Depiction in Shuidonggu Museum, Inner Mongolia, of Emile Licent, SJ, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, arriving at a remote inn where they discover a trove of fossils.
After a very successful July-August shoot in Auvergne, France, we now look ahead to 2017, with a plan to shoot in China and Inner Mongolia in May. There we will capitalize on the site visits we made in 2013. Weāll capture on video Zhoukoutien, where Peking Man was discovered. And weāll also trace the steps of Teilhardās first expedition with Emile Licent, SJ, in 1923, when they traversed the Ordos desert and where Teilhard wrote āMass on the World.ā But there is much more to the story than is usually told ā for example, the long trek around the desert to avoid battling warlords. A trek that took them to a place called Shuidonggu. Here, at an isolated inn where they stopped for a nightās rest, they found a treasure trove of fossils so rich that the site is still excavated today by Chinese paleontologists.
Teilhardās 23 years in China shaped his mature thought, already germinating during World War I, and is critical to his story.
The China shoot requires that our fundraising momentum be kept strong. We currently have raised $20,000 of the $100,000 we need for this phase of the project. We are seeking funds from foundations and corporations but we can also use your help. Small donations add up; they made the difference that allowed us to shoot in Auvergne.
Now we appeal to your generosity to help us meet our new $100,000 target in the next three months. As you make your decisions about end-of-the year charitable donations, keep us in mind. Anything you can manage will be helpful. Go to our website to make a tax-deductible contribution via the special fund at Georgetown University. Or you can make donations via Paypal. Here is the link to the various ways you can donate. If you do decide to donate to the Georgetown fund, we ask that you also let us know at frankfrost@teilhardproject.com. As you can imagine, Georgetown gets a lot of individual donations and is not able to notify us quickly, so we sometimes donāt know about donations for several months. Hearing directly from you allows us to be able to double check that they received the funds and properly credited them.
If we stay on track with our fundraising and filming and editing, we are looking at finishing the show in 2018. It has taken longer than we wanted to get this far, but we are on a strong finishing track at this point.
Thank you again for all your help and support. We would not have accomplished so much without you. We wish you and your loved ones a joyous Christmas season, and a very Happy New Year!
