It's interesting how we ended up ever being
in Zaventem.
Sometimes you think these things are, you know,
great prayed through heavy-duty revelations.
God guiding his servants.
But in fact, a young Dutchman saw me
in Chateau in 1962 and challenged me to
live in southern Netherlands.
Lindbergh, part of the Netherlands, said, if you
live there, because just before that I was
living in London, but my heart was really
on the continent, before that I had been
living in Spain.
And since my father was from the Netherlands,
I thought maybe God wants me back in
that country.
And this young man, Rudy van Luzen, said,
this is where to go.
Show me on the map.
I went there.
I moved to Gulpen in 1962, the end
of 62, and asked Jonathan to stay in
England.
That was much colder.
An old military camp that no one had
stayed through in the winter for many, many
years.
It was at that time that I went
back to the States and met Steve Hart
and Ray Lynch, a man named Tiny Snell.
We ended up living in a small house
in Gulpen with a Dutchman named Dick Schvart,
the first leader really of Benelux.
But I found living over there with the
way things were happening in my life that
I was always coming to Zaventem to catch
the plane.
I even came by helicopter once to Zaventem
Airport to catch a plane.
And I can remember it as if it
were a couple of years ago saying to
Dick, I think it was Dick driving the
car, it may have been somebody else.
But I said, this is where Owen belongs,
in this town, the very town, Zaventem.
And at that time, Europe was under the
leadership of Conrad Sondereger and was sort of
bogged down in deep mud in Switzerland, at
least around that period.
I think after 63 and Greg and a
few others headed out for the first teams
to India.
And at that time in Zaventem, we only
just had a Benelux, a little operation in
the center of town.
I don't know the details, but I can
tell you OM didn't have any money to
buy a factory and wasn't planning on buying
any property.
I had a memo written against the purchase
of property.
I think it may be a couple of
later.
Again, we always think these things are just
sort of miraculous provisions from God.
He doesn't really know anything, God.
The people of God don't have the information.
But that we only just pray and God
answers.
That was always a great distortion in OM.
It used to upset me a lot.
Because God, from the earliest days of OM,
used information, communication to touch people's hearts.
We're criticized heavily by a few ex-OMers,
not many.
Because today not only do we communicate information,
but we take offerings and we've thrown off
that old way of thinking.
Not faith, not prayer, not hard work.
But the silence thing that really upset and
confused a lot of people and set such
a bad example that literally thousands who wanted
to become missionaries never did.
You can throw out a quick phrase about
that.
You know, it wasn't God's will, that's always
easy.
But in fact, when people left OM, they
went to the lions.
Because though I knew how to communicate even
before I was ever saved, and was constantly
raising money through my own little methods, like
preaching Luke 14.33, the average person who
left OM within a year, and I can
tell you from history, because I'm in touch
with thousands, I correspond with at least half
of you off and on over the years,
they couldn't put it together.
And the unreality about finance, and the wrong
worldview that many of us had at that
time, was a great hindrance.
We're not bitter about that, we're not resentful
about that.
But I praise God, as the movement grows
older, it can mature.
It can learn new things.
And it's those willingness to change, that willingness
to change, that willingness to just adapt and
to do things in a new way, I
believe, that kept OM on the cutting edge
right to 1995.
With recruits, continuing to grow every single year,
with the budget double, triple, quadruple what it
was.
With STL alone growing so fast, it had
become a separate company, it's now one of
the largest book companies in the entire world
outside the United States, with 300 employees, operating
out of a warehouse in which we could
put seven of these.
Of course, I have new problems.
Nothing's ever perfect.
We're as aware of some of our weaknesses
today as we ever were in history.
I've always lived most of my life on
the precipice of agnosticism, unbelief, and sheer depression
and unadulterated doubt.
But somehow God was always there.
Or I remember in the old days, if
God wasn't there, Greg Livingston was around.
I remember so well, as I always have
trouble facing crowds, facing large conferences and being
this leader, going to Greg and just pouring
it all out, all my fears and doubts,
you know, what's going on, and facing all
these people.
I was always a person that wanted to
just go one person at a time.
Our first team to Mexico, there was only
three of us, and I had trouble handling
that, they both left.
Praise God, one of them is Dale, he
came back later on when he saw the
light.
But I am excited about where OM is
today.
I don't have the authority I used to
have, praise God.
But I am so excited about the people
that God has given us.
And I would encourage you to be involved
where OM is today.
Don't let some little change, the music is
a bit more upbeat, which I love, I
always felt a lot of that old music
was boring.
We've got this mime, we've got these creative
things, and that's brilliant, we used to think
we were a little bit creative, I think
we were, I mean with some of our
faces, we didn't need to put any paint
on them.
And we are just so excited.
But just to finish the story here, when
the idea was come to get this place,
it wasn't just a matter of prayer.
There was a man on the team with
me, a friend who was my professor at
Moody Bible Institute, a miracle he was with
us, a man of his sort of distinction,
his age, his capability, somehow he was involved,
and at the time this place was offered,
he received an inheritance.
And in those early days amazing things happened
with inheritances.
Later on some of them wanted back, that
was a problem.
But somehow it came together that this man
would buy the Solomton.
And he said, well, I think you better
buy it in your name.
I think we got it in our name.
But we gave him a letter, because he
had all the money, and he wasn't ready
to give it all.
This was everything from his inheritance for his
whole life.
I said, well, I don't remember what we
said exactly, but we made a deal.
I say this because now that I'm more
in aggressive fundraising, people think, you know, Verwar
is now a deal maker, he's not fellowshipping
with Jesus enough, he's slipping in the original,
he's raising money, he's got these matching funds,
double matching funds, give your tie and get
some pie, all kinds of tricky things.
But that dear brother, and this needs to
be in history, we made a deal.
Steve Hart was overseeing it, and we agreed,
he bought this place and we would pay
him back over many years.
And many years later, I think he got
all the money back, and we got Solomton,
in a sense, completely paid for.
God works with so many different people, and
one of the things I always find so
embarrassing is somehow being introduced, and I get
a great introduction tonight, but in some places
I get introduced as this great leader.
I just say with all my heart, it's
teamwork.
Today I was speaking at a volleyball rally
out in Genk, spoke about teamwork, because volleyball
is so exciting, because it's teamwork.
And that's the story of Belgium, that's the
story of Solomton, many of the teams are
not here, some of them are in heaven,
and we who are leaders, we just feel
so humbled by the people who have stood
with us, if not in the work, in
their financial support.
And I just say this with all my
heart, the people who have given financially to
this work, some of them all their life,
I think of Everett Langley, he never did
make it too well in O.M. as
a mechanic, and he and I so desperate
to get money went in business in Bangkok,
and I get thrown out of India in
68, we were going to make the real
bucks, because Vietnam surplus was selling cheap, and
we bought tons of this surplus, and we
were going to sell it, and Everett knew
how to do this among laid-back Minnesota
people, but he didn't know how to handle
backstreet Bangkok Chinese business people, and that business
didn't do too well, and eventually I think
we shipped some of it here to Solomton,
and we bought some sleeping bags, and tool
boxes, and old stopwatches, and all kinds of...
God taught us so much through our mistakes,
we did make a lot of mistakes, and
we old-timers shouldn't be ashamed of our
mistakes, or embarrassed by our mistakes, that's what
life's about.
I made mistakes in my marriage up till
about 15 minutes ago, but here my wife
and I have been faithfully married to one
another for 35 years, it might amaze you
to know that my youngest child Krista is
30 years old, she was born just around
the time that this was happening here, and
she was our youngest, Benji was born when
OM first came to Europe, and began to
explode in Madrid, and he's 35 years old
with me, it's teamwork, it's God overruling our
blunders, I'm known now around the world for
this original proverb, where two or three of
the Lord's people are gathered together, sooner or
later they'll be a mess, somebody wrote me
yesterday and said, I think you ought to
write a book about this, we could put
some of your pictures on the cover, and
as we think of 30 years in Belgium,
we think of 30 years in Solomton, do
not think we're just running around patting ourselves
on the back, because sometimes sin did get
in, sometimes people got in the flesh, sometimes
wives especially, because I think OM has always
been tougher for women than men, and they
got the wrong side of the stick many,
many times, we're ashamed of the things that
were wrong and sinful, but it would be
absolutely wrong for us to dwell on those
things, to get discouraged because of failures, or
because we think we miss plan A, or
we miss plan B, we miss plan C,
I tell young people today, some of them
at 21 are already on their second, third
marriage, I say, look, you're feeling down, you
don't think you're on plan A, you don't
think you're plan B, plan C, you feel
you're up there on plan E or F,
I say, look, praise God for a big
alphabet, press on, some of you, some of
you, as sure as you're sitting here, you
know you miss plan A, before you ever
came on OM, you may have missed plan
B, you may have missed plan C, you
may have been through terrible difficulties, I had
the privilege of sort of being in contact
with thousands of OMers, some of them only
once a year, but I feel committed to
pray for them, and I prayed for many
of you, at least half of you in
this room, quite regularly over the years, I
can't do much more, a letter of prayer,
half the time we're still broke, in case
you think it's all just so different, the
ship a few weeks ago was a quarter
of a million into red ink, Dale Roton
committed to this vision for 28 years, literally
running around the world, on a fundraising trip,
and a mobilization trip, he called me from
Malaysia, he said, you know, we've got a
man here, he doesn't really understand that much
about OM, about pray for him, I had
met him before, only once, a man that
went in business when he was 80, in
1987 he went in business, and by 1983,
he was one of the richest men in
the land of Malaysia, and of course these
kind of people generally don't give, to things
like OM, Dale and I prayed, I just
got a fax, or was it a phone
call, I got the information from Malaysia, this
man accepted the challenge, to pay for one
-tenth of all of the fuel, Dale was
on a fuel raising trip, one-tenth of
all the fuel, for both ships, for one
year, about $50,000, do you think that's
any less, an answer to prayer, than when
we prayed for Zaventem, do you think it's
any less an answer to prayer, than when
we first went to Mexico, we've always been
hot, on communication, in fact, it was another
businessman, pouring amazing money, into certain aspects of
the work, in OM more than ever, one
aspect can be experiencing, blessing financially, and another
aspect can be suffering, we try to rectify
that, but it's much harder, than some of
the philosophers think, who gave us this new
policy, in which every field is really, to
some degree, on its own, and I want
to just be real honest, one of the
toughest fields in OM financially, to keep going,
is OM Belgium, and I don't think Zaventem,
is that much farther behind, and it would
be an enormous encouragement to them, if some
of you, because of being here today, would
put these two fields on your prayer list,
and on your financial support list, even if
it was a small amount, because that small
amount at least tells them, hey, you still
care for Belgium, OM has so many things
going now, fuel for the ship, that's fairly
attractive, I told Dale, we've always been fairly
blunt with each other, I said Dale, if
you can't raise money for the ship, forget
it, because the ship is the most attractive
thing we have, with several million dollar budget
per year, but that wasn't all the money
we needed, for that quarter of a million
in debt, in Kuwait, God opened doors, and
the book sales, were $60,000 a day,
I know, we didn't exactly plan that, when
we first prayed, for the ship ministry, because
it means in three days in Kuwait, they
saw more book sales, than Lagos cost us,
so when we did lose that, old ship
on the rocks, as long as there were
no lives lost, we really weren't too upset,
since we had thought of scrapping it, shortly
before that, and because of a lot of
sentimentality, and perhaps me not plugged into the
Holy Spirit or whatever, we were very fond
of Lagos, especially the engines, which were so
good, we were about to build some kind
of mini aircraft carrier, on the deck of
Lagos, to make it bigger, that was going
to cost a quarter of a million, and
God rushed in, in his sovereign way, and
took that ship from us, by the way,
those of you who have a lot of
nostalgia about Lagos, can get a tour through
the Beagle Channel, and see Lagos, it's still
there, somebody actually sent me a photograph, I'm
excited about the future, the greater days are
ahead, greater days, if Billy Jones can say
amen to that, the rest of you ought
to stand on a chair, and I just
want to ask you, to just keep on
praying, I want to ask you, when you
meet other XOMers, who may be disgruntled, because
it's not done exactly the same way, it
used to be, why don't you try to
give them a copy of Grace Awakening, or
ask them, ask them to try reading the
New Testament, it's so helpful, it's so helpful,
the New Testament, when they get to 1
Corinthians 13, they will get back to the
really strong, original principle of XOM, which wasn't
firstly, some of these funny things we got
known for, like sleeping on the floor, my
wife remembers here in this, we live with
our children in this warehouse, we slept on
the floor, and there was only boxes between
our bedroom, and the children's bedroom, eventually when
we got a lot of other people into
this box thing, we learned how to play
music, at appropriate times, this is not what
a work of God is built on, these
are just secondary issues, which actually still take
place in some cases, because plenty of XOM
teams, to this day are having it rough
and tough, in places like Pakistan, in India,
and other lands, in fact India right now
is 35 degrees centigrade, so whatever, whether you're
a bed or a floor, that doesn't much
matter, when the temperature goes up that high,
but help us find, the prayer partners and
the supporters, who we need, to keep going,
with 2600 full time missionaries, with 80 nations,
with 2 ships, with literature projects that involve,
1, 2, 3 million dollars a year, and
we're constantly turning down projects, it's a heavy
load, I have faced in the last decade,
phenomenal discouragement, I have almost quit many times,
in fact if God hadn't raised up Peter
Maiden, to be my associate director, and the
more front runner, in the day by day
hassles and problems, I don't know, I don't
know if I would have made it, if
God hadn't given me the team of people,
in London around me, willing to work so
hard and be so patient, with the likes
of me, especially my wife, I don't know
if I would have made it, but a
lot of XOMers are no longer in touch
with us, we know some of them we
have heard, I stood up in front of
many hurt Singaporeans, we hurt so many Singaporeans,
in those first couple of years, they had
expectations when they joined the miracle ship, that
were beyond calculation, and we didn't understand Chinese
culture, Singaporean culture, we were a cultural hodgepodge
from day 1, and survived on God's grace,
and heavy overdoses, but that wasn't the strong
message, that many of these young people knew,
even from their churches, I remember standing in
front of a group of them, maybe 15
years ago, beginning to weep, apologizing for our
sins against them, we are very aware of
people we have hurt, we are not only
aware of the XOMers, whose marriages are going
well, we are in touch with XOMers, whose
marriages are breaking, right at this moment, but
brothers and sisters, we have learned by the
grace of God, that even that is not
the end of the road, and the message
of XOM today, I believe is the same,
it's a message of love, it's a message
of grace, it's a message of knowing God,
it's a message of going the extra mile,
it's a message of forgiveness, and with it
of course, the discipline, the prayer, the evangelism,
and I believe this generation of young people,
some of them your own children, has as
much potential as any generation, but only God,
only God can bring that into reality, well
who brought our potential into reality in 1962,
or 72, or 82, or 92, only God,
can do what we want to see done,
in the coming years, our dreams, our visions,
tying into the 82,000 movement, in 10
days time, many of us will be in
Korea, to this wild network we just attached
ourselves to, where they are praying, believing, and
trusting, that everybody in the world will have
the gospel, at least in some small way,
by the year 2000, and that, somehow every
people's group, may at least have something started
among them, that's much tougher, by the year
2000, what a thrill to think of, what
so many of our graduates are doing, it's
staggering to the mind, over 100 organizations, trace
their birth, back to somehow, OM, directly or
indirectly, Greg is our best publicity really, as
he goes around the world, having been the
founder of Frontiers, an organization that has, how
many hundreds in the Muslim world?
600, with Frontiers alone, on the cutting edge
in the Muslim world, now esteemed, as a
very outstanding missionary work, to the Muslim world,
we can talk about a lot of other
people, many of the organizations, trace their birth
back to us, are quite small, there's Tiny
Snell, who really was the first mechanic here,
but he didn't live very long, as he
died in a motor accident north of here,
shortly after starting his own ministry, and his
son-in-law and his daughter, have carried
that ministry, to this day, a small unknown
ministry, that has served thousands of people, and
I know that many of you, if not
all of you, have been serving, and have
been giving, and have been praying, and doing
your part, in small little ministries, never despise
a small thing, because OM was mighty small,
for a long time, and some of us,
we had our own way, with our wrong
ideas, perhaps, and spiritual things, would have fought,
to keep it small, I was totally opposed
to it, ever going over a thousand, to
challenge people to leave OM, and join other
missions, and the consensus sort of changed, somewhere
in the 80s, and the leaders, as we
had these area leaders meetings, said you've got
to let these brothers and sisters, in South
Africa, in Brazil, in Korea, you've got to
let them, do what you did, when you
first came to Europe, and went from 262
to 2063, at least in the summer, and
many hundreds in the year program, profits are
predicting, OM will be 5000 strong, by the
year 2000, scares me right out of my
shoes, and perhaps I'll be at least retired,
from my international leadership position, by then I
don't know, but certainly I don't plan on
retiring, from preaching and teaching, since my chief
mentor is Billy Graham, who is 77 or
76, and just had the biggest campaign, of
his entire lifetime, with a potential audience, of
a billion souls, whether they reach that goal
or not, I don't know, but the reports
I'm getting back, are staggering to the imagination,
I think of the fact that in March
5th, 1955, and Steve Hart was at the
meeting, Billy Graham spoke in New York City,
and one lad, me, prayed for by a
dear old woman, only there because of a
Christian businessman, giving me a free seat on
a bus, got converted to Jesus, isn't it
amazing, isn't it amazing, I don't know if
you realize, that I seem to be able
to speak better, to the young people, the
teenagers in the 20s club today, than I
did when some of you first got involved,
and maybe I offended you, because somehow, the
young people get so stirred, when they hear
of my struggles, and my failures, and my
battles, the porno troubles, the hot temper, the
irritability, all the things that I wrestled with
most of my life, and by the end
of the meeting, young people who never felt
that God really could use them, they weren't
spiritual enough, didn't know the word of God
enough, still having trouble in this area or
that area, by the end of the meeting,
when they hear me speak, they want to
recommit their lives, or dedicate their lives, or
get converted, because I guess in their minds,
they realize that God can use, a character
like that, then there is hope, for me,
in my last major tour of South Africa
alone, at the end of a week, with
university students, 191 signed on the dotted line,
to be missionaries, Jesus Christ is the same
yesterday, today, and forever more, and the same
Jesus, that helped this ragtime band, so-called
fly-by-night dangerous organization, Operation Mobilization, to
get its roots, originally in Europe, so hard,
so hard it was, for my wife and
I arrived in 1960, in Spain, under Franco,
in 61 and 60, when I got thrown
out of Russia by the KGB, after they
discovered I wasn't a spy, and didn't want
to keep me any longer, the same Jesus,
who saved Leo Pro out there, in Austin,
who saved Krista Eicher, in Madrid, and hundreds
and thousands of others, is wanting to do
greater things, in the final years of this
millennium, some of us sitting here, will be
gone by the year 2000, that's just, perhaps
a law of averages, Philip Morris may only
be with us, for a few more weeks
or months, battling cancer, with everything he's got,
but humanly speaking, not winning, though he is
convinced with all of his heart, he told
me straight point blank, the other day, that
heaven is where it's at, and he's ready
to go, brothers and sisters, I could talk
for hours about some of the people in
this room, especially this one right here, but
the time is gone, but I know this,
we're all together on the same team, we're
all in the body of Christ, some of
us have bigger mouths, we all have different
gifts, but we're all on the same team,
and we want to thank you, to whatever
degree you've been able to do it, with
all of your other ministries, which are equally
as important, to involvement with OM, so many
things that God is doing, in your local
church is probably more important, but we want
to thank you, for whatever degree you've been
able to give, you've been able to pray,
you've been able to love, you've been able
to help, we want to thank you, for
being on the team, and trust that maybe
in the future, we can do even more
together, to express our appreciation, in this room
right to the left, we want to give
every one of you, a free book, we
know with a crowd like this, it would
be impossible to determine what book to give,
some of you have read, some of the
books I've been pushing for years, so we
have a range of about 100 different books,
we figure with 100 different books, we might
have something, that everyone could appreciate, after the
first book which is free, you can buy
a book, but that is a loaded one
as well, because if you buy that book
even for a couple of pounds, or a
few Belgian francs, you will get a free,
$10 OM t-shirt, now I know, I
think I actually preached in the 60's, against
t-shirts, but I tell you, when I
saw my wife, in this OM t-shirt,
I knew this was it, that's not true,
but we'd like you, I'm sure people are
going to stay, you know this whole thing
of going to bed early, we had never
believed in that, we hope you're going to
stay, fellowship with people, but that room is
there to the left, you all get a
free book, the second book you have to
purchase, you can pay for it any time,
up to the year 2000, we take post
-dated checks, so the second book you have
to buy, one way or the other, you
get a free t-shirt with that, and
after that of course you can buy other
books, you can borrow video cassettes, because that's
the way we're communicating about OM today, it's
through OM news video, done by some wonderful
Aussies, you can borrow one of those videos,
there's one little limitation on it, the books
we're giving free, are all less than 1
inch thick, so if it's over 1 inch,
in other words it's a big expensive book,
then you have to buy it, let me
show you some of the differences, for instance,
Operation World is over 1 inch, so we
can't give that free, but we're giving it
at half price, and it's probably the greatest
missionary book of all times, only
a Dutchman would have the nerve to say
that, 2 centimetres, anything over 2 centimetres, is
not free, but we'll give Operation World half
price, and some of you know the story
of this book, if you can handle one
more story, this book when it was first
published completely died, had a terrible cover, bookshops
returned it, it was dead, and I found
it on the bottom of my shelf, I
don't know how it got there, at 64
Tweedy Road in Bromley, Kent, now pavement is
over that spot, it's amazing how many houses
around the world that we had rent free,
we were the last human beings to ever
live in, in most houses, what can we
say of automobiles, only in Nepal where they
resurrected vehicles repaired in this place, some of
them sent out of here 15 years ago,
are on the road, public transportation in Nepal
today, if you were ever a mechanic in
Zaventem, you must for a final surge of
energy go to Nepal, we are arranging those
tours at a very reasonable price, but we
hope you will get a copy of Operation
World, and there's one of the wonderful t
-shirts that you can get, they come from
Malaysia, I think they're illegal actually, at least
they turned them back from the United States
when they discovered where they were made, they
are what you call an all size t
-shirt, but if it doesn't fit you the
first time, you can stretch it and wash
it and then try again, that's another one
that we're not giving free, though I think
it may be the right size, a very
expensive book, but today when young people come
on OM, we teach them about finance, we
teach them about how to relate to your
church, how to raise support, what are the
problems, where does prayer come in, where does
faith, and this is one of the books
published by Moody Bible Institute, we have another
one by YWAM, and we have a worldwide
program networking with mission societies throughout the world
through the 82,000 movement to teach this
generation of new missionary recruits, and there's probably
25,000 trying to get to the field
right now around the world in one way
or the other to teach them how to
make it happen, it's one of the most
exciting things I've ever been involved in, and
somehow God's opened the door for me to
speak to this gathering of students in Korea
in about two weeks time, they thought I
might be able to get one or two
minutes, it was mainly all Koreans, we're all
there for a big meeting conference of Christian
leaders, but this is a separate thing in
a stadium of Korean young people, just got
a fax, they're giving me 25 minutes to
speak to this 100,000 Korean young people,
and they're hoping that this meeting and many
other events will lead to the mobilization of
20,000 Koreans into world mission, they are
now the fastest growing group within Operation Mobilization
in terms of growth, so we give books
like that, we sell them as well, there's
the children's edition of Upworld, again, that one
has to be at half price, there's another
one that looks like it's over that number
of centimeters, Ray Lynch is right behind John
Todd, John Todd is an ex-OMer, now
enlisted in the Guinness Book of Records, an
Irishman, who's visited every single nation in the
world, and he's listed in the Guinness Book
of Records, and he wrote this book, it's
a secular book for the non-Christian, with
an indirect pre-evangelistic firecracker planted in a
couple of places, including mention of our fellowship,
John Todd often pops into our nights of
prayer there in London, and here's one of
the ones you can get free, Debbie Meroff,
professional writer with OM for a number of
years, it's not just about the ship, it's
OM stories, very easy reading, so many of
us, so many of us have struggled with
unanswered prayer, that's been probably the greatest struggle
in my life, probably 90% of my
prayers, my big ones especially, you know, the
evangelization of Afghanistan, it's not been answered, I'm
still hanging in there, and this book, When
Heaven is Silent, has been such an enormous
help to so many people, in fact it
was Philip battling panlel cancer that read this,
and so urged me to push this book,
and I sort of dedicate this to him,
When Heaven is Silent, a great man of
God, he knew power in prayer, he's written
other books about prayer, but his son committed
suicide, some think that would be about the
ultimate that a man could go through who's
a Christian leader, but God kept him, and
there's another brilliant book that perhaps will be
at half price, about SIM, the mission that
Ted Davey is now involved with, and many
of us have highly esteemed all these years,
well normally, my normal approach is I give
the books in the beginning, but I knew
you'd all want some kind of change, there's
been many, many paradigm shifts in OM, and
I'd ask you to try to bear with
us as you discover the new Operation Mobilization,
because if young people are to join in
large numbers, they don't want to join the
old Operation Mobilization, that's your OM, we've, you
know, we've bled, we've suffered, we've prayed, we
did all kinds of things, but the young
people today want to join the new OM,
and they're not worried if there are a
few OMers around, certainly I've never felt much
rejection from the young people, but they do
want us to listen to their ideas, they
do want us to perhaps consider new ways
to evangelize, and new ways to plant churches,
and so we listen to things that come
out of, say, Willow Creek, or AD2000, or
all kinds of places where amazing things are
happening, there's a drama being shown in the
United States right now, I've only got a
little bit of information, literally tens of thousands
are coming to Christ through this drama, I've
never heard of anything quite like it, and
some of you know that there's just a
lot of amazing things happening in the world
today, we can't go into that, so we
are happy for OM1995, the new OM, we're
repackaging the year program, it will not be
called anymore One Year with OM, or OM
Year Program, how did we ever have such
a boring title all these years?
We changed Love Europe way back in 89,
the new year program will be something probably
quite different, World Action Teams, is the present
name, or Global Teams?
Global Action Teams, we have to float it
around for a while, because almost every name
you can conceive of for a new program,
somebody's already got, so we've retreated from the
last five names, but we're somehow hoping that
Global Action Teams may stick, become the new
repackaged year program as we move toward the
year 2000.
We need your help, we learned a hard
way in OM, money is five times harder
to get than people, we got people lined
up from here to Chile, most of them
had their hands out, we need finance, and
if you've got any questions about it, I'd
love to have personal fellowship.
God bless you, let's go for it, to
the year 2000, where we're going to have
a mega reunion, probably in Moscow.
Amen!
Applause Applause Applause So
before we close, there are refreshments at the
end, coffee, tea, refreshments, and of course the
book table through here, there is also a
copy of the latest number 10 Operation Mobilization
news video, which does have a section on
OM Zaventem, that can be borrowed, and you
are very welcome to see that, and actually
some of the earlier ones also show some
scenes of the Ministry of OM Belgium, I
forget which number it's on, do you know
offhand?
They're hard to get, they're gone for 50
quid a shot.
Anyway, it's good to subscribe to it, and
get them regularly.
So I think in closing, I'd like for
us to sing one song, and I'd like
us to listen to a song.
So let's go a little back some years,
and we'll sing a worship song to finish,
Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, and then right
after that, a song that we've been actually
playing with translation in the different rallies, we'll
listen to it just in English, from Keith
Green.
That puts us a little more into the
modern times.
Open your eyes, and we'll close with that.
So let's sing together, Holy, Holy, Lord God
Almighty.
And as we do it, let's worship Him,
and let's offer our lives to Him, even
as we sing, because that's the sacrifice of
worship that the Lord is looking for.
Not just our words, but our hearts, bodies,
time, energy, whatever we've got, may it go
to Him.
Let's stand and sing together.
♪ ♪ Holy, Holy, Holy, in the
morning thy Son shall rise to thee.
Holy, Holy, Holy, God
in three Persons, Blessed Trinity.
We, all the saints adoring, Have a
crown of blossoms here.
Cherubim and cherubim, Falling down before Thee,
Praise her and adore Thee,
Though sinful men
Thy glory may not see.
Holy, Thou art holy, There is none
beside Thee, Perfect in power, Really holy,
holy.
Glory shall praise
Thy name, In earth and sky and sea.
Holy, holy, holy, Merciful and mighty,
God in three Persons, Blessed Trinity.
And a few other poems were at our,
I think, breakfast table in our house.
And we had a discussion about how the
future would go.
This is many years ago.
And I remember that we somewhat said to
one another, whatever happens, we will never leave
one another.
We will never leave one another.
And I've often thought back about that particular
discussion.
And I think Toast and I often thought
about it as well.
I left the WEM ten years ago, exactly
to the date.
And I am just an ordinary day-by
-day struggling businessman, trying just to live from
one day into another.
Some might not believe that.
But I tell the truth.
And I say this because Thursday evening, I'm
so fully aware of the fact that indeed
that, although often I thought that we had
betrayed one another, on that we will never
leave one another.
But I understand, I think in a better
perspective today, that actually we have not left
one another.
We are together still before an unfinished task,
the same task.
Probably we are within other social boundaries, other
situations, other responsibilities.
But there's one thing which is true for
all of us.
Older as we are, some thirty years older
as when we started, we still have the
same task.
And I am tremendously challenged to be here
tonight together with all of you and just
continue, let us just continue together.
And carry each other's burdens and together be
carrying the burden of this world.
Shall we pray?
Father in heaven, we thank you for your
tremendous love for us.
You have not left us.
You have stayed with us.
You gave us indeed the A, B, C
and of the alphabet opportunities.
And Lord, we in this way also would
like to continue with you.
We thank you Jesus that you are ours
and that we can say that we are
yours.
And we do pray Lord indeed.
We are not praying for many mighty miracles,
but just small daily miracles in our own
lives.
Revive us, bring us back to the calling
that you have called us with many years
ago.
Lord that we will be there recommitted with
our lives and with all what we have
in order to just fulfill the task which
is unfinished.
I do pray for operation mobilization.
I pray for this country Belgium and for
the OM Belgium team.
And indeed Lord, today it is just exactly
the same as twenty or twenty-five years
ago.
It's hard to get recruits.
It's hard to find the finance.
We pray for OM Zalander.
We thank you Father for the many years
of faithful serving and servants who worked in
this place.
And who also like Edwin presented that to
us tonight, want to continue, want to be
servants as that is their mission statement.
Lord Jesus, we thank you for the fun,
for the cheerfulness of this evening.
We once again want to say to you
Lord that we love you and that we
want to extend your love through our own
lives to one another and to this world.
And Lord now dismiss us with your joy
we pray.
In Jesus name.
Amen.