Olive's Balloon Adventures

Discover the heart of Biblical Missions through the eyes of a young girl.

Logline:

Theme:

Based on the beloved children's book, Olives Balloon Adventure, Olive and her friends take fantastic journeys to communities around the globe. In those places she learns the principles of Gospel Missions: Thankfulness, Compassion, and Action.

Mission:

To encourage and equip a new generation of globally focused missionaries.

Goals:

Provide a vocabulary to express thankfulness for what we have and ways to pray for God’s mercy for all.
Provide insight into how children from other cultures and communities live around the world.
Gently demonstrate how to spread the good news of Christ through sustainable compassion and missions.

Synopsis:

Olive is a five-year-old girl with quite the imagination. Like all children she is curious, kind, and always wanting to do things on her own. She is very eager to help, but sometimes doesn’t know how.

Her most favorite thing to do is visit the local fun park, The World Fair, run by the kind-hearted Johnsons. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson are retired missionaries who created the park to share their love of the Lord and passion for Missions.

At The World Fair, Olive's favorite ride is the hot air balloon. On this ride she, along with Mr. Johnson and her dog, uses her imagination to travel the world, learn about different cultures, and how to help others with a heart of thankfulness and compassion.

Pilot Episode:

Olive, her family, and their dog Patch have just moved to a new town. She is a little lonely and scared due to all of the changes and compensates by insisting that she can do everything on her own.

One day Olive's mother takes her to a local fun park, “The World Fair.” At the fair, she meets Mr. Johnson who helps her on his favorite ride, the Hot Air Balloon. They ride up together and use their imagination to see some wonderful places. Mr. Johnson talks about different cultures and how many people in the world need help, but not all in the same way. Olive wants to help, but doesn't know how.

When they land, Olive realizes her dog is missing. Scared, she knows that she must ask for help. Mr. Johnson is happy to offer assistance. It doesn’t take long and they find her dog with Mrs. Johnson. Olive is happy to have found Patch. Mrs. Johnson prays with Olive, thanking God for Patch, her heart to help others, and to trust in God for help and strength.

Episodes:

All episodes follow the same, familiar, four-movement story arch: Introduction, Exploration, Presentation, Application.

Movement 1: Introduction

Olive goes to the World Fair and talks to Mr. Johnson about a certain region of the world.

They get on the Hot Air Balloon ride and are transported to the focus region

Movement 2:

Exploration

They meet an animal common or unique to the region. That animal takes them to a local community.

They meet a local child who shows them local customs and ways in which their lives are hard.

Movement 3:

Presentation

Mr. Johnson helps Olive recognize the best ways that she can help the community sustainably, physically, and spiritually.

Movement 4:

Application

They go back home. Olive recaps what happened and Mrs. Johnson leads Olive (and the children watching) in a prayer for the people of that region.

Creative Team:

Polly Thatch

and

Susan Newcott

Polly Thatch (Left) and Susan Newcott (Right) created the characters and authored the original source material of Olive’s Balloon Adventure. Both grew up as children of missionaries in Cote D’Ivoire. Polly continues spreading the Gospel through missions work with World Vision. Susan is an artist and mother of five-children in Charlotte, NC..

Chris Himes,

Producer

Chris Himes is the Chief Executive Officer at Last Pew Media. Chris is an Emmy-nominated digital media producer with a passion for curating world-class content. Chris was a Supervising Digital Producer at NBC, working at Saturday Night Live and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. He has produced media for Salem Media in collaborations with Eric Metaxas.

Soar with Olive:

through God's beautiful creation with hand painted backgrounds overlaid with simple animation.
Learn with Olive:

about different cultures and mission opportunities while meeting new friends and animals.
Help, with Olive,:

Discover the needs of children in other cultures and explore how best we can love them through Compassion and Action.
Join Olive in Action:

Pray, with Olive, for her friends in different cultures and recognize opportunities to help.