I praise God for the race.
I have parents praying today for me.
Parents still on the field, serving the Lord,
rejoicing in the soul of being saved and
being built up in the faith.
My brother, three years old, is a missionary
in Morocco.
My uncle, he is also a missionary.
That takes care of all the lacrosse games
I know.
My sister is a Christian.
Her husband is a Christian living in California.
So we're a bit scattered out, but God
is giving us a great fellowship together, praying
for one another.
I went to school for missionary kids out
in Africa and then off and on was
in the States.
Then at 16 I went back to finish
up at the States and didn't exactly know
it very well.
It took me a year to finally get
to the place where I'd accept that they
were spiritual Christians too.
Then at that time I figured it was
a mission field.
Even when I left Africa at 16, I
said, well, it seems to be this is
where I should go back to.
I thought of Mauritania at that time.
I haven't quite got there yet.
But through high school, I planned to go
to Bible school right afterwards.
I thought about two or three, applied to
one, accepted, went there to Moody.
Spent three years there, growing up some more
and learning some things.
That's what I meant to send the light.
I can't say that I came with the
Lord at all on any reasonable, logical basis,
really.
I would say I was forced into it
by the Spirit of God.
When I was at Moody, I met George
there and we were a fellow.
In fact, the fellow told me that George
was planning to go down to Mexico in
the summer to be saved.
He was not even walking with the Lord.
He dated Tom Heater.
He told me that was the first day
when George arrived.
I took some of George's luggage over.
He was figuring out he'd be in something
in Mexico.
It sounded interesting, but it didn't interest me
personally.
I think what began my third year at
Moody, a fellow living next door to me,
a fellow by the name of Don Kilgree,
went down to Mexico that Christmas to be
saved.
His first year at Moody, he was one
of the campus skeptics, one of the intellectual
guys, mocking the fighting fundies, this type of
fellow.
Then he got interested in this group.
We had some tremendous fellowship.
We had a prayer together.
I heard he went to a couple nights
of prayer.
I think this is what sowed the seed
of something happening to him.
I prayed for him during the summer and
wanted an interest.
Then I went out to preach.
That's when it really got an interest.
I felt I should go down to Mexico
on Christmas of 1959.
I went down.
Dale was the leader of Guadalajara.
I didn't want to go, but I knew
I should.
I was blessed.
The next year, the same thing.
I didn't want to go, but I was
blessed.
I knew I had to go.
Then after a week, I was deciding I
knew I should either come with OM on
this year program.
I didn't really want to go.
Or go with the Missionary Society my folks
were with.
Then I felt at the time that I
should go with them.
I think it was right because it gave
me the opportunity to work for the Holy
Church, get a church behind me and a
lot of other things.
Towards the end of my time there, I
had no peace about continuing there.
Then the Christmas of 1961, that was George
when he came through with the prayers of
Jesus and David.
That's when I really made a final decision
to come up with a year and a
half program.
That's kind of how I got involved.
When I came over, I knew so certainly,
clearer than my salvation, that I had to
come on OM.
That's just about the way it was.
After praying for three days and battling out,
I just knew I had no choice.
For me, it was kind of losing my
whole future because OM, financial policy, business policy,
what was their future, where were they going?
It wasn't recognized by the IFMA or the
EFMA or any other associations.
For me, it was kind of losing all.
It was stepping out of the usual type
missionary work that I had grown up in.
For me, it was kind of losing a
reputation, losing everything else.
Just going to throw my life into it.
I wasn't really intending to stay for so
many years.
I thought it was just one summer crusade
of the year program.
When I came over, I thought I would
go to France, but the Lord seemed to
indicate I should go to England and kind
of get the feel of things, I was
told.
I got the feel of it.
I've had it ever since, being kind of
at the hub.
I can say this, that I never chose
this path.
Whatever was thrown at me just seemed that's
what I should do, but I don't think
I've ever asked for it at all.
I can see looking back at my life,
different things where God perhaps prepared me for
this kind of ministry.
I am convinced now, at the moment, very
much, at least for the time being, that
my ministry is in Europe with an aim
to see Europeans spread out over the whole
world and work in other countries.
I suppose a burden, there's a lot of
burdens that come and go, of course, but
just this morning, again, someone mentioned one or
two things, I think yesterday, something Greg said,
and I just thought that a real burden
that even here in Europe, that we would
see more contact with the international students coming
from other countries and Christian students.
And I was just thinking about how, even
though we're international, I feel in some ways
we're not international enough, I feel maybe we
need to attempt more of the impossible, but
I would really like to see more people
from other countries and people coming into one
having more and more responsibility.
And I was just thinking, I suppose maybe
there was even a little grain of pride
in it, pride on being able to step
down, and Lord bashed me with a head
on that just this morning, and yet I
still would like to, I'd like to go,
I'd like to be able to experience someone
else coming in and doing my job completely
and me working directly under them.
And I'd like to have that, because I
just think it'd be a good bash at
the devil and all that he usually tries
to do around the world.
You know, anything just to, you know, fight
for the middle, and go the opposite of
the way that the world seems to run.
But I do, I do have a desire,
really, to see more and more leadership and
people that perhaps come just for one or
two years.
Because the natural tendency is the more experience
you have, they're the ones that should leave.
And I've got a certain knowledge of the
spirit of God that allows us to do
that.
And I think we, this is one verse
on my heart, it's just to really, and
I think it's one step in this direction
this year, it's got to be in itself,
and I'm just letting Craig on that, and
we don't think about this.
But anyway, that's a little on my heart.
There's a lot of other things too, but
yeah.
Amen.
Who'd be next?
I'd like to be next.
Try to speak fairly loud, because we are
recording this for some of the brothers.
I think you realize that we only represent
about one half of the coordinators in the
world.
A little over half.
It might be good to mention ones who
are not with us.
Charles Wilson in Canada.
Paul, of course, in the United States.
Dick in Baltimore, in Mexico.
Giovanni is not yet with us.
Larry Goldberg down in Israel.
Gordon Macney going out soon to Afghanistan.
Mike Wiltshire in Africa.
Not really a field, but still coordinating the
project there.
And then Ray Eicher in Bombay, and Ron
George.
David Buderer in Rajasthan in the Northeast.
These areas, of course, have more people than
most, any four or five fields here combined.
George Miley temporarily in the North.
I've got that reversed.
Buderer in the Northwest.
Miley in the Northeast.
Ron Penny.
And by the way, he had a relapse
again yesterday, I understand.
Thomas Samuel.
A.G. Phillip.
That just about covers it.
So, if you can speak loud, then these
brothers perhaps will have the opportunity to hear
this tape, plus some others.
Go ahead.
I was born in a Christian family, and
I had to go all the time to
Sunday school.
Many times I didn't like it.
But today I praise the Lord for this.
They taught me all things about the Bible,
and there was especially one thing that always
spoke to me, that the Lord Jesus Christ
will come back again to take home his
children.
And when I thought of this, many times
I had a great fear, because I knew
when he comes back, I'm not ready.
And so, several times when I was in
my home, and I was alone there, my
parents weren't there, I had such a great
fear that I can't explain this.
I remember one time I was in bed,
and I had this thought, and then the
parents were not at home.
I thought, well, if the Lord Jesus came
back now, what, I'm the only one here.
And so I thought, well, I'll go into
the village and see if the other believers
are still here.
So I wanted to go out of the
house, and at the same moment my parents
came in.
And I think this was the last push
to give my heart to the Lord.
But I have to confess, for a long
time I haven't lived a Christian life.
Until I got to a youth conference where
Conrad Sonderich and Josie Birks were.
And they talked about the O.M. And
I thought, well, I could get their prayer
letter and see, maybe I can pray for
them.
So they sent their prayer letter, and the
Lord spoke more and more to me.
And then I decided to take part for
three weeks in December in 64, I think
was it.
I was with a rail engineer, Udine.
And we had really a great time, the
Lord spoke much to my heart.
And then next year, I decided to go
for the whole summer to Italy, but wanted
to go back afterwards to work.
And it happened that, I think we were
in Rotterdam, I had no idea where to
go in Italy.
And then we had to go to George,
and he just told me, well, you go
to Mantua.
Then I drove down to Italy and went
to Mantua, and there Giovanni Finis was leading
the team.
It happened also that I had the only
small car, so each time Giovanni had to
go to a certain place, I had to
go with him.
And I think there it started when the
Lord united our hearts.
When I went to Italy, I knew no
Italian.
And I could tell you also that Italy
was the last place I wanted to go.
Many times I said to the Lord, well,
I know some French, some English, but not
to Italy, also because I was working in
a factory with several Italians, and I made
some bad experiences with them.
So I hated to go to Italy, really,
but I felt that I had to go.
And I praised God, I think it was
only His grace that brought me down to
Italy.
It wasn't my desire.
So then in Mantua the Lord started to
unite Giovanni in my heart.
And I think I learned only Italian through
listening.
I don't remember now how it was possible
that we were able to talk together, to
do something together, because he knew no French
nor English.
But I praised God for His time, and
then he asked me, I remember exactly where
he was, if I would like to come
to the conference in Bolton.
And I thought, well, yeah, I could come.
If I leave OM, it can help me
something, this conference, if I stay, well, it's
good.
So I went back to Bolton, and the
Lord spoke to me very clearly to remain
in OM for another year.
And I had never thought to remain more
than a year.
But then after the next year, the Lord
spoke to me more, I had to remain
in Italy.
So it happened that also this year I
go back.
Maybe I would like to ask you to
pray for our unity in Italy, between Giovanni
and myself, and all those that are going
to Italy.
I think this is something so important, I
appreciate your prayer in this.
Praise the Lord.
That was, for the sake of the people
listening to the tape, Paul Stilling, working in
Italy from Switzerland.
Pepe Barrios from Mexico, working in Spain.
Why don't you try that English?
I've been told that you know far more
English than you let on to.
When I was 15 years old, I left
my parents, and I went to work to
study at the same time.
I was there for 7 years, but for
about 6 years, I was much involved with
many kinds of things.
Because I was young, and I had money,
I was living alone, and in
my heart I was looking for something.
But I could find it in many things
that I saw.
For instance, well, yeah.
Friends, girls, and things like that, dancing, clubs,
etc.
And one day, I had an accident, and
I could die very easily.
But, just for the mercy of the Lord,
I smashed my head a little bit.
But after that, I was thinking, well, if
I die, even though I
lived with my parents, and I went to
Sunday school for some years, I wasn't sure
about my life after that.
And after that, I had another accident, I
think 2 months after.
And I was really thinking more and more
about that.
And for that time, I went to visit
my parents.
And they gave me a New Testament.
And when I went back, I started to
read.
And I read the New Testament once, putting
marks in the verses that most spoke to
me.
And I began to think about going to
an Evangelical church.
But I was so ashamed before God that
I couldn't go for a long time.
Because I saw the life that I was
living.
Sometimes I remember I went 2 blocks near
to the church, and I came back.
And then, I continued reading the New Testament.
And I was reading through again, but reading
only the verses that I was putting marks.
And during that time, I got in contact
with 2 pastors.
But because I had an Evangelical vocabulary, they
didn't realize that I wasn't Christian.
They knew that my parents were Christians, but
they didn't witness to me.
But anyway, I went to church sometimes.
And one night, in my room, after I
was reading the New Testament, and the Gospel
of Luke, I was thinking about the life
that I was living, and the life of
Jesus.
And that night, I realized that I had
to choose between the life that God was
offering me, and the life that I was
living.
And it was not very easy.
I had a great battle during various hours.
But at last, I only could say, Lord,
take my life, please.
Because I know if I go ahead in
this life that I am living, I will
go to Heaven.
I want to go to Heaven with You.
And I know that at that time, it
was so real for me that the Lord
forgave me.
And I had joy and the assurance that
He was with me.
After that, a group of O.N. came
to the church, and I met 2 persons
in that team.
One of them, I remember, was the team
of Yvonne, Chris, and Pete.
Well, I didn't speak much with them, but
I saw something different.
And then, they invited me to go to
Mexico City to meet Dick Griffin.
And his life really spoke to me.
And then, they invited me to go to
a meeting in the Christmas crusade.
George was there, and Baltimore.
And one thing that really spoke to my
heart was the prayer meeting one morning in
the Presbyterian Bible school that we had.
And I saw the groups praying, and I
thought, well, this is something different.
They must have something real.
Well, I continued my contact with Dick, and
he invited me to come to Spain.
And before that, I went to Toluca for
some time, a short time.
And then, we came back to Spain for
one summer.
We went back to Mexico after that summer,
but I didn't have peace in my heart
and the assurance that that was the will
of God for my life.
And in that time, three books really spoke
to my life.
One that is called The Will of God,
and I don't remember the other.
The other was You Know My Christian Life,
and the other was Passion for Souls.
And then, my wife and I thought, well,
the Lord wants us to leave everything and
to go to Spain.
But I forgot to say something that really
spoke to my heart.
In a Christmas crusade in Nuevo Laredo in
1964, you remember?
You were there.
And a verse from the Bible that really
spoke to my heart was 1 John 3
.16. Well, in many ways, I can say
that that verse is one of the reasons
why I am here.
And now, the hunger in my heart is
more and more to see His work
in my life.
In many ways, because I know that He
has to rebuild with me much.
And one of the burdens in my heart
is to see Spaniards leading the war in
Spain.
Do you know many reasons why a national
can live better, I think, in some countries?
I praise the Lord because the Italian is
the best, but I think we have to
see more Spaniards.
So, praise the Lord.
Amen.
Our time is moving, so keep that in
mind.
Who will be next?
My name is Virgil Amos.
I was born in California.
In a Christian family.
During my young days, I desired to know
Christ not so much as what He was
and deserved Him, but what I could get
from Him.
I wanted to have salvation, and I knew
I was on the way to hell.
And I wanted to have the best.
I wanted to have all that God could
give.
And I wasn't concerned at all about grace
and mercy and love, and what God was
and I didn't care if He was or
not.
I knew He was saved, and I wanted
to be saved, as I was yesterday.
It didn't matter if He was the God
of love, and these things had no meaning
to me.
God was gracious, and God was merciful.
I wasn't too much interested in that.
But I was concerned that He loved me,
or He gave salvation, that is.
And I was concerned about salvation, and to
read the Bible, and to obey what He
said in His Word.
About the age of 12, I trusted in
Christ.
I was just sitting in a church, and
a man says, Believe upon the Lord Jesus
Christ, and thou shalt be saved.
And I believed, and I was saved.
Simple like that.
After that, I spent much time reading the
Bible.
I wanted to follow the Lord.
I was very critical at that time.
I used to criticize the church, and the
deacons, and everybody in the church, telling them
they were all hypocrites, because they didn't follow
the Word of God.
But I just read it, especially I read
the Bible about 6 hours a day, 5
or 6 hours a day, while I was
in school.
After that, I wanted to know more about
God, because I had this great conflict.
My dad would tell us every day, 365
days a year, we should go to school,
and study hard, to get the best out
of life.
We want to make good in life, so
we should study, study, study.
And I got this, study, study, study, get
a good job.
And then we read the Bible, and it
says, Christ should be first.
Christ is more important.
And I noticed, even the members go to
church late.
Christ is last, and business is first.
So I had this great conflict in my
life, that one day I made a decision,
in my years of Christ, that Christ was
going to be first.
And I sought to put Him first.
Therefore, I decided to go to Bible school.
And I checked all the Bible schools through
Christian magazine, and I just saw one good
advertisement, and I thought it sounded okay.
And I wrote the Moody Bible Institute.
And I went there, and there I met
people that really trusted in the Lord.
It was a tremendous inspiration to me.
Especially the first day, I almost fainted.
It was so much, so different.
And it was a great blessing.
One of the things there, I met O
.M. At first sight of O.M., I
saw Hosea Burks, and all the people getting
into an old truck, which was so small,
it could hold a lot of people.
And it had about ten people in there,
and a whole bunch of luggage.
And I said, these people must be crazy.
And I said, I'll never go, no, never
go.
I said, when I think of a trip,
I think of having leg rest, leg room,
you know, and relaxation.
These people packed in there like sheep.
But the Lord spoke to me one time,
because I was very prejudiced against Negroes.
And at school there was a little prejudice
there too, and I was very concerned about
that.
And the Lord spoke to me, after I
was willing, you know, I gave my heart
to the Lord, and he spoke to me
again, through another group, about going to Mexico.
And God called me to Mexico through another
group, and then I went with O.M.,
through the advice of another fellow.
And I understood that other group didn't like
Negroes too much, so I came with O
.M. and went to Mexico.
And I found myself in the same position,
kind of stuck in the little old truck.
Since then, I've been with O.M. off
and on, different times.
And right now, we're thinking about going to
Iran.
Our basic vision for Iran is to see
a national fellows team.
We have one fellow working now, we want
to see at least five or six people,
he's up in the next few years.
Also, we want to see nationals going out
to different parts of the country, maybe establishing
a base in the different parts of the
country, and really moving out to the villages.
Trying to see a few thousand more villages
each, so that's what we're trying to do.
Raise your hand.
Country.
I've been preparing to go to church since
I can remember.
I'm not in a Christian home.
And I always believed in the existence of
God.
So, no reality at all, really, in the
church.
Although, all the time I was searching, I
would always listen to what people had to
say, and what they really believed in.
I sang in the choir all of a
sudden, got confirmed when I was about 16,
in the Anglican church.
Went into the army, still believing in God.
And I remember fellows praying where their bedside
was in there.
Admiring them for doing this, but not really
having the guts that they had anyway.
And never really also having faith for it.
Not really knowing that they were different than
I was.
Came out of there, went to college for
three years.
A teacher training college, which is just special
for training teachers.
Spent three years there.
All the time, my big interest in life,
really, was sport.
My family's got a sporting family, really.
And I was brought up on it.
And wanted to really make a grade in
sport.
But was careful to have a job as
well, because not too many really make the
grade permanently when they go to work.
And I wanted to have something to fall
back on.
So I went to...
Although, the day I left school, I signed
for one of the professional clubs as an
amateur.
When I was 18.
But I went to training college to have
this job behind me, and three years there
at college.
Again, in a so-called nominal Christian college.
Used to go to chapel about five times
a week.
It was purely voluntary.
You didn't have to go.
In fact, only a small crowd went.
But I used to leave my pal.
So I used to go down.
We were all in the sports team.
All the time hungry, you know, for reality.
Discussing, would argue against atheists about the existence
of God.
And still believing in anybody as a Christian,
I must admit.
And I think the first time I ever
heard the gospel was one Sunday night.
I was in Exeter.
And we were going out to the pub
on a Sunday night.
For a drink.
And there was a Salvation Army fellow on
the street corner.
And it was snowing.
And he stood on his own.
And I couldn't understand.
And I thought he stood there in the
freezing cold.
And I stood there for a long time
until my pals left me.
And I promised to go back and see
that chap.
I don't know what he said.
But I knew what he said was true.
Three days, I just didn't know why I
was living or anything.
And I let that conviction go.
Went up to Bristol again and started teaching.
And signed as a pro now.
And was teaching and playing football for money.
For five years.
So I was seven years as an amateur.
And about three years as a pro with
one of the division teams.
And then after five years of teaching, I
fell out there in Bristol.
And like many, I was absolutely happy with
life.
At that particular time.
I think I had arrived as it were.
And I couldn't think of anything else that
I wanted.
Money.
Friends.
The nightlife.
The club life.
Dancing.
Which I enjoyed.
And I couldn't really think of where else
to go.
And just a fellow who lived down the
road from me.
He was trying to be a Baptist minister.
And I knew I was going to meet
this fellow.
In fact, I was courting a girl who
was living on the same block of flats
as he was.
And I knew I was going to meet
him.
And I was looking forward to meeting him.
And just his testimony was the thing that
started.
I'd never heard anybody really testify freely to
Jesus.
And he encouraged me to go to a
Baptist church.
And I went about three times.
I heard the gospel I think the first
three times.
I never really believed they were preaching to
me.
I really thought, well, I'm not a Christian.
But finally, about the third or fourth time
I went, the words that spoke to me
were the words of the Lord Jesus when
he said, Build not treasures on earth, for
why shall a prophet manage against the whole
world and lose his own soul?
And that night I just was absolutely broken.
I didn't know really what hit me.
But I wanted to know one thing.
I just wanted to know God.
And that night I came to the Lord.
And really it was through the Lord speaking
about my possessions on earth that I was
saved.
So now, since then, I really just put
a deadly sin on it.
But it was really through me building treasure
on earth.
So about two weeks after that, two girls,
one of the twins, I think Janet, from
India, he's in India now, Janet Hill and
I, another girl came to a Buckingham Baptist
church and caused quite a stir.
They stepped on the pastor's floor and they
were all like this.
And I was really rebuked by two girls.
Then about three or four weeks after that,
I heard that I had a meeting in
Exeter and George was preaching down there in
the big Brethren Assembly.
And I heard that.
And I was in, already spoken about, in
Italy in 1963.
I was with Ray Lynch in Pudin.
I was about 16 years old in the
Lord then.
And when I get in there, the whole
team were in prison like that.
And I was like, I don't know where
I'm going.
But that was a real blessing.
I went to Bible school.
I went to Israel three years ago.
I've been in Britain two years.
And just some thoughts about Britain.
I'm just amazed continually at the amazing potential
in Britain.
You just rush around for a year and
you have a chicken in your head chopped
off.
There's just so much you could do.
And I'm just burdened to really know what
the Lord really wants to do there.
As you know, I've been in the Crusade
Oaks in Bolton.
I've been concerned with the Sun Crusade, New
Crusade.
I'm really corresponding with so many hundreds of
people in Britain.
There's an amazing potential.
As you know, I'm down in Bromley and
others, the literature, finance, transport, and meetings being
taken from both these places.
I think the biggest burden on my life
is my own.
First of all, my own life is that
maybe it's selfishness, but to really know the
Lord and to see that happen on the
team, to the individuals that come on the
team, that there will be reality in all
the headquarters, that when people come in, they'll
really see reality, not because it's some false
thing, but because people really are experiencing a
personal walk with the Lord.
Very burdened to see the churches in Britain
really get to know what is happening in
the body of Christ and what my responsibility
is and what their responsibility is, first in
prayer, that they're really praying.
Few really churches in Britain are really praying.
Also that they'll support.
You know and I know what kind of
support some of the British young people get.
Few of us, I don't want to say
leaders, but we've got really churches behind us.
There are few churches that
correspond with them to win churches for the
Lord this year.
One or two we saw one last year
and we're just burdened to see many more
won.
And then through that we see many labours
going.
As you know, it's just an amazing potential
with 52 million people and with foreign students
alone, 70,000 last year foreign students, many
from absolutely close lands, places, and lands like
Saudi Arabia just to go out.
I think we've seen quite a few go
out but if they really go out and
as you said before, do some when they
get there.
Many go out and cause just problems and
absences on the field.
But all of us that go out will
really be able to do some in His
power when we get there.
Appreciate your prayers.
I'd like to give my testimony now.
Frank Buss from Florida, United States but now
looks like he's out for a considerable time
as the Lord leads.
And I can say this, but this verse
speaks to me very definitely this morning, 1
John 3, 16.
By this perceive we the love of God
because He laid down His life for us
and we ought to lay down our lives
for the brethren.
I can say this, that the joy in
my heart this morning is not solely and
simply on my own but your vision is
my vision and it's my desire and the
ministry the Lord has chosen me for and
I believe very definitely it's been from the
foundation of the world.
I can see today the progression of the
plan and just the way the Lord saved
me and when He saved me and why
He saved me and given me even my
wife and my family and the purpose of
it all is becoming plainer day by day
is to simply fit my life in any
way that I might be able to serve
more effectively and fully in this ministry of
laying down my life and the lives that
are with me and it's a great joy
today probably more than ever because the Lord
has brought some very fine and it seems
permanent young men to labor with me that
my life might be a little fuller and
freer from just the daily burden and grind
of just sheer work.
My desire is to be with you and
this means to me anyway as His part
that goeth forth to battle so shall be
His part that tarrieth by the stuff they
shall part alike so our hearts are filled
to overflowing with the goodness and the grace
of God daily as we minister within the
temple.
This is our ministry.
It's unseen but how important it is and
we praise God.
I was saved about approximately and I was
very anxious and boisterous and argumentative to say
the least went into the army and this
didn't help the Air Force and didn't help
things come out and the Lord made a
great need in my heart and then He
saved me in a specific place.
I really see this a specific place and
then specific lessons following this and then the
meeting in Blaisdell and
then something like this literature crusades and yet
the ultimate result winding up meeting Brother George
and seeing the Lord lead and seeing many
miracles in our lives.
The lives are then the circumstances in Blaisdell
and then leading us out into the work
and seeing the progression, the blessing, the expansion
of heart and soul the development of one's
own physical and spiritual life to live my
life today for personal holiness.
I think this is heading to the slow
but sure the Lord is pushing this to
the top and I can just say the
two things I want to do is to
fulfill your visions because what a joy to
be able to serve so many in this
ministry and to achieve a personal holiness to
glorify the Lord.
that it's probably done for all the people
that are probably saved because of the wheels
that we've done in the ministry of work.
I don't think that this is what will
really please the Lord until my life reaches
a level of holiness.
Do I think I want to go home
and be with Him?
It isn't the work.
I think that my work is complete today
as far as teaching and training, that I
could go out of here tomorrow and it
would work.
Today I come to England, it's a vacation
for me today.
There's little or no response to me, and
it's getting that way, it's out of the
way.
I could go home tomorrow as far as
the work is concerned.
But I want to have that life that's
shining for Him, like Himself.
And when I meet Him, it isn't just
a well-done, now good and faithful servant,
but it's to look into His eyes and
see that He's been satisfied with my life,
from the innermost parts to the outermost part.
Thank you, Father.
Frank, we want to be concerned for one
another's families.
What's the situation with your parents and brothers?
Well, I had a real burden to go
home this year and minister to my father.
And yet I didn't go home.
The Lord did not lead.
George said He would have wanted me to
go on that plane.
But the Lord did not lead.
Did the brother George here or no me
to get on that plane and to go
home?
But the Lord has put a real prayer
burden, more than ever in my life, to
pray.
But I think again it's a matter of
this personal holiness.
My life will not speak to my father
and to my mother and my brothers unless
there's holiness there.
And I think this is why hell is
bad.
And another reason is I wouldn't be six
weeks out of the Lord's will, not for
anything.
It's too wonderful, too precious, even though it's
hard and difficult.
So they need saving.
They're Jehovah Witnesses.
Pray for them.
Praise God.
Who's next?
We can limit it to about the time
that Frank took.
That was just an idea.
I was born in Latvia, near Russia.
And my father was born in the Netherlands.
That's up in Friesland.
And I was born in the United States.
I was the youngest of seven children.
My father was fifty-nine when I was
born, so he was perhaps more like my
grandfather to my father.
And he lived to be eighty-eight and
died then.
And my mother died when I was sixteen.
So of course all those things affected my
life.
From an early age I was seeking for
the truth.
My oldest brother got a Ph.D. in
Islamic Archaeology at Princeton University and also graduated
from seminary there.
So I had quite an ambitious educational desire.
And I went to college in Connecticut.
And all that time I was searching for
the truth, visiting a lot of different kinds
of churches, just about every kind of Protestant
church.
I was interested in Hinduism some, visited the
Hindu temple in New York, and the Baha
'i faith out in Chicago and so on.
But through all of this I didn't find
the Lord.
I was quite interested in music.
I minored in music, did some composing in
what is called twelve-tone music when I
was in college.
And I was thinking of either going on
with music or perhaps go on to Harvard
and study history.
But instead I went in the United States
Air Force and I flew down to Texas
and then ended up in Illinois.
And it was while I was in Illinois
that I tried just about everything else.
And I was studying there at the University
of Illinois in graduate study at the same
time.
And I decided I'd go visit this Pentecostal
church that these fellows had been witnessing to.
And on the way over in the car
I was saved as they quoted Ephesians 2,
8, and 9 to me.
And the Lord just revealed to me for
the first time in my life that he
was really God and that he was my
savior.
Well, I had a very dramatic conversion.
And for the first year or two I
don't think I even met a believer who
had a college education.
And I turned my back on all my
background.
And so it was quite a while before
my life became more integrated.
My family weren't interested in my experience and
I was sort of cut off from everybody.
And then I ended up out of Fuller
Seminary after I got out of the Air
Force.
I spent one semester actually at Central Bible
Institute Pentecostal School in Missouri because I had
Pentecostal experience and I was struggling with this
question of tongues and the meaning of baptism
and where it goes to and so on.
Then I ended up at Fuller Seminary and
I met students there from all over the
different churches, church backgrounds, and that helped me
to integrate myself.
So I really wasn't one of these that
never had a day of defeat after he
got saved, as some of you.
I was helped greatly during this time by
the Navigators.
And then I thought, then I was sensed
a call to go to the mission field
somewhere overseas.
And I was possibly agreed with Dawson Fromm
and I might go to Nepal with the
Navigators someday, although that didn't develop because he
died and then other things came in.
But then the opportunity came to go and
study in Beirut in the Graduate School of
Arab Studies with another fellow in a sort
of exploratory student team, which I did then
in 1957.
Actually I was saved when I was 22
and went out to Beirut for the first
time in 1957 after spending a summer working
at the Abilitarian Crusade in New York.
And out in Beirut I was still seeking
for the truth in terms of the question
of church order and how you can be
the most effective missionary and so on.
And so it was here, out in Beirut
after a year with a Baptist missionary there,
quite an extreme narrow type of Baptist missionary,
that we started an English speaking church there
in Beirut.
And then after two years there, I gave
up my studies after a year, as I
had done in 1952 when I was in
Illinois, because somehow it seemed the Lord just
wouldn't let me go on and pursue educational
pursuits, but that he wanted me in some
sort of more active type of ministry.
So then I was influenced, however, by some
in my own decision that I should finish
seminary since I had begun so many things
I hadn't completed.
So after a year in Beirut, I went
back to Culler and took my third year
of seminary and completed that.
Some of you know about my wife.
I met Marian out in Beirut and her
husband was killed in a plane crash in
1959, and she was expecting a second child
at the time.
And so after back in the United States
about a year or more, I got married
to her in Louisville, Kentucky after I finished
seminary.
Then there was a question of what sort
of mission group we would identify with going
back to the Middle East.
I had sort of come into a position
of the Brethren Assemblies as far as church
order was concerned, mission work, although I'd never
met any of them up to the time
I'd been in Beirut.
And when we got back in the United
States, then there was a question, should I
seek more identification with the Assemblies and what
are we going to do now I'm getting
married and have to trust the Lord for
my wife and myself and two children as
well, or should I go with a conservative
Baptist?
So I had quite a struggle with this.
Also, there was a possibility of going with
the Christian Missionary Alliance because her husband had
been with them and they had a number
of churches out in the Middle East.
Well, we ended up going out with the
United States and although we didn't have a
full commendation yet, it worked out so we
had sort of an entree in some of
these assemblies, you might say, through a letter.
And the Lord gave us an opening with
many of them.
And so then we went back to the
Middle East together, my wife and two children
in 1962.
Well, after we'd been in Jordan a while,
I'd met Dale in the United States briefly
as he was traveling around the United States.
And so I was thinking at that time
I really wanted to get to know him
better, but he was quite busy moving around
with Roger and so there wasn't much opportunity
to really get to know him at that
time.
But I had a feeling that maybe someday
out in the Middle East I would get
to know Brother Dale.
Actually, from the time I first went to
Beirut, I was praying that the Lord would
raise up or call out some other young
people who had a real heart for the
Lord that I could work with them in
the Arab world.
And I just looked around and I couldn't
find anyone out there at that time.
And so later when Ray Lynch came through,
I had some fellowship with him.
We had some evangelistic meetings together in Jerusalem.
And then we heard this OM team was
coming.
Actually, I was hoping that Ray wouldn't come
to Jordan when he did come because I
had known a little of Fuller and I
was afraid he was going to explode things
a little bit when he came.
And then especially I got together with this
Baptist missionary to see how we could keep
OM out of Jordan.
Because we thought that they really, from what
I had heard, they used literature rather indiscriminately.
And we thought that they really would blow
things up.
And then I got to know Dale a
little more.
And I met Maynard Tom and was quite
impressed with him.
And I went up traveling with Dale through
Turkey.
And then we had this opportunity to work
with OM some that summer.
And from that point on, I just felt
that the Lord had knit my heart together
with Dale and some of the other brothers.
And then some of the rest of you,
as I got to know you, at the
conference here in Europe.
I might just say, concerning the Arab world,
it's awfully difficult to really know how to
say anything briefly, except that I am tremendously
burdened for these hundred million people.
And since 90% of them are Muslim,
and since the overwhelming majority of them have
never heard the Gospel, this is perhaps my
greatest burden, is that we might see Muslims
turn to Christ.
Sometimes, of course, I am tempted to wonder
why it is that Muslims are so hard
to win to Christ.
As you know, there's verses in the Bible
about God being impartial, and yet we see
so few missionaries really are in for the
Muslims, and especially the Arabs, it seems.
And also, it seems like there's so little
real working of the Holy Spirit going on
in their hearts.
But this just challenges me all the more
to realize that this is just a challenge
from the Lord for us to commit our
lives to him, to make ourselves available.
And so I'm convinced that he's not willing
that any should perish, but that all should
come from repentance.
And yet we see so little of it
up to this time, of real ministry among
the Muslims.
So I've written up some of these targets
on our heart, but one, for instance, is
I feel for me to be more effective,
I really need at least one other, if
not more than one other fellow, married or
unmarried, with whom I can pray and really
who will persevere in the Arab world and
be, as Dale mentioned in the OI supplement,
one of these addicts who won't give up
after a few years.
What we really would like to see is
a revolutionary cell of foreigners.
And you say, well, aren't you interested in
nationals?
Well, we really are interested in nationals, but
I'm not sure that I will be able
to persevere as effectively as I should unless
I see at least one or two other
foreigners with me who are really souls to
the Lord.
And then secondly, of course, our major burden,
which comes along after that, is to see
the Lord get a hold of the lives
of a few Arabs and really bind them
together and use them then to work in
the Arab world, with us just standing behind
them, praying for them, supporting them in every
way we can, and seeing them put forth.
And through all of this, of course, there
are many different ways we have our burden
for possibility of getting richer out through the
secular stores or any way we can, especially
reaching Muslims who come to Beirut or some
of these more open cities, because it seems
that we can't win them there to Christ.
We can't expect to win them out in
the villages to Missouri.
And so all of these things are just
shared with you as you pray for us.
We pray for you.
And I count it such a privilege to
be part of the fellowship with you.
And though I have failed the Lord greatly
at times, I know more of His grace
now than ever before, and I do believe
that He has a purpose for our life
up there.
If you're interested in seeing the pictures of
my wife and children, I might just pass
those around on the slides and you could...
Praise the Lord.
Who will be next?
I was led to the Lord by my
father at home after reading the Word of
God one night.
He was very faithful in especially this area,
and I noticed his faithfulness in many areas,
and that's probably one of the things that
kept me from throwing out Christianity.
This and also my mother's great warmth towards
we as a children.
He was very interested in us.
My father's faithfulness and my mother's warmth towards
us, those are probably the two things that
hit my mind the most.
Because when I got to the States, there
were many allurements and easy to get sidetracked
on, and therefore my spiritual life went up
and down quite a bit.
I was very much interested in aviation, and
so my dream from childhood was to be
a missionary pilot.
But the Lord kept bringing back to me
the fact that I kept seeing people all
around Chicago, all around New York.
I was afraid to have contact with them,
but at the same time I knew that
somehow, someway that Christianity was a people-centered
project.
And although I didn't want to get involved,
at the same time I wanted to, and
I was stretched right there.
The devil didn't want me to, the Lord
did.
And so really what I needed was an
example, and when I got to Moody, I
was given the example by a number of
fellows, some within O.M. and some outside,
but there weren't too many altogether.
And when I got contact with the O
.M. group, I was very much surprised by
their prayer life, at least in public.
And so I got involved with the group
there and began to pray.
And their burden for the world also helped
me to look on the world and to
get interested in praying for it.
And that's probably why I'm here right now,
because they seem to get more involved in
what they believe than many others, and I
wanted to get involved right along with them.
God has been using this group to change
my center of interest.
At Moody I wanted to get out and
reach the people, and now I'm learning more
and more about seeking God and getting to
know Him.
Just this conference has been such a help
in this area, and realize how much I
need to center my thoughts on the Lord
and who He is, and not get sidetracked
and begin pendulum thinking with the great aid
of the devil and my flesh and the
world.
And my burden right now, of course, is
to be a faithful man myself.
When I went out to Iran a couple
years ago, this is probably the greatest thing
the Lord showed me, because my mind was
getting other faithful men, and I realized that
I need to be more faithful too, because
the fellows I had contact with in school,
many of them, the reason they made mistakes
and didn't go on well was because I
wasn't praying for them enough.
Besides my becoming a faithful man, like Pepe,
I want to see more men raised up
for Spain, more Spaniards take over leadership in
that country.
And also that we'll pray, all of us,
for literature that has gone out.
Because just thinking about the testimonies of Isente
Galan and others just shows us that this
is where our work stops.
So we need to learn more of prayer
as well.
Praise God.
Next.
I came to the Lord because I was
interested to hear a quartet that was singing
somewhere in Holland.
And I went to that church, and I
didn't remember anything what the pastor said, I
didn't remember anything, but the fellow at the
end of the meeting said, I wish you
a blessed Sunday.
That was the only thing I really thought,
and it made a deep impression on me,
that he was so interested in my life.
Now I forgot about it through a whole
year, and exactly the next year I thought,
I go to that church again.
But there was nobody in that church, and
so I went to a telephone cell, and
I made a telephone call to one or
other pastor, a Protestant pastor, just any, I
didn't know anybody there in that town further,
and he told me, now they have a
street meeting this evening.
I went to that street meeting, and I
listened through the whole meeting, and at the
end of the meeting they spoke with me,
and they asked me to go home.
Now that home was the home of the
family Zwart.
Different ones know him because the son of
that family is the leader of OM, was
the leader of OM in Holland, Belgium, part
of France I think, and Italy I think
also was he responsible for.
And so I came to know the Lord
there, afterwards I went into military, and after
military I was planning to go to Austria
to help there under the refugees.
And there was in the south of Austria
there is a camp with some Dutchmen working
there.
But it was only girls and it was
rather hard just for a fellow to help
there.
And I had to wait a very, very
long time on the answer of them, and
I never got it in fact.
And after military I met George and Dick
together at home, and they talked with me
about OM.
And because I was planning to do a
year of similar work like that, I was
excited to come.
And I came in the OM headquarter, I
just came out of military, and the OM
headquarter was just like heaven to me.
I was so thankful to be there.
And it will be good if you knew
me just at that time.
I was the first open air meeting, it
was just the next week, and they asked
me, can you give a testimony?
Oh, I was scared.
And I didn't say, perhaps two or three
words, but honestly more than three words it
weren't, because I just couldn't.
The first prayer meeting, I tried to pray.
I had to stop there in the middle
somewhere, that was at the Youth for Christ
group, because I was just scared, I couldn't
get one word out of my mouth.
And when I came in the headquarter, I
was so thankful that they could do the
dishes there, and that they could do the
parcels upstairs, sending the books away, and copying
the tapes.
And afterwards I started working with Peter Fry
on the vehicles, in the garage with Tiny
and with his other brothers in Israel, and
we bought cars in Germany.
And so I did on OM my first
door-to-door visits.
Oh, and I still remember, I hated that
work.
I tried to convince everybody that that's the
most stupid way of working there is in
the world.
And I went this summer to Spain, and
in Spain I was deeply impressed by the
need in that country.
And after that year I decided to go
to a Bible school, and after three years
of Bible school I came again to OM.
And I'm still here, and at the summer
times of the Bible school, I joined also
OM, two times at least.
One of the things for Austria, what's very
much on my heart, is that we will
manage it in one or other way to
reach the country.
You see, though it is such a tiny
little country, just when I think of it,
to reach the country for the Lord, I
just get headaches.
And that the Lord will help us in
one or other way, really to make an
impression on the masses.
And besides that, to win some Austrians who
are going on.
And that's also really a miracle what has
to happen in the churches, when they will
ever come out of the churches, or under
the converts, that they are going on and
that they just start working for Him.
That is one of the main burdens, of
course.
And then for a strategy of the coming
year.
Because in fact, a real definite plan, I
not yet see.
And so, when you could pray with us
for the country there, to really see something
definite, where we are not only working, looking
on a short term, but really seeing through
to the end, and really working toward a
definite aim, and seeing more or less a
road to the way, to the end.
That we just not work on a corner,
but that we really create the country as
country.
And really, I don't know exactly how to
come through at this point, and really to
see something from the Lord in this.
Johan van Dam from Holland.
I'm working also in Austria.
And then, next.
When I was born, my parents were already
Christians.
However, I was really converted at the age
of 14.
The first eight years of my Christian life
were spent in a state of spiritual failure.
It's the normal life of many churches.
But it's not the normal life of the
Word of God.
And it was in that time that I
was exchanging several letters with Federico Apparisi.
We had already met in a camp about
a year or two previously.
And I don't know why, but our lives
were very intimately linked.
So that we were sharing with one another
our different experiences.
He began to tell me how he met
Jorge.
He began to tell me how he met
Jorge.
The plans that were beginning to unfold in
Spain.
I didn't understand, and it seemed to me
they were a little crazy.
But in that manner, another couple of months
passed.
And then I began to read this book,
The Source of Power, which Federico sent me.
And I read it again and again, and
then I continued to read it.
And it was such a big challenge for
my life that I began to think about
something new.
It was such a new thing in my
life that I began to think in a
new way.
Also, it was proposed to me that I
go with him.
All this brought a great conflict into my
life.
Not only in terms of my way of
thinking, but also my future plans, my family,
my work.
I had a whole month of great struggles.
Almost continuously, day and night.
But at last, the Lord overcame.
I made a decision.
Not because I saw things very clearly, but
mostly by faith.
I still remained for a time there.
I was reading The Normal Christian Life and
The Calvary Road.
And these books are the ones which God
really used most powerfully in my life.
I owe the spiritual change and the vision
which the Lord gave me more to those
books than to any other person or thing
in my life.
After that, I joined the traveling team.
And I was traveling for almost four years
without stopping.
Through all of Spain.
The work was to distribute literature, prepare the
summer campaigns, work with the churches.
Naturally, the experience of those years was something
so special that it was the basis for
what God was going to do next.
I had a change.
It was like a third birth.
I experienced a change, you might even say
a third birth.
Because really, in the first eight years of
my Christian life, I had never known the
spiritual life into which I had now entered.
It was something completely new.
It wasn't just for one week, but it
lasted a month, another month, another month, and
year after year.
Until the present day.
Afterwards...
Afterwards, God granted me to come into contact
with some brothers who had a great spiritual
desire.
This was in several trips that we made
to Barcelona.
We would pray together.
And we felt that we should see something
new in Spain.
But it was difficult to see a change
in the churches.
We thought that rather, God wanted to do
something new, starting with a new work.
And it's because of this that our lives
were knit together more and more.
And thanks be to God, he unfolded to
us a plan, which we have been following.
With the purpose of reaching all of Spain.
Not simply as Spain, but as part of
the world, because that's the vision.
We are still at the beginning.
But we trust that God is going to
do great things, really.
But we are trusting that God is laying
a foundation for great things.
One of these purposes is to prepare young
people to go to other places where there
are no churches.
And to raise up churches with a real
vision to reach other places.
We haven't seen much yet, but we hope
that God is really going to raise up
believers in Spain.
With a vision not only of the country,
but of other countries.
It's something that hasn't been seen yet.
But if we trust God, he can do
it.
Amen.