All language subtitles for The Mission (2023) [1080p]

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I plan on
arriving on the shores of

an island in which an unknown
number of people live,

who have unknown
religious beliefs

and speak an unknown tongue.

Some have called this the most
difficult and impossible place

to reach on Earth.

Lord, is this island
Satan's last stronghold?

Soli Deo gloria, John Chau.

My friend
John paid some pirates

to go to an island to talk
to people about Jesus,

when he knew that he had
no business doing that.

My friend did something stupid
and courageous and bold,

and I wish I was that bold.

I wish...

I wish my faith...

was that solid,

to where I believed,
like, the Gospel is real.

Whoa.

There are still many islands
of which little is known,

many islands yet
to be explored.

We came at last
to what is known

as the North Sentinel Island.

We wondered whether we
would be able even to have

a glimpse of the inhabitants.

No one in recorded history
had ever encountered anything

but arrows from the tribe.

There are
so many ways that the seductions

of this story can go wrong.

People whose language
no one speaks,

whose culture no one knows.

And he's somehow going to
get them to accept Christ.

It just seemed like madness.

To those of us not among
the few hundred Sentinelese,

how can we really
try to understand

their lived experience?

Talking about them reveals
so much and conceals so much.

I fear the same
will be said about our film

when we're finished too.

It's ultimately
kind of an imaginative act.

A remote Indian island,

an isolated tribe,
and a suspected murder-

the saga of John Allen Chau's
disappearance

has captivated people,

as authorities try to pinpoint
what exactly happened.

How this, as a predestined

suicidal mission commitment
came about...

How it was
seeded and germinated.

As a psychiatrist, I pick up
my professional tool

to review and draw
some conclusion

from our 26 years
and 11 months

father-and-son relationship.

40 feet below
the summit of Bear Mountain.

Past this point,
I don't have any protection.

We're not gonna risk it, so
we're gonna head back down.

How come such an intelligent,

seemingly well-prepared explorer

committed
such a reckless mistake?

This is for the benefit
of all parents

while raising their children

to learn some lessons from
this ill-fated mission calling

that sacrificed God's given
of life for nothing in return.

Whoo!

I'm sorry!

I'm an explorer at heart.

Growing up,
I remember dusting off

a massive tome in my
dad's downstairs study

titled Robinson Crusoe.

After struggling
my way through it,

I started reading easier,
kid-friendly books

like Hatchet,
My Side of the Mountain,

and Sign of the Beaver.

Robinson Crusoe made out
fine in the wilderness,

didn't he, Pa?

Of course, he did have
to fight the savages.

Pa!

The latter
of which inspired

my brother and I to
paint our faces with

wild blackberry juice

and tramp through our backyard
with bows and spears

we created from sticks.

Since then, the outdoors
have been my home.

I felt
this boy has been enchanted

by the romantic spirit
of the colonial era

of explorations
and adventures.

He once sent me
an online copy of

The Adventures of Tintin.

One of the comics called
The Broken Ear

illustrated an English
explorer who disappeared

into the primitive
tribe for ten years.

John told me a weird wish
for his future when grown up.

"I want to be a wild man,

living on the trees
on the beach,

and jump into the water

to catch jellyfish
with spear to eat."

Yes!

I was laughing at him.

However,
to be a wild man fantasy

seemed rooting in his heart.

I used to gaze constantly

at this large painting
my dad did in '91.

After reading The Voyage
of the Dawn Treader,

the first thing I did was put
my hand on the painting

to see if I could enter
into the world of Narnia.

We have sailed more
than 400 leagues from Narnia.

Soon we'll be approaching
the Lone Islands.

- And after the Lone Islands?
- Nobody knows, ma'am.

It's years since anyone from
Narnia went into those waters.

John?

John?

John absolutely
said, God has adventure

out there for me,
and I'm going to take it.

Why shy away from that?

If God is for you,
who can be against you?

♪ What so proudly we hailed ♪

♪ At the twilight's
last gleaming ♪

♪ Whose broad stripes
and bright stars ♪

♪ Through the perilous fight ♪

♪ O'er the ramparts... ♪

John and I,
we used to stand together in choir.

He always talked through a
smile, like, just like...

'Cause he was
so excited or something.

And he related to the fact that

I'm half Puerto Rican
and half white, so I'm a biracial kid.

Like, I'm a blended baby.

John was a blended baby.

He was half Chinese,
half American,

and, like, that was huge.

He was proud of his Chinese
side and his heritage there.

I think that meant
a lot to him.

His parents brought
him up to be Christian.

Anybody, the five aspects
of the First Amendment.

I was a teacher at Vancouver
Christian High School.

Stand back while I part
the Jordan Fourth Plain.

Can I just push
this little button?

What's wrong with you,
oh, ye of little faith?

Where's your courage?

Where's your sense
of adventure?

Vancouver
Christian had 120 kids.

They were probably
75% to 80%

from an Evangelical
Christian background,

and John was one of those.

He wanted
approval from his parents,

specifically his dad.

He had so much
respect for his dad.

Happy Father's
Day to my amazing Baba!

He came to the U.S.
as a refugee

during the Cultural Revolution

and has overcome
so many challenges.

He's an incredible artist,
doctor, landscaper,

koi-pond builder,
electrician, carpenter,

and, best of all,
a father to me.

God assigned
me to play many roles.

The most difficult was a good
role model for my children.

My two older children followed

my academic
and career role modeling.

They are the gang of two,

but baby brother John

was left to search
and form his own peer group

and role modeling.

Our tiny little group of guys
was, like, four or five of us.

We started the
Accountability Group,

and the purpose of the
Accountability Group

was just to be like, look,
like, you have asked us

as your brothers in Christ
to hold you to a standard,

and so we're gonna do that.

Proverbs 13:20 says,

"He who walks
with the wise grows wise,

but a companion of
fools suffers harm."

So none of us were wise.

We were all fools, honestly,

but the purpose
of the Accountability Group

was just to make sure
we weren't looking at porn.

Like, bottom line,
don't look at porn,

so that was kind of the big thing,
especially at a Christian school.

Were you?

Well, yeah.

My God. I was doing all the
things that we said

we shouldn't do, shamefully.

But John was not.

John was consistent.
John was so consistent.

I went on
a mission trip with my school to Mexico.

Other than simply doing
some manual labor,

I came back to the States
with a desire to carry out

the Great Commission.

The examination
of the Great Commission

can lead to but one
conclusion–

"Go ye into all the world

and preach the Gospel
to every creature."

Go, therefore, and make
disciples of all nations,

baptizing them in the name
of the Father...

And of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit.

teaching them to obey everything
I have commanded you.

And lo, I am
with you always,

even until the end
of the world.

Let's pray.

I prayed,

God, if you want me
to become a missionary,

I'll become one.

I find John's
diary extremely moving.

This is the kind of guy that,
when I was a young Christian,

he was who I wanted
to serve with.

He was really one of the best.

For people who believe,
for Christians,

you couldn't have asked
for a better young man.

Reminds me of earlier
journals of my own.

Growing up, I thought
U.S. Christians

were superficial.

They were doing what everybody
who's not a Christian does

but then going to
church on Sundays.

And to me, the Christian
life was a radical life.

It was a life where you
gave up all your possessions,

and you obeyed what God said,

and you were a missionary.

If necessary, we will
live and die in obscurity

there among them.

John, he's reading
books that I read,

and he's drawing from
them the same lessons

that most Christian
believers draw from.

There's huge inspiration
from these people

who aren't afraid of death and
engaged in all this hardship.

One of the most important
culture-changing stories

of the modern Christian
missionary movement,

it's a story of five
missionaries in Ecuador,

especially Nate Saint
and Jim Elliott.

Jim Elliott was really
good at aphorisms.

He wrote things like,
"He is no fool.

He gives what he cannot keep
to gain what he cannot lose."

I still get
emotional about that.

At the time, it was one
of the main motivating forces

for my life.

On Friday, January 6, 1956,

after three days
of waiting on the beach,

three Aucas appeared.

The fellas called
the young man George.

Of course, neither party
understood the other

except for a few words
that Jim had learned

from an Auca girl
who had left her tribe.

Nate gave her a model,
which puzzled her somewhat,

but she was quite delighted
with it.

The fellas tried
to explain visually

how to build an airstrip.

I'm afraid the message
didn't get across.

There was a comic
book even back in the day

that talked
about these missionaries.

And that was a story that
John found inspiring,

that there would be young men

that would devote themselves to

trying to share the love
of Jesus with a tribe

that was in the Amazon,

and they gave
their lives in doing that.

Missionaries?

The End of the Spear movie

was a big deal.

Like, you or I would go see

Star Wars or
Lord of the Rings

or Avengers
and come out, like,

blasting and swinging
swords and everything,

that was End of the Spear
for John.

And, like, he wanted
to share it with me

and wanted to make sure
I watched it again and again

and wanted to make sure I knew
that it was a real story,

because he was trying
to inspire me with it.

After
the missionaries were killed,

Nate Saint's sister,
Rachel Saint,

decided she was gonna go in.

And so the widow
of Jim Elliot,

Elisabeth Elliot,
decided she would go with her.

And they hiked in,
and they were accepted.

And they converted
the Huaorani.

Rachel Saint would travel
with some of the ones

that actually killed
her brother and the others

and speak
throughout the States,

and this showed
a huge victory for God.

I know that
your life tonight will be an

inspiration to the 30 million
people watching,

Miss Rachel Saint.

And her traveling
companion, Dayuma.

We all live by stories.

I heard powerful stories
that led me to the Amazon.

John heard powerful stories

that led him
to the Andaman Islands.

I remember
spending time in prayer,

asking God where
He wanted me to go.

I turned on the computer,

did a search for unreached
people groups...

And somehow stumbled
upon a brief paragraph

from the Joshua Project
about the Sentinelese.

I couldn't sleep that night...

as all that was on my mind
was this specific people group

that no one ever had been to.

This is
where I start getting chills,

because I can see him
and hear him talking about it

and hear him looking me
in the eye talking about this.

And he said...

"How are they
to believe in Him

of whom
they have never heard?

And how are they to hear
without someone preaching?

And how are they to preach
unless they are sent?

As it is written,
how beautiful are the feet

of those
who preach the good news?"

Racial equality is exactly
what is being preached here.

I just remember him
saying, "Levi, that's us.

There's no escaping from it.

The same God is
God of everyone.

We have to go talk
to those people in loincloths

and on islands that
we can't get to."

And once
he found out about that tribe,

that was something
he couldn't turn away from.

It was almost like there
was a mountain right here,

and the plane is coming.

There's a certain point
where that plane

is not going to go
over the mountain.

You know, pull up, pull up,
but at this point right here,

he knew that...

he was gonna go all-in.

He found the last frontier

of the unexplored land,
an untouched people.

He was excited,
as if the place and people

were specifically left for him.

My heart sunk,

for his 'calling'
was based on his fantasy.

However, I hoped that he would
be matured enough

to rectify the fantasy
before too late.

"Awake,
mostly thinking about tomorrow,

wondering why I am doing it.

What do I do if I see
any Sentinelese?

Wave, shout, take pictures,
look through a telescope?

The dilemma finally of all
those who have gone there."

I think John Chau was
influenced by what I wrote.

I'm not sure
how I feel about that.

Mostly I don't like it,
of course.

But, you know, before
his story went viral,

anybody Googling
North Sentinel Island

would find my account.

It was one of the few
detailed pieces of information

that was out there
on the Internet.

It was just this sort of hubris
of my 20-something self

that thought, "Well, of course
I'm going to go there."

I guess I recognized
that there was danger,

but danger seemed
abstract and improbable,

in the way that it does
to young people.

There you see North Sentinel.

I learned that North Sentinel
Island was a part of

this chain of islands
called the Andamans.

You can feel the heaviness
of the tropical air

just almost wafting off
of that romantic name.

I didn't even know where
the Andaman Islands were,

um, and then I looked
them up in an atlas.

One of the earliest surviving
maps, it's written in Latin,

and it gives the name of the
islands as Isle Bone Fortune,

"the Islands of Good Fortune."

But then there's an
annotation next to that,

and it says, "In these
islands are the cannibals."

Did you
ever hear of Kong?

The Andaman
Islands were portrayed in

King Kong.

They represented
to the Western imagination

the heart of darkness.

There are various
tribal groups of Andamanese

on the islands.

The Sentinelese, they're the
last ones who resist contact.

Well, every legend
has a basis of truth.

I tell you, there's something
on that island

that no white man
has ever seen.

This idea
of Western civilization

sailing across the seas and
hacking through the jungles

and having these
moments of encounter,

and they would make war,
or they would make love,

or they would do both,

that played itself out
over and over and over again

for thousands of years.

And here was the place
where maybe it was happening

for the last time.

The boat was barely more
than a dugout canoe.

I'm in this boat,
trying to focus

this ridiculous
Edwardian telescope

that I found in a junk
shop in Calcutta.

You know,
I was trying to reenact

those adventure stories

that had entranced me
when I was a kid.

I was sure all along I wasn't
going to attempt to land.

I mean, it just seemed
obviously foolhardy,

if not suicidal.

And then suddenly, at 6:10,

Bala says, "Look, tribal."

Then see three shifting shapes
moving in silhouette.

Once you're there,
and especially once I saw

these figures
coming down onto the beach,

it's like Odysseus
and the sirens.

I was pushing to get
closer and closer.

For me, the moment
that broke the spell

was when a monsoon storm
came blowing in.

It was as if the island itself
had said, "Enough, back off."

In my weird
nerdy-historian way,

I just became
a little bit obsessive

about North Sentinel Island

and the multilayered
story of this place.

I didn't know what it
was going to turn into.

♪ Yes, Lord, yes, Lord ♪

♪ Yes, yes, Lord ♪

♪ Yes, Lord, yes, Lord,
yes, yes, Lord, amen ♪

John Allen Chau.

I graduated
high school with a desire

to immediately go off
to the mission field.

The only friction I've had
has come from my father,

who, unfortunately, doesn't
have the same view

of the Great Commission
as I do,

and my mother, who wants
me to go to medical school.

I decided to honor them
by finishing my education

at Oral Roberts University.

And now,
friends, the Lord has

recently spoke to me
on a world outreach

to win one million souls
to Christ each year.

I know I cannot do it alone.

I beseech you for your earnest
partnership and cooperation,

that for the first time

in mankind's long,
sordid history,

one group will reach
out their hands

and bring a million in
to Jesus Christ.

Will you say "amen"?

Amen.

The first
time I met John, uh,

he was a student
in one of my classes,

I think my
History of Missions class.

How does the Gospel
spread from,

at the time of Jesus,
no one hearing the Gospel,

to a point that 100 years,
200 years later,

1 in every 300 people
is a Christian,

to the point that today,
1 in every 7 people

around the globe
is a Christian?

The story of the Gospel spread
is mostly anonymous people

doing day-to-day things
and sharing the Gospel

with people that they're
close to in their life,

but some of those jumps to
new places are semi-dramatic.

And I think there's
a group of people

that want to be doing
a more tame version

of missionary work.

They want it to be,
"Let's go to Mexico

and paint a house
and call it mission work,"

which we do paint
houses in Mexico.

And it is an important
mission work.

But there's a part of
this, too, that this–

I don't think they want to
come to terms with the fact

that, like, the Gospel
call might push you

to a place
you don't want to go.

When I was in
Bible school, one of the things

we had to read is
Foxe's Book of Martyrs,

to see those people as heroes,

somebody who could just
be sewn up in a bag of

scorpions and snakes
and thrown into the ocean,

knowing that was gonna happen

and still refusing
to deny his faith.

And I don't know
if that ever happened,

but we believed it
happened at the time.

And I love that.

What motivates most

Fundamentalist Christian
missionaries, all of them,

is that these people
are going to hell.

What could be a greater gift
that I could give to them

but than to do this?

There's also
the prevalent belief among

Evangelical Christians
that for Jesus to return,

you know, the rapture

or the second coming of
Christ or whatever,

that every tribe,
every nation needed to have

exposure to the Gospel.

I am a Christian,

but I am not part
of the radical Evangelicals

and don't agree on their views
of the Great Commission,

the biblical-based slogan

distorted for the hidden
colonial or imperialist agenda.

But my opposing
rational influence

failed to counter
the irrational religious

and glamorized adventures
of exploration.

See, what we're
a part of is something bigger,

and that's Jesus's plan

and the hope that we have
to bring to the nations.

Yes, we're gonna
bring education.

Yes, we're gonna bring
creative solutions and

ideas to end poverty,

but what we have to bring
to the nations is Jesus.

Bobby was the
Director of Missions for

a long time.

And he and John
became good friends,

and they worked side by side
on lots of projects.

I think he looked at
Bobby as a mentor,

like a little brother,
I think, in some ways,

and he's a great mentor.

Bobby's an awesome guy.

During my time
at ORU, I yearned to just go,

to go spread the
Gospel everywhere.

I kept wondering
when I was going to get

to the Sentinelese.

As a father,

we have a gentlemen agreement

that was "agree to disagree"

in order to maintain
peace between us.

Regretfully,

one of the important change
in the family environment

was that my positive
career role modeling

started a cliff-drop
deterioration.

John is the one left
to fully witness my struggle

to keep my profession license

and trying to pay
for all the family expenses.

It took me 11 years
to get out of the probation.

I believe this prolonged
setback of my career

certainly caused
John's doubt in life.

I was like a drowning man,

busy of self-rescue.

And, unwittingly,

I let John be sucked
toward a whirlpool...

The radical to fanatic extreme
Christian Evangelical faction.

"Go to the cross
and die to yourself and

die to your flesh and die
to your own desires."

As I read the Bible,
that's what Jesus says.

Those who lose their
life will find it.

If you want to be great in the
kingdom, what does Jesus say?

That you have to be a servant,
a slave of all that.

Just like Jesus says He was
willing to give his own life,

so do we even here
in this room.

And I want to challenge us,
if we be willing so much

to lay down our life, maybe
lay down some of our dreams

and say, "God, not my will,
but Your will be done."

The Plan...

editor's note, this is not
an official research paper

and is only distributed

to a limited number of people
for security reasons.

John said to me, this is it.

This is what
the plan looks like.

I have it right here,
where I'm sitting.

He felt like there's this
vacancy of what it will take

to get this done.

These are the things I now need
to do to get ready for this.

To be clear from the onset,

this mission will be illegal.

If God enables it to succeed,

it will be among the most
unique and amazing endeavors

in the history of missions.

Most Christian
missionaries think of it

in terms of the vessel

and the thing
to fill the vessel.

I think that I have the
Truth with a capital T,

and the Indigenous
person is there waiting

for you to give them
this information

to change their life
for the good.

We arrived in Brazil
on October 25, 1977.

By December, I was in the
Pirahã for the first time.

I simply wanted to go there,

learn their language,
and convert them.

You know,
I had this challenge.

No one has ever been able to
understand their language,

the Pirahã people.

But I would look at the kids
and say, "They can speak it,

so I should be able
to speak it."

I had a goal of learning
ten new words a day.

And I would write those words
out with a translation.

And I would go try them
out in different huts,

you know, walk around the
village trying to talk to them.

Dan came here.
He wanted to learn Pirahã.

I speak to Dan,
'Pirahã is very difficult.'

I spent my time
in ways that made no sense

to them, just making
marks on paper.

That's what they would
explain to everybody.

What does he do?

He just makes marks on paper
all day, and then he just–

And they call it
"leaves," actually.

He just makes marks on leaves
all day–that's all he does.

You just do that for a couple
of hours every day

for about five years,
and you learn the language.

I said,
"There's no magic to it.

You know,
it's just hard slog."

And every missionary,
no matter what they say,

after they've been
there for a while,

that frustration
starts to come.

And they consider it part
of the sacrifice for God,

because they never reach

this kind of friendship...

where you're both
of the same culture.

It's a very different kind
of relationship.

You know, so I asked
the Pirahã one time,

I said, "Why do you
think I've come?

Why have I come here?"

"It's the most
beautiful place.

It's a beautiful place.
We love it."

They couldn't
comprehend that...

the jungle doesn't
do it for me.

I couldn't appreciate
them as hunter-gatherers.

Oh, my God, I'm getting
to go to one of the last

hunter-gatherer groups on Earth

and all this stuff
I can learn from them.

Those weren't the
thoughts in my mind.

I'm trying to get
gratitude and acceptance,

and they're just trying to
figure out what I'm there for.

The American spoke.
'I will bring medicine.

The kids won't be sick.'

The American spoke,
'I will talk to my God.

Your kids won't be sick.'

So we spoke.
'Okay. Talk to your God.'

The Plan...

The Plan entails,
one, intel gathering.

No complete survey
of the island has been made.

The islands are ancient and
have been known to travelers

and explorers
as early as 200 AD.

Anybody who starts to research

the Andaman islands

almost immediately comes
upon this bizarre

and complicated man,
Maurice Vidal Portman.

In the 1880s,
he was the only person

who documented the Andamanese.

This is a young man from
one of the wealthiest

families in Britain.

He was going to live a life
of balls and garden parties.

But, somehow, he'd ended
up in the Andamans

while he was still a teenager,

in basically the worst job
in the entire British Empire–

Officer in Charge
of the Andamanese.

His great work is

History of Our Relations
with the Andamanese.

Very early in his time,

Portman went to
North Sentinel Island,

and he says,
"While crossing the island,

Lieutenant Hooper
and I met an old man

with his wife and child.

We caught the three unhurt
and brought them on board.

The next day,
we took the six to Port Blair,

where I kept them in
my house for some days.

They sickened rapidly,

and the old man
and his wife died.

So the four children
were sent back to their home

with quantities of presents."

And, and wow...
there is a lot there.

Photography
from the earliest years

used that word "capture"–

to capture an image,
capture a subject.

With Portman, it
was also about, of course,

this literal capture

represented by seizing
this Sentinelese family.

He took thousands of pictures.

His photographs, you know,

they're aesthetically
incredibly beautiful.

Some of them feel
just so deeply empathetic.

But then you turn
to the next photo,

and it's a naked person

kind of against
this checkerboard background

because they're being measured

as an anthropometric specimen.

But, really, the most chilling
thing for me about Portman

is the last paragraph

of this thousand-page
history that he wrote.

And he says,
"The Andamanese race,

so long as they were
left to themselves

and not in any way interfered
with by outside influences,

would continue to live.

But when we came
amongst them,

they lost their vitality,

which was wholly dependent
on being untouched,

and the end of the race came."

This history is just so,
so grim when I speak it

in a way that it doesn't even
always feel when I write it.

You know, it's just...

it's harder and harder
to sort of frame this

as a tale of adventure

when I sort of am
listening to the words

that I'm speaking out loud.

Eagle Creek, September 2014.

The gang wanted
to get their lift in.

♪ You work out? ♪

So they did
a quick wilderness workout

to get their blood flowing

before jogging
down to Tunnel Falls.

We named it
the Fountain of Youth

and marked its location on
our map for future generations

to also come and be renewed.

This was the beginning
of the road to post-grad life.

One thing I learned
for certain–

"Man was not made
to be alone," Genesis 2:18.

After graduating,

he was an avid marathon runner,

mountain and rock climber,

long-distance hiker
of the Pacific Crest Trail,

certified
wilderness technician,

outdoor school medic
and instructor.

All these were for

his Sentinel Island
missionary preparation.

I was hiring for, like, an EMT

wilderness first responder,
and John applied.

Of course, I looked him
up on social media

and saw all of his wonderful
pictures and postings.

He was definitely the
person I was looking for.

When he wasn't working,

he basically had
this national park

where he could go and hike
on trails in every direction.

We had nature names.

Most people would
just do an alliteration.

Like, I'm Caddis Fly Cassie.

He was Jackalope John.

We made buttons,
um, for, like, our names–

Cassie's...

Mine was the oak tree.

That's John.

Yep.

When I first met John, I
was in, like, a very dark

part of my life.

And he messaged me,
and he's like,

"Hey, you seem to be...
uh, not doing so well

or, like, kind of down.

Like, I'm gonna go
on a backpacking trip

with a couple of my friends.
Do you want to join?"

And that was...

Like, yes.

We went out
on the Lost Coast Trail

on the coast of California

with two of his other
friends that were girls.

It was, like,
three girls and him.

Ah.

We get to camp,
and I, like, ask him

what he's gonna eat for food,
and he's like,

"Oh, I'm just,
I'm gonna go fishing."

I was like, "What?"

And then just, like,
runs off into the ocean

and then comes back
with this fish.

All right.

One, two, three.

We love you.

He was
just, like, full of light

and knew so much.

To be completely honest,

I had a little bit of a crush
on him, so I wrote him a note.

And I left it at his cabin.

And the next time I saw him,
he was just like...

And I was like, "Hey."

Like, "I, like, was gonna talk
to you and you weren't there,

so I left you a note."

He was very embarrassed.

I don't know, but I never
really saw him with anybody.

So I wasn't sure

where his, like, relationship
status stuff was.

He was just like, "Oh, well,

I'm focusing on
myself right now,

so, like, I'm just not
looking for anything."

He was so into, like,
what he was doing.

What I call, like,
horse-blinder focus.

You don't see what's
going on around you

'cause whatever you're doing
is so straight ahead.

Dear brothers
and sisters in Christ,

spring is here, and the
weather is finally warming up

in NorCal.

This email is simply to start
laying down the foundation

for a future support team,
as I have yet to join

a mission-sending
organization officially.

Pray about it, and then
if you feel led to join,

please email me
back or call me.

Hello. My name is John.

I love you,
and Jesus loves you.

He seemed to be getting

more support from his mom

for his religious aspiration,

but he has never needed
a single penny from parents

for his adventuring project.

He is totally
independent from us.

John came up to me.

He's like, "Caddis Fly,
I got a roommate."

It was this ringtail cat.

It was old,
and it only had one eye,

and he was calling it One-eyed Willy.

One-eyed Willy.

Yeah, he was the most
famous pirate in his time.

My dad told me all
about him once.

Dad'll do anything
to get you to go to sleep.

No, see, One-eyed
Willy stole a treasure once.

It was full of rubies and...

He told a lot of tales.

He was fun to listen to.

He told me his plan

was to go live
in the middle of the jungle,

kind of, like, I'm stealing a cookie
from the cookie jar.

You know what I mean?

It didn't sound that bad.

All right,
here we are, hiking out.

In John's posts or
his stories on social media,

he felt like an
influencer a little bit.

He got really into some brands
that he was, like, promoting.

Smells like Perky Jerky.

I mean, like, Perky Jerky

and Bedrock Sandals.

John was
telling his story–

you know, I'm a climber,
I'm an adventurer.

And he was that...
but more than that.

If things don't go well,
he wanted to look

like a young, arrogant
Western person

did a stupid thing
and he was acting by himself

and move on,

because the last thing
he wants is, like,

this to blow back
on all these other people

who were invested and involved

and involved
in other projects.

So he did that stuff
on purpose, you know?

I mean, and that's not, like,
we think he did it on–

He did it on purpose.

I'm telling you,
he did it on purpose.

People that he deemed
were trustworthy,

we would get
password-protected emails.

"Hey, folks.

I'd like to ask each
of you to consider

joining in on this project

of getting the Gospel
to the Sentinelese.

Like a spear,
you've got the spear tip

and then the shaft
backing it up.

I can't do this alone.

I'd like to ask you all if you
want to be a part of the spear.

Pray about it.

In Christ, John Chau.

Part of the
mystique of journeys and

adventures of first contact
is a sense that maybe

it's an unscripted narrative,
maybe it's a blank page.

But it's, it's so clearly not.

Any encounter that we
have with other people

is kind of scripted by what
we've seen by narratives

that we understand.

We all have a sort of a mental
image of the lost tribe.

We headed out
into the Pacific Ocean

in search of new adventure.

We passed the Nicobar Islands
on the left,

and we approached the Andaman
Islands in the Bay of Bengal,

where we found
Jarawayan pygmies,

perhaps the most primitive
people on Earth.

They have a custom of wearing

some part of the mate's
head when he dies.

It's a custom
that has its merits

because you can
easily tell a widow,

but imagine making love to a
woman that wears the skull

of her departed husband
hanging on her breasts.

These pygmies
on the Andaman Islands

are man killers.

There's no evidence at all

that the Andamanese
ever engaged in cannibalism.

And so, so much in that film

encapsulates the story
of white encounters

with these sort of
"primitive people."

This idea of people
who exist out of time...

that also erases
their humanity.

They're just as
modern as we are.

There's no reason that hunting
for turtles with spears

is any less modern than
writing a book on my laptop.

So why do we deny
them their modernity?

Why do we?

It's part
of a narrative that we find

very seductive.

And that happens
over and over again,

where the explorers come
to the native people

and are greeted as gods,

that they're so majestic,

their technology
is so superior and magical.

You know, that flatters
us in so many ways.

On June 7, 1971,

in a clearing at
the edge of a great,

unexplored rainforest,

Manda Elizalde
reached out his hand

and began
this historic contact

between the 20th century
and Stone Age man.

The Tasaday
actually use stone tools

for cutting and scraping.

They live a prehistoric
Stone Age life at a time

when man has already walked
on the surface of the moon.

It's
a thread that's run deeply

through National Geographic

but also through anthropology
and travel writing,

which is an intertwining of um,

a sense of common humanity

with a sense that

this person is strange
and exotic and other.

In just about every
single representation,

they're stylized people
rather than individual people.

We've gone from cannibalism
to treating these people

as romantic figures.

A lost tribe,
untouched by time,

still lives in the last tiny
corner of Eden left on Earth.

It's
the oldest story in the world,

that there was this paradise
of lushness and nakedness

and innocence,

a place that hasn't
been corrupted.

As long as a place like
North Sentinel Island exists,

Eden still exists.

There is the sky,
and there is man.

We have begun to understand
the nature of the moon

and of Mars and other planets,

but have we begun to
understand our own impulses?

The Sentinelese don't want to
have anything to do with us.

Are they right?

Is the Stone Age preferable
to the Nuclear Age?

These
are my field notes.

Old ones.

I am the only one
who has been inside

the Sentinelese settlement.

No other anthropologist
has landed there since.

This happened only once.

Years of friendly visits

had softened their attitude.

I like this picture.

You see, I'm smiling
and he is also smiling.

It was a matter of surprise
that they had come forward.

Every one of us was
handing over coconuts,

like it was a
prize distribution.

Then at one point

one of the boys
took out a knife

and made a carving motion.

Like this.

Perhaps
trying to say,

that if you stay on, I
will carve out your heart.

I got the hint.

See, they are human beings.

They are not stupid guys.

And that's why
they're keeping us away.

Historically, they have seen
what happened to other tribes.

Great Andamanese,
they have disappeared.

It has not done any
great good to the Onge.

'Tomayu' — the evil spirit.

Do you believe in 'Tomayu'?

Of course
we believe in him.

He constantly troubles us.

It troubles you?
But, how?

- He captures men.
- Captures?

That's
why we are scared to go far.

- What do you call it?
-"Tomayu."

- Evil spirit, Tomayu.
- Tomayu.

Does it
rise from the sea?

He may rise
from the sea or from anywhere.

He comes hunting for men.

- And then?
- He takes them away.

- Where?
- To his place.

Today you
are given a coconut,

tomorrow you are
given something else.

This is a popular
picture of the Sentinelese.

But the photographer told me,

he had taken
several hundred pictures.

They were not only
aiming arrows at us,

they were doing other things.

Some pictures where they
were standing doing nothing

and watching us...

would have been interesting.

But what is
published is sensational,

showing them as violent...

ready to shoot.

Violence is not
only killing someone,

violence is — you
are made to do things

against your will.

Violence is using...

harsh words while
describing them.

I am shouting myself hoarse,

protect them.

Outsiders coming there,

with friendship
in their hearts,

can do a lot of damage.

How does one make contact

with a potentially
hostile tribe,

who might not even give
the missionary a chance

to speak before
firing arrows at him?

Do missionaries wear
arrow-proof armor, shields?

Do they bring gifts?

If so, what type?

Does the team set up remote
camera observations–

for example, trail cams,
coconut camera, rock camera–

to try to study them
from afar on the boat

before making contact?

It would be
more costly and risky

but with the potential
to help the team

learn a word or phrase
before contact,

while also possibly
angering the tribe

if they suspect
they're being watched.

If they could attach
a spiritual meaning

to an odd-shaped
piece of driftwood,

then they might start
worshipping the camera,

since it has an eye.

I first encountered John

just before
he was going to leave.

I thought, like, you know,
here's a young man

trying to figure out
what God wants him to do.

John reached out to
me and just said,

"Can we meet up?
I want to talk."

I'm one of the pastors
at Van City Church

in Vancouver, Washington.

Early on in, in
our conversations,

I wanted him to know
that missions

is not my area of expertise.

How to do them, especially
something like this,

I had no wisdom to share
with him about that.

We're
here to build a home.

We're going to learn your
language and your customs.

We're going to bring
you good news.

One of the
things that we would talk about

is, like, Jesus
being good news

to people who aren't
white and Western.

How do you just
communicate that?

How do you know
you're not communicating

this white, Western, idealized
version of Christianity?

John said,
"I want the Sentinelese,

if they want to
accept this story,

to do it in such a way that's
honest to their own culture."

But from my vantage point,

John was pursuing a fantasy.

You know, you're talking about
a one-in-a-million thing, man.

Like, you know, odds are
this isn't actually

what you're supposed to do,
or even if you think it is,

it's not going to
work out this way.

So there's some sort of,
like, idealism

that's masquerading
as God's calling.

But this is behavior
that's gone on,

for better and for worse,

for 2,000 years
in church history.

So I didn't ever feel
like it was up to me

to say, "John, you're wrong."

In discerning the call,
we can mess it up.

I got the sense that
he was very, very aware

that this just could be him,

and that was a wrestle.

I was praying

and feeling a little unsettled

about whether or not I truly
was called to go there.

I traveled over to
the island chain in South Asia

on a vision trip.

I looked out the window,

and I could see the place
where the tribe lived.

An incredible sense of peace
and clarity and deep knowing

came upon me, such that I knew

that I was supposed
to go there.

I spent two weeks
exploring the island

and began building
a network of contacts

for future long-term
missions work in the area.

A high amount of paranoia
prevails on the islands.

The entire island chain
is heavily militarized,

and all foreigners are
viewed with suspicion.

There is something
to be said for blazing a trail.

I mean, we live in a world with
satellite imagery of the world,

where 450 people a year

are going to attempt
to climb Mount Everest.

And so there is a part
of this that is saying, like,

"What is left to be seen,

like, that no one's seen,
that no one's done?"

It's because it's among the
most crazy things you can do–

that's a drive.

Some have
called this the most difficult

and impossible place
to reach on Earth.

Mission agencies
aren't interested in it

because the people are few
and it's too challenging.

The government doesn't
let anyone go there,

and, historically,
the Sentinelese themselves

have violently
opposed attempts

to make friendly contact.

The Plan...

The Plan entails:
fly in to Port Blair.

Talk to hotel folks
about going sea kayaking.

Instead, rendezvous
with a boat.

Possibly discard
a surfboard in ocean

to make disappearance
more believable.

Decide on swimming
to a landing point

or on moving closer in a boat
under the cover of darkness

on a moonless night.

Or purchase
a U.S. flag-sailing vessel

and sail from the
U.S. or Australia

on an around-the-world voyage.

Depart from the ship near
North Sentinel Island

via kayak on a cloudy night

outside of the three-mile
exclusion zone

and paddle to the island.

Land on the shore
wearing sandals,

for example, Bedrock Sandals,

to protect
against stepping on coral.

Shed wet clothing,

wear briefs to avoid sunburn,
and sit cross-legged

to await the arrival
of the Sentinelese,

according
to Pandit's observations

on how they welcome each other

by sitting
on each other's laps.

Show them that we are
friendly and nonthreatening.

Give gifts.

Express desire
to stay with them.

Focus on learning
everything from them

in order to give them a clear,
contextualized explanation

of the Gospel.

Focus on learning
their myths and legends

to find redemptive analogies,

but will not disregard
the facts of the Gospel.

Establish
Christ-centered churches.

This will be up to them,

and the team will not bring
any colonizing mentalities

into this mission.

Missionary
could potentially reside

for the rest of his
life on the island

and must be accepting
of that possibility.

Every missionary I know

has had their perspective
altered as they've stayed

for a long period of time.

All right.

I worked with the
Pirahã for 30 years.

At some point, I got to leave.

I was struggling with my faith

and not finding results
that I wanted.

There are some ways
in which getting killed

within the first second
is a lot easier

than slogging through
30 years and still having

nothing to show
for it at the end,

when all that faith you had

didn't produce the
results you thought.

So we've
tried showing the Pirahã

film strips of Jesus,

you know, Him preaching and
healing and dying on the cross

and rising up on Easter,
with me translating.

And they said,
"We're willing to believe this,

and we're willing to believe
that He has all these

special powers and
He can heal people.

We've never seen anyone like
this, but you say you have.

So that's reasonable, so let's
probe a little bit," you know?

So they start asking
these basic questions.

"What color is He?"

And I said, "Well, you know,
some people say He was brown,

some people say He was white."

"But you saw Him.
What did He look like?"

I said,
"Well, I never saw Him."

"Your father saw Him?"

"No, my father"–
"Who do you know who saw Him?"

"I don't know
anybody who saw Him."

And it turns out, I don't
know anything about Him

whatsoever as a person.

I know what the
Bible tells me,

but they're not the kind
of personal details

that would help to
identify an individual.

In other words,
I give my life for Jesus,

but if He walked past
this room right now,

I wouldn't know it.

So, to them,
that's just utterly absurd,

that I would come all
this way to tell them

about somebody that
I don't really know at all.

The evidence I say
I have for Jesus,

to them, that's not evidence.

But it was so funny
because that night

after we showed the film strips,

the people were up
all night long,

running around screaming
and everything.

The next day, I asked
the guy who came over,

I said,
"What happened last night?"

He said, "Well, Jesus
came to the village."

I said, "What do you mean
Jesus came to the village?"

He said, "Oh, yeah, Jesus
came to the village,

and He had a penis
three feet long,

and He was trying to
put it in everybody."

You know, where do you get
this from what we showed you

from these film strips?

And I'm realizing that this
is their way of rejecting it.

It was their way
of telling me,

and they did tell me then,

the women don't ever want
to hear about Jesus again.

We don't
want anything up high.

We want things that
are on the ground.

God is a foreigner.

We don't know Him.
We don't want Him.

I felt
guilty and unethical

and wondered
why I'm doing this.

"Why am I bothering them
with all this stuff?"

So, you know,
it led to a divorce,

my kids not talking to me
for a couple of years.

When you come
to the conclusion

that there's no there there,
there's no God...

And you see the effects
missionaries have...

The effects
are not all positive, right?

I mean, even though
they do medical work,

there's a huge
power differential there.

They have taken people
who were not as superstitious

and made them
far more superstitious,

far more desirous
to please the missionary.

And I realized, "I'm not helping them,
I'm hurting them."

So I not only
abandoned the faith,

but I am very much
against missionary activity.

I don't think it
should be allowed.

John Chau's a good example.

At the same time that I want
to be tolerant of him,

I cannot deny that to me,

you know,
he's just giving his life

for Zeus or Thor
or Santa Claus.

There's no more reality
in any of them

than there is
in his Jesus and God.

If there is no God,
the only ethical evaluation

is the effect
that he's having,

and the effect
is to possibly contaminate

this whole group with disease,
to violate their will,

to lose his own life.

Therefore, it's
an unethical act.

That there's a
people group that we would

decide, "Sorry, you don't
get to hear about Jesus.

I'm gonna decide for you

that you're gonna
say no to Jesus"...

to me, that's a basic
violation of their human right

to say yes or no.

And so it's important to
me that we provide them

the opportunity
to say yes or no to Jesus.

All Nations is an organization

that trains, sends, and
cares for missionaries

all over the world.

I'm in charge of security
and risk management

for our organization.

When John Chau
first called me,

he mentioned
that he wanted to work

with the North Sentinelese.

And I said, "You realize
how difficult and dangerous

that might be?"

And he said,
"Yes, I do realize

how difficult and dangerous
that might be."

And I said, "Well, I think
we're gonna need to have

some more conversations
about this."

I asked my colleague, "What
do you think about this guy?

Do you think he has
a messiah complex?"

Because we're not interested
in sending those people out.

Screening
for the messiah complex

is really important because
we already have a messiah.

It's Jesus.

He's the one
who saves people, not us.

And sometimes people
get confused, and they think,

"Oh, you know, I just want
to give everything for Jesus.

"Therefore, I deliberately
want to seek out

the most dangerous thing
to prove my love for God."

And that's not right.

At All Nations, we're
pretty focused on training

and sending people to
places to make disciples

and to plan churches.

John is one of the most prepared
young men I've ever met.

We've had many
conversations over the phone

before I personally met him,

and he would say,

"Hey, I really want to know
about other cultures.

How should I go about it?"

We actually would
give him assignments.

Even though
we're sitting in Kansas City,

the Midwestern part
of the United States,

we get people to be
actors and actresses

to re-create an experience
from somewhere in the world.

Because if they've
never done a role play,

then when they enter reality,

they actually
don't know what to do.

Some
of the actors and actresses

are people
that are on our staff.

I played a villager
many times.

I played the village chief
on several occasions.

I speak a language
that only 35,000 people

on Planet Earth speak.

You say things like...

Watching their faces get
a little bit shocked.

When the students
would begin to approach,

there would be people
who would rush out

with mock weapons
and make them stop.

The worst that could
happen to the students

is that they are told
that they have to leave.

The coach will basically
go back and be like,

"Okay, give them
another chance.

Let's see if they can
do better this time."

I've asked myself many times

what I thought would happen
to John, and I thought...

that John would get accepted.

Eventually,
when it's time to leave,

we actually assign a mentor
to every one of our workers

so that we can
journey with them.

Who was that for John?

Oh, yeah, we cannot
disclose personnel issues, yeah.

Like one
who takes off a garment

on a cold day

or like vinegar on soda,

is he who sings songs
to a troubled heart.

The All Nations radicalism

has pushed my John
into the suicidal mission

that is destined to fail.

This is the unchecked inflation
of the messiah complex.

I remember him saying,

"Caddis Fly, I don't know
if I'm gonna come back.

I was like,
"John, you'll be back.

We'll see you sometime.

It might not be a while,
but I'll see you out there."

But then a fire burned
90% of the park.

It looked like a
bomb went off.

John was very sad,

and I don't think
that we spoke after that.

Dear friends,

I've written up some thoughts
on a question I'm often asked

so that each of you
can see my perspective

on the purpose for going.

This question is, why?

I want to be a part of seeing
Revelation become a reality.

In every generation
after Jesus,

His followers
have expected Him to return,

and yet He has not.

I believe that a reason
is that Christ's followers,

for the most part,
have not obeyed

His simple
prerequisite command

that His gospel
must first be preached

to all the people
groups of the Earth.

We were unable to
agree on the assumption

that God would send any
people to eternal fire

simply due
to they never have the chance

to hear the name of Jesus.

We stopped the discussion
right at this point.

What can we do?

But his determination

was like the arrow mounted
on the fully pulled bowstring.

Journal...

November 14, 2018,
Port Blair...

I've been in a safe house
for the past 11 days.

The originally planned date
was delayed due to a cyclone

in the Bay of Bengal.

Much time was spent
in prayer and reading.

In any endeavor,

a lot more people are involved
than anybody knows.

And I think there was an inner
circle of some other guys

that were
more directly involved.

If you can talk to Bobby,
Bobby's the person to talk to.

Bobby was there, you know?

Bobby and I are good friends.

My guess is that
he will not talk about it.

There are court cases
and people at risk

and families of people
that were invested.

Anything that puts him
in front of people,

he feels like...

endangers some of
those other people.

Bobby left five days ago.

It was such an
encouragement to see him.

The plan is to link up with
the crew and depart tonight.

I met with the fishermen,

who are all believers
and agreed to drop me off.

The meeting went well.

I trust them.

Soli Deo gloria.

The hardest part
of this stuff was actually

just doing it.

It's a little bit like
learning to do a backflip.

There's no intermediate step.

You either are going to land
on your feet or you're not.

He was aware of the risks
and chose to do them anyway,

and some of us would
prefer that he was naive

so we don't have to live
with the consequences

of our own faith issues

that we're afraid to do
something like this.

Currently on the boat,

waiting to make contact.

But as we went north
along the eastern shore,

we saw boat lights
in the distance.

God Himself was shielding us

from the Coast Guard
and Navy patrols.

"Boat rocked by waves,

men steering
perhaps by stars,

wondering why they
think we are going,

why I'm going.

See upright brown
vertical line on yellow beach.

Think at first
it's a tree stump,

and then it moves."

John Chau's diary
looks similar to the notes

that I was scribbling when
I was off North Sentinel.

There is a way that these
trips reenact one another.

There are only so many ways
for us to approach an island

full of unknown people
who may want to kill us.

But I knew enough
not to push it,

and I knew that nobody
was gonna come save me,

whereas, I suppose
John Chau felt that he was

in the palm
of the Lord's hand somehow.

There's a fine line
between faith and madness.

Some of the
guys in my boat went fishing.

We put the two big fish
on top of my kayak

and my small Pelican case

that held my initial-contact
response kit.

Inside my kayak,

I had my waterproof Bible
and some gifts.

I began rowing to the
house we had seen

about a half mile or so away.

My name is John.

I love you.
Jesus loves you.

Jesus Christ gave me
authority to come to you.

Here's some fish.

I figured
that this was it.

So I disembarked my kayak

to show them that
I, too, have two legs,

and I preached a bit to them.

Jesus said,
"My father has given me

all authority over
everything and everyone

in Heaven and on Earth."

Oh, our God,
You who sit on the throne,

and Jesus, who
are like a lamb,

You, too, have delivered us
from Satan's power.

Why did
some little kid have to

shoot me today?

His high-pitched voice
still lingers in my head.

Father, forgive him.

Lord, is this island
Satan's last stronghold?

I felt some fear, but, mainly,
I was disappointed

they didn't accept
me right away.

Well, I can try
to tell the story

from the Sentinelese perspective

by telling it from the
Pirahã perspective,

sort of, which is
one I understand.

They live a hard life.

They enjoy their life,

but there are resources
enough for them.

There are not resources
to feed the world.

They know that outsiders
have diseases

that will kill a lot of them,

and they don't want those.

They know that outsiders
have intentions

that they don't like.

Maybe they want to steal their
women or steal their children,

because that's happened to
them before in their history.

So, from the Sentinelese
people, you have this guy.

You've done everything
you can to make it clear

that you don't want him there.

He's yelling nonsense.

He's giving you stuff

that you could already have
gotten for yourself, food,

and a child shoots his Bible.

If he wanted to shoot him,
he would've shot him.

He didn't miss.

People who live by
the bow and arrow don't miss.

You've done everything
you can to warn him,

and he still comes.

It's weird.

Actually, no, it's natural.

I'm scared.

There, I said it.

Would it be wiser to leave
and let someone else continue?

I still could make
it back to the U.S. somehow,

as it almost seems like
certain death to stay here.

If I leave,

I believe I'll have
failed the mission.

I've never felt this much
grief or sorrow before.

Wondering if it'll all be
the last sunset I see

before being in the place
where the sun never sets.

I don't want to die.

I hope that
he was able to hear clearly

from Jesus in that moment.

Maybe this was just a no,
and it's time to go home.

You don't actually have
to go back to that island.

Or maybe...

Jesus was saying,

you follow
a crucified messiah...

and you follow Him
for your life.

And I don't think I'm gonna
have the answer to that

anytime soon,

at least not in this lifetime.

Mom and Dad,

you guys might
think I'm crazy in all this,

but I think it's worth it to
declare Jesus to these people.

Last night,
I had what I'd call a vision

as I've never
had one before...

and I felt distressed.

Then a different light,
a whitish light filled it,

and all the frightening
bits melted away.

I can't wait to see them
around the throne of God,

worshiping
in their own language.

Please do not be angry
at them if I get killed.

I love you all,

and I pray none of you
love anything in this world

more than Jesus Christ.

An American man
has been killed by members of

a protected tribe
in the Andaman Islands.

John Allen Chau
was a Christian missionary.

He was killed
with bows and arrows,

and his body left
on the beach.

Indian police-

My youngest son

was reportedly killed
by the tribesmen.

His lifetime-longing goal,

to break the communication
barrier between

the civilized and the
isolated, primitive world,

evaporated,

and he reportedly
sacrificed his life

without any known
result in return.

I failed to keep him
from being drawn

to the radical
evangelical extreme.

This riddle of life...

I cannot see through it now.

In the crushing pain of my
John's reported sudden death,

I recalled a requiem
I learned 42 years ago,

when first I came to
the U.S. as a refugee.

"Under the wide
and starry sky,

dig the grave and let me lie.

Glad did I live
and gently die...

and I laid me down
with a will.

This be the verse
you grave for me,

here he lies
where he longed to be.

Home is the sailor,

home from sea."

I dedicate this to be my
youngest son's requiem.

I think that would match
his life longing.

I think
that the best conclusion

that the world can come
to about John's life is,

ah, well, he did
what he most wanted to do,

or he lived out his dreams.

Now you go do it, too,
and you follow your dreams.

But it's like, that's not–

If John wanted to
follow his dreams,

he would've been
with that girl.

He would've probably either
been in the military

or a police officer
in a small town,

and he would probably
still be alive.

The conclusion
of John's life is...

he lived his life for Jesus.

Like, he did exactly what
Jesus told him to do.

One of the toughest
things in the aftermath

for a lot of people
was, like, no body, no–

you know,
nobody there, you know?

And you got to trust
people you don't know

to tell somebody
you don't know

to tell somebody else
that you do know,

this is what happened.

And, of course, my family,
they don't know any different.

They don't know
my involvement.

I didn't tell them,

and they're just kind of
cracking jokes, you know?

And some of them
are believers.

Some of them are not.

And they're like,
"People are so dumb."

There was a lot of talk
in the immediate aftermath.

John's story
became global news.

Bobby took it rough,
like, super rough.

Still super hard, you know,
and a difficult thing

to talk about, so...

I mean, they were
as close as you can be.

Those of us
that knew him personally

are still heartbroken.

We're hurting.

He was committed to the Gospel
and the Great Commission

with such a pure heart.

People who supported him

were both saddened and
elated simultaneously

because he is a
martyr for Jesus.

His death may be fertilizer
for the field to come.

He will become famous
in the Church.

His story will be told
for generations.

I believe that
God is sounding a trumpet,

and I believe what He's saying
right here in this day

is that He is looking
to raise up firebrands

who are pure in heart, who
would carry this pure Gospel

like an Olympic torch

and carrying it to
the dark places of the Earth.

I believe God's raising up
firebrands in this hour.

See, we're all called to find
our North Sentinel Island,

but we have to be willing
to say we'll go.

I think it's very unfortunate

that we live
in the 21st century

and we still have people
believing first-century myths,

enough to die for them.

We have to realize
that people are like this,

and religion doesn't seem
to be on its way out.

There's billions
of Christians,

and of those billions,

there's at least a billion
that would agree with him.

There's not
a billion anthropologists

and people who want
to preserve the Sentinelese.

These cultures that
are isolated and traditional,

when we cross that boundary,

we're saying your prohibition
means nothing to us.

If they wanted to change,
they would ask for us to come.

God might be
calling you out of your

comfort zone to invade
some dark places.

This world is dark.
This world is broken.

They're in need of a savior.

They're in need
of the light of Jesus.

There's no greater
love than this.

There's no greater love story.

There's no greater romance,
no greater epic.

There's no greater force
in all the universe

than the love of God

and His love story
that He sent out to creation,

and He's looking
for firebrands

to carry this pure Gospel
that our God loves us so much

that He would even pay
the ultimate price for us.

John was carrying
a torch of the pure love

of the Gospel of Jesus,

and it has now reached
the ends of the Earth.

I think every person

who's been drawn
to this story,

whether a missionary,
an anthropologist,

a historian, an author,
a filmmaker,

is coming in with
their own narrative arc

that they want to see
and experience and depict.

This island
is a sort of a stage

that you're stepping onto
for a performance,

and it can make it really hard

to see the reality
of this place

and the reality
of these humans.

We have to recognize that
there's something problematic

and suspicious
and, in some ways, corrupt

about our presuming
to tell this story at all.

But, ultimately, accepting
that we're telling a story

about us, not about them.

It's the stories we tell

that make us who we are.

John comes
from an ancient story.

It is one of the most
powerful stories ever told.

Of course, the Sentinelese
also have a story,

and we don't know what it is.

They don't feel any compulsion
to share it with us.

Maybe in the future,
somebody will remember

what happened
to John there,

and there will be a contact,

and they'll tell us
that story.

But that may not be
the happy ending we get.

What we may get
is the happy ending for them,

which is nobody
ever hears that story.

♪ If I am alive ♪

♪ This time next year ♪

♪ Will I have arrived ♪

♪ In time to share? ♪

♪ And mine is about ♪

♪ As good this far ♪

♪ And I'm still applied ♪

♪ To what you are ♪

♪ And I am joining ♪

♪ All my thoughts to you ♪

♪ And I'm preparing ♪

♪ Every part for you ♪

♪ And I heard from the trees ♪

♪ A great parade ♪

♪ And I heard from the hills ♪

♪ A band was made ♪

♪ And will I be invited ♪

♪ To the sound? ♪

♪ And will I be a part ♪

♪ Of what you've made? ♪

♪ And I'm preparing ♪

♪ Every part for you ♪

♪ For you ♪

Captioned by
Cotter Media Group.