics.

An amazing start to our adventures in Taiwan

It has been so clear to us that people are praying for this journey by the timing of the entire day! Every place we went the bus was ready to go within five minutes of us getting there! That morning we got our directions based on the wrong airport, thereby putting us at a station we wouldn't have gone to to catch our bus to our hotel, but that was exactly the station we needed to catch a free shuttle to Taipei 101, the second tallest building in the world: a perfect place to prayer walk the entire city in a matter of minutes. One bus that was supposed to come in 10 minutes came in 1, while I was buying water, but the next was right behind it, and we loaded within 5 minutes of my return. That bus happened to be the one that English speakers boarded just before we needed to disembark, and they were able to confirm where to get off.

We were remarking that every time we messed up, the Lord used it for the good.
Then, when we checked in at our hotel they told us that our reservation was at a hotel in Taipei, not in Jinshan where we had just arrived! The hotel where we stood had only one room available, and it was about $1500/ night more than the room we'd already paid for. Don't worry, that is in Taiwanese dollars, and they didn't charge us for the increase since the two hotels were connected. We chose the site because it is on the beach AND has hot springs, so I'm not certain how the website put our reservation at the other hotel! Our room was usually more expensive because it had it's own hot springs. Once we arrived, we couldn't figure out how to make the water hot, so we were on our way to ask the front desk when we struck up a conversation with a family that spoke a bit of English. They ended up taking us to a night market, one of the things we'd hoped to do! Upon returning to our room the hot water in the hot springs worked! We gave the family a link to a page I set up this morning just for them to download the Eric Liddell documentary I worked on.

The timing of this morning just capped it all off! I went for a swim in the ocean and had some of the best waves I've ever body surfed. Upon reaching the shore they closed the beach. I guess the waves were so good because there's a typhoon out at sea!

As I write we're riding through some beautiful, lush, mountainous countryside, praying for this whole amazing, 100 year old (this year) nation.

We're now at Morrison Academy and are in the middle of Day 2 for Spiritual Emphasis Week: http://itinerary.richdrama.com.

A profound evening

On the second night of the Olympics I performed Beyond the Chariots here in Hong Kong. Afterward H. K. Cheng (far right) told what Eric Liddell was like as one of his instructors at the Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College and Rev. Jim Hudson Taylor, great grandson of Hudson Taylor (next to his wife, Leone) told how Eric Liddell helped him and other kids in the Japanese internment camp in Weihsien, China.

Standing in the center are Chuck Allison, director of several YMCAs here in Hong Kong, and our friend Steve Wible, who's been a great connector for us here.

Beyond the Chariots in White Plains

Beyond the Chariots will be performed at Westchester Chapel in White Plains, New York, on February 23 at 7pm.

The play tells the rest of the Chariots of Fire story: How, after breaking the world record in the 1924 Olympics, Eric Liddell spent the rest of his life as a missionary in China.

This is a kick off as we gear up to perform the play in China during the Beijing Olympics. We'll have subtitles in Spanish, and we're hoping for several more before the Olympics begin, 08/08/08.

I was recently interviewed by George Flores for his program "Profiles" on Star 99.1FM. Click here to listen.

This event is free. I'm donating the performance so that the entire free-will offering will go directly to Westchester Chapel. We're also using the event to kick off fund raising for performances in Asia during the Olympics. If you can't make it, and you'd like to make a donation, make checks payable to Westchester Chapel. If you want the money to go toward performances during the Olympics write "Emmaus Arts--Olympics" in the memo line. Send to:
Westchester Chapel
214 Central Ave.
White Plains, NY 10606
USA
Thanks!
Rich & Joyce

For driving directions visit http://WestchesterChapel.org.
For directions from New York City visit http://RichDrama.com/WCCC/NYC.


The following is an excerpt from the Off-Broadway performance.

Chariots of Fire opening flashback

This 400 year old golf course in St. Andrews was where the British athletes stayed before setting sail for the Paris Olympics in Chariots of Fire. We had a cream tea here after hurdling these white fences and running on the beach.

A woman who saw me running told us that her dorm-mate in university had been an extra in that scene.