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| Graduation Announcement |
In May, 1966, I wrote a letter announcing my graduation from Grace College.
A great school year is almost over. Right now I am working hard to complete all my work and merit the diploma I shall receive June 1.
One experience that changed my life was the trip to Mexico during Christmas vacation. My brotherLynn and I joined a group of about two hundred American and Mexican students for two weeks of intensive literature evangelism.
This summer Lynn and I are going to do the same work in Andalucía, Spain. We expect to leave New York by plane July 1, and arrive back in the United States September 5. June 11-17, we, that is all the OMers have a week of orientation in Chicago, where we will not only learn through hearing, but also by doing door-to-door literature distribution and evangelistic meetings.
As you read on, you will notice that not everything happened as I anticipated in this note.
The summer of 1966, my brother Lynn and I and a group from Grace College and Seminary, joined the Operation Mobilization (OM) crusade in Europe. Our faculty advisor, Dorothy Toirac (wife of my boss at Spanish World Gospel mission and college French professor) describes the movement in an article entitled "Penetration" which appeared in the June issue of The Brethren Missionary Herald.
Operation Mobilization is a student movement rapidly spreading throughout the world, dedicated to the task of evangelism. Its purpose is not simply to distribute millions of tracts and Gospel portions, but also to glorify God by stimulating young men and women to become effective followers of Jesus Christ, living a life of faith and love according to the principles of discipleship laid down in the Scriptures.
Its strategy is for unencumbered believers to take out a summer, several months, or a year from their work or studies to proclaim Christ in areas where the vast majority do not understand just who Jesus Christ is or what He can do for them. It attempts to function not as an outside organization, but as a servant to the established churches and missionaries.
Its aim is to unite local Christians into an effective, disciplined force to reach their own country. To spur this effort, qualified American students are given opportunity to work side by side with national Christians on teams. Thousands of youth from some 32 different nations have participated in summer and year crusades since 1958.
Testimonies from each of the six participating students make up the remainder of the article.
Several letters we wrote to our family throughout our time with OM that year
tell snippets of the story of our experience
. When I wrote a newsletter in August, I was living and working with the OM Spain headquarters team in Madrid's district 2, in a big house on Pintor Moreno Carbonero and not in Andalucía with the main summer evangelistic thrust.
My brother Lynn, on the other hand, was the assistant leader on a team with ten girls and one Brittish fellow in Southern Spain. I remember that once that summer, I was allowed to go along on a brief visit to the team.
The team report from Málaga Province, August 15-28, 1966, is a five-page single-spaced document overflowing with praise for the many ways God was at work: team unity, perserverance in prayer, and response to the Gospel in three towns. Despite opposition and difficult beginnings, they went door-to-door selling Christian literature to people taught to NOT read Protestant books. By the end, people welcomed them, the police chief gave his blessing, many books were sold, some twenty chose to follow Jesus, and a priest gained assurance of salvation by faith!
Interestingly, it was an accident and further vehicle problems that resulted in some of these positive outcomes. An eight-year-old boy was knocked down by their van, though traveling slowly through town. He was not hurt seriously and the police declared it not their fault. Team members visited the family several times, each time reading from one of the books, La pregunta de María Rosa [Rosemry's Quest]. Five people gave their lives to Jesus as a result.
Twice their van broke down, team leader Stuart hitchhiked into town for help. The person who gave him a ride back to the stranded team was a priest who had been searching the Truth for some time. Several Bible study, prayer and fellowship sessions followed. He made the decision to leave the Church and become an evangelist. His last question was, "What do you think is the best way to evangelize Spain?"
The team was also blessed and encouraged by the hospitality of believers they found in the area including a visiting Argentinian woman, a local congregation and their very young pastor.
I am convinced that the Bibles, New Testaments, and books left behind, such as Peace with God, Secret of Happiness, Science Speaks, All of Grace, and more, the Word preached, the Moody Science films, and the testimonies shared, continued to bear fruit for eternity.
Meanwhile, my life at the headquarters in Madrid was very full: Bible studies with a group of Cuban women Mondays and Thursdays from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m.; visits other days to interested contacts; office work, translation, recording and responding to requests for literature and Bible correspondence courses, and whatever else needed to be done. I was given a Sunday School class to teach in a small church plant in the Hortaleza neighborhood.
I remember one of my time-saving tricks to learn the lesson. I recorded it and played it over and over as I performed one of my household chores which was to scrub the stairs.
In my letters I listed some nine names of contacts to pray for, some had already made a decision to follow Jesus. Several times I mentioned conversations with children I encountered using a
Wordless Book. This tool was first used by Charles Spurgeon back in 1866 and has since become a popular child evangelism method all over the world.
At the end of that August 10th letter I added, "Another important prayer request: I very much want to stay here for the year program. PRAY THAT I MAY KNOW HIS PERFECT WILL."
A bit of OM history:
George Verwer, the founder of Operation Mobilization, moved to Spain with his young family in the early 60's. The first European summer crusade took place in 1962 with 200 participants. A year later, many hundreds more from thirty different countries came together and the "revolution of love" was off and running. An early letter, which used radical language calling for total commitment to the evangelization of the world, became known as The Madrid Manifesto.
The goal to reach the world with the Gospel "in this generation," encouraged "believers to take a summer, several months, or a year from their work or studies."
I chose to stay on for the year program and postpone Seminary studies for a year. My brother Lynn returned to the US at the end of the summer to continue his studies at Grace College. He did, however, attend an OM conference in Pittsburgh during Christmas break along with a group from Moody and Grace.
Greg Livingstone, an OM leader God used greatly to teach and encourage us during the summer crusade, visited the campus in December and spoke in both college and seminary chapels. Students from Moody Bible Institute arrived who had also been in Europe for the summer crusade. It was a joyful reunion. That evening at 5:00 they gathered for prayer and continued on into the night. Lynn wrote, "I never knew it could be so thrilling and interesting to pray." He even lingered long after with one of the Moody friends sharing scriptural insights they were learning through the study of the original languages. He added, "By the way, Greek and Missions are the subjects that will look good on my report card, because the others will look quite shabby, I'm afraid."
In September all OM teams gathered for a month-long training conference in England, and then we were sent out in vans and dispersed throughout Europe.
I close with the promise the Lord gave the Málaga team, from Isaiah 43:18-19 "Behold I will do a new thing . . ." Next time I will continue with the new things God was doing and teaching us in Madrid!
