In 2018, a shocking event made headlines around the world: a young American missionary, John Chau, was killed by arrows while attempting to contact one of the world's most isolated Indigenous peoples on remote North Sentinel Island.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 (waves crashing)
00:02 - My friend John paid some pirates to go to an island
00:06 to talk to people about Jesus
00:09 when he knew that he had no business doing that.
00:12 (soft music)
00:14 - John's parents brought him up to be Christian.
00:20 - He was just like full of light.
00:23 I had a little bit of a crush on him.
00:25 - You couldn't have asked for a better young man.
00:26 He reminds me of who I wanted to serve with.
00:29 - He told me his plan was to go live
00:31 in the middle of the jungle.
00:33 It didn't sound that bad.
00:35 - I thought that John would get accepted.
00:40 - People whose language no one speaks,
00:45 whose culture no one knows.
00:47 There's a fine line between faith and madness.
00:52 - Once he found out about that tribe,
00:56 he knew he was gonna go all in.
01:00 - John was telling his story,
01:01 "I'm a climber, I'm an adventurer."
01:02 - Here we are, hiking out.
01:03 - If things don't go well,
01:05 he wanted to look like a young, arrogant, Western person,
01:08 did a stupid thing, and move on.
01:11 John said to me, "This is what the plan looks like.
01:15 "Have it right here."
01:16 - There are so many ways the seductions
01:20 of this story can go wrong.
01:22 This idea of people who exist out of time,
01:25 that erases their humanity.
01:27 - These cultures that are isolated,
01:30 when we cross that boundary,
01:31 we're saying your prohibition means nothing to us.
01:34 - That there's a group that we would decide,
01:36 "Sorry, you don't get to hear about Jesus."
01:38 That's a violation of their human right.
01:40 - John did exactly what Jesus told him to do.
01:42 - John was pursuing a fantasy,
01:45 in discerning the call.
01:48 We can mess it up.
01:50 - My friend did something stupid and courageous, and bold.
01:57 And I wish I was that bold.
01:59 (dramatic music)
02:01 (gentle music)
02:04 [Music]