A MAN CALLED BLESSED By Ted Dekker & Bill Bright

A Man Called Blessed is the sequel to Blessed Child. These stories were created by Bill Bright and written by Ted Dekker. (Bill Bright was the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, and passed away in 2003. These books were published in 2002/2003.)

The main character in both these books is "Caleb". In Blessed Child, we first meet him as a child with special God-given "powers". Having grown up very innocently in a monastery in Ethiopia, he was brought to the US, and then exploited for these powers.

In A Man Called Blessed, we find Caleb, now a grown man, living and working in the very monastery in which he grew up. He is still a believer of God's powers, but seems to have lost the simple faith of his youth. As he puts it, he's "misplaced" his first love.

Rebbecca Solomon is a decorated Israeli soldier, who leads a team into Ethiopia to find the Ark of the Covenant. Specific information has led them to believe that Caleb holds the key to finding the Ark. The catch is that Caleb is totally unaware that he has the key to finding the Ark.

Meanwhile, Palestine has gotten word of Rebbecca's mission, and since they know that the discovery of the Ark is a threat to the Muslim world, they want to stop it from happening. Ismael, a Muslim soldier has a personal vendetta against Rebbecca, and therefore volunteers to head up this job.

So we have a Christian man, a Jewish young lady and a Muslim assassin. Caleb and Rebecca are trying to get the Ark to Jerusalem. Rebecca wants it there so that Temple can be rebuilt. Caleb wants to help Rebbecca get it there, but is trying to convince her that God's presence dwells in us, not in an Ark. Ismael is trying to prevent the Ark from getting to Jerusalem at all. And he's trying to kill Rebbecca because he hates her for killing his brother. All of them are willing to die for their cause. And any one of their actions can plunge the Middle East into war.

As usual, Dekker's book is full of action. He really has a knack for making his characters come to life. I think the ending leaves the story open to a possible sequel in which Caleb is one of the end time "witnesses" in Israel. I can't be sure if that's just my take, or if that was Bright's original intention for the story. Since Caleb is compared to Elijah a couple of times in the story, it seems a probable conclusion. But, as I mentioned above, Bill Bright passed away in 2003, so Caleb's story probably ends at this point.

I always recommend any book by Ted Dekker, and this one is no exception. This isn't as great as his later works, but nonetheless, its got his "signature" on it.

17 AGAIN

You might have seen it before - you know, a movie about the adult going back to relive high school?



There's Freaky Friday, where the mom and daughter change bodies. We've seen both the original with Jodie Foster/Barbara Harris, as well as the remake with Jamie Lee Curtis/Lindsey Lohan.




And you may or may not (probably not) remember Vice Versa, with Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage as a father/son that trade bodies.


Then there's Like Father Like Son, where Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron play the father and son body-trading team.




And my all time favorite movie is Peggy Sue Got Married, where Kathleen Turner faints and wakes up to find herself back in high school.

Actually, I think that Peggy Sue is the one that most resembles "17 Again", because nobody trades bodies here. There's only the adult who's made a mess of his/her life and wishes they could go back to do things differently. At least they think they would do things differently!


You might think that since this plot has been done before, that 17 Again might not be worth your time. But if you are a big fan of the time travel genre, as I am, you will love 17 again!

Matthew Perry plays Mike O'Donnell, a husband and father who gave up college and a basketball scholarship to marry his pregnant high school girlfriend, Scarlett. Years later, she's kicked him out because she is tired of hearing him complain about the life he "could have had" if he hadn't have had to marry her. In one scene, as he looks at his high school basketball photo, a "mysterious stranger" asks him if he wishes he could be 17 again, and Mike says, yeah, he does. Later, he sees this mysterious stranger on a bridge getting ready to jump. Mike goes after him to save him. Later, when he gets home and is changing clothes, he looks in the mirror and discovers that he is...17 again. His best friend (who he's been staying with since Scarlet kicked him out) poses as his "father" and they get Mike back in high school, where he gets a second chance at the basketball scholarship. At first he thinks that this has happened to him so that he can get back the life he lost, but soon he realizes, as he gets to know his kids from a different perspective, that the purpose of his experience might be different than he first thought.

I know Zac Efron is a big star because I see his face plastered everywhere. But I have boys, and so my household has just not gotten into "High School Musical. I gotta say, I am impressed with his acting! I was convinced I was actually seeing Matthew Perry in Efron's body because he did such a great job mimicking Perry's facial expressions and mannerisms!

Of course, its predictable, as this genre of movie often is. But those of us who like this genre think that's ok, as long as the characters are believable and we connect emotionally with the movie. Great movie!

THR3E

I watched this 2006 movie in the theater when it was released. It fell a little flat. But when I recently saw that it was going to show on cable, I thought, what the heck, maybe its not a bad TV movie. Before I tell you what I thought, I'll tell you a bit more about it. It's quite probable you've never heard of it. It wasn't a big release. It's actually a movie based on Ted Dekker's novel of the same name. If you know me, you know that Dekker is my all time favorite author....ever! So back when this movie was being released, I was excited and yes, I was there on opening night to support it! Part of the problem in the theater was that it was full of teenagers. And they kept laughing at the most inappropriate times. It made it hard to evaluate the movie on its own merit, although I do remember that I thought it was a bit...hmmm...too low budget. Maybe even a little cheesy. That's why I thought that if I gave it a second chance and watched it in my own controlled atmosphere, it might be a pretty good flick.

The story starts out with Kevin Parsons receiving a mysterious call, telling him that unless he confesses his "sin", he will die. The caller also gives Kevin a riddle to solve. Kevin has no idea what "sin" the caller is talking about. He escapes death that time, and soon, with the help of Jennifer, a police officer, and Samantha, a childhood friend, Kevin is trying to stay alive by figuring out what sin he is supposed to confess, and why the caller knows about it. The deeper the story goes, the more Kevin begins to dig into his traumatic childhood and finds a secret that only he knows. THR3E truly is, as it's tag line says, "a story of good, evil, and all that lies in between". This is one of Dekker's best books - very suspenseful, lots of action, twists and turns, and a shocker of an ending that leaves you breathless. This story should have made an awesome movie.

Should have.

I regret to say that the movie, even on TV, was just as cheesy as I first thought. The actors were a bit stiff, so you never quite connect with the characters. Yes, it's true that a book has a lot more time to make that connection, but it IS possible to translate that to a movie, and this one just didn't pull it off. The worst part was that the shocker ending was not anywhere near as powerful as it was in the book.

It pains me to give this movie a bad review, because I'd love to support anything that Ted Dekker does as a storyteller. But this movie was way below his usual level of brilliance. That said, I would highly recommend that you get your hands on the book. Once you read this one, you'll be hooked on Dekker.