SAT-7 explores how Christian athletes survive victory and defeat

Just in time for the 2008 summer Olympics, SAT-7 will be airing a new documentary in Arabic, Farsi and Turkish in which six Olympic athletes discuss their greatest challenges and victories.

The documentary, entitled "Struggle and Triumph", is produced by Athletes in Action and profiles six different Olympians from sports ranging from long distance running and sprinting, to swimming and badminton.

The athletes range from a gold medal winner, to several silver medallists, and also includes competitors who did not win an Olympic medal but vividly demonstrate how someone can be victorious in surmounting overwhelming odds.

Dieudonne Disi is a world class distance runner from Rwanda. In the 2004 Olympics he came in 17th place in the 10,000 meter race, but other runners probably had no idea that he had already run the race of his life.

Disi recalls what happens the day he escaped a murderous rampage in his village during the Rwandan genocide.

"On my last day with my father there were eight people in the family, my father and mother and my brothers and sisters. He said we are all going to die. He wanted to pray a prayer to prepare to go to heaven. My family started to pray, but I went outside. I heard the rebels knock on the door. It opened, they said something to my family...it was 'death, death!' In the end everyone within 400 metres was killed."

Still, Disi found the inner strength to go on with his life, "I used to pray every day, but when my family was killed I stopped praying. For many years I did not pray. A few years later I was asking myself, 'Where was my family that had prayed now?'

"I was confident that my family and friends who perished were in heaven. I realised that if I was ever going to see my family again, I needed to start praying again.

"In the Bible it says there is only one way to heaven, through Jesus Christ. If you want to get to heaven it has to be through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the way to heaven and the way to God."

Disi's story is just one of the emotionally powerful interviews included in the film. Stories like these are important to tell in the Middle East and North Africa, says SAT-7 Acquisitions Manager George Makeen.

"Athletes in the Arab world are stars and people really look up to them," he said. "The model of Christianity in this region is often that Christianity is only for the weak, for those who are simple and have no other options. So it's important, especially for young people in this area, to see athletes who are famous and successful and are still followers of Christ."

On the web: www.sat7.org