This is part of my final sharing with
you for this particular conference.
And then just spend a little time in
prayer.
We never can cover in a conference like
this all the things that we would like
to.
Just like life.
I'm sure most of you on any one
day there's five, ten different things you'd like
to do.
You have to decide which ones you're going
to do.
Do it and somehow try to go to
bed at night feeling you've done God's will.
But also in a conference like this we're
always aware of things that we don't cover
or that we don't get perhaps pinned down
as much as we would like to.
And I think we realize that the leadership
of OM in the subcontinent is an ongoing
process.
You may get some great visions down at
the AIC and generally there's a fair amount
of freedom to move ahead.
Sometimes a phone call is helpful.
But the title of this little message, little
talk that I'd like to give, I was
hesitant to give this.
Then I decided to do it.
Also I don't know what messages to give
to this group and what ones to give
to the state leaders.
But I'd like to give a little plea.
It even rhymes.
My little plea for ICT.
A greatly misunderstood little team back in Bromley
that is trying to survive in serving the
whole body.
We have very few goals ourselves in terms
of saying, you know, this is ICT's goal.
We might have some exceptions.
We have a goal of selling books.
And our book sales in ICT are quite
amazing.
If we could add the book selling we
did for other countries last year, we'd go
to over $100,000.
In fact, I noticed our little trip in
the states, just our little team in the
states, was one-fourth to one-third of
all the book sales in the whole of
the United States from all speakers and teachers
and everything else.
Just our little team.
That's three months.
So, I mean, we do have a goal
to sell books and we certainly have a
goal to win souls.
One of our team members is an evangelist.
Some of us others have gifts of evangelism.
So we have that goal of seeing souls
saved.
But most of our work is to help
you reach your goals or to help some
other team reach their goals.
And somehow my plea would be that ICT
would not be seen as some separate entity
that is useful at certain times.
I don't sense we're not appreciated.
I'm not here trying to get an appreciation
vote.
That's not a problem.
But I just think we need increased communication
as to what this is all about and
what some of the prayer burdens are.
ICT is very complex for a number of
reasons.
Number one, we've highly esteemed other fields, especially
in regard to single people, and have been
willing to recruit not only married couples but
fairly large families.
With all that that involves, because children are
important, their education is important, families need vehicles,
what we're paying just for our maintenance base
in Brownlee, just to keep our STL fleet
going.
Actually, they would have needed it just for
their own fleet, but we ended up with
more vehicles than they did.
And so on paper, we're now paying a
good chunk of the pie, especially since EBE,
who were the most demanding ten years ago
to have a warehouse in Brownlee, now don't
even particularly want it.
And that's one of the most expensive rented
buildings in the whole of operation mobilization.
And yet shifting a garage is not simple.
If we try some of the other strategies
suggested to us, it also will become very,
very expensive.
One of the things that saves money in
Brownlee is the fact that two teens are
sharing a lot of the load.
But another reason it's so complex is because
we find that we're O.N. Britain's little
brother down in London, and yet I think
if we had to compare numbers of meetings,
numbers of a lot of different things, we're
equally in the battle for recruits in Britain,
finance in Britain, church relationships in Britain, all
kinds of other things in Britain.
The great balance in that, of course, is
that Peter Maiden is almost like a member
of ICT.
So as we help Britain, Peter Maiden helps
us, and we feel we're actually the winners.
But it does make things complicated.
Another thing that makes ICT complicated is that
by tradition we are there to serve STL.
One of the reasons I moved into Brownlee
in the early days was to help STL.
Remember when I moved in there, Keith Beckwith
had just been killed, John Watts had just
been killed, and the brother who was taken
over says, when Ken Taylor took away Tyndale
House books from us, said, STL is dead.
My beloved brother Jonathan never was extremely enthusiastic
about STL.
Keith Beckwith, who had just been killed, wasn't
sure it was even in God's plan, and
he and John Watts went together to build
greater unity.
On this trip in Poland, they got perfect
unity, of course, as they were simultaneously killed.
But STL has been a great struggle, because
it was unique, it had many, many demands,
and even the first experiment with Jerry Davey
and Peter Wales working together, if you remember
those days, didn't exactly work out.
So we, by tradition, have always been in
Brownlee to help STL, especially from OM, what
unfortunately really got called OM Affairs.
OM, fellow travelers, prayer partners.
We try to absorb that so it doesn't
all go crashing into STL.
Some of it does anyway, of course, especially
now that it's so big.
We thought of moving ICT at times out
of London, so that we could get away
from certain things.
We even thought of lovely places like Cyprus,
all of it just pipe dreams.
But the fact is, if we move out,
OM will have to open an office in
London.
We've never been hardly without an office in
the south of England, even though once we
had it in a grocery shop, as Philip
Morris can tell.
Anyway, to cut it short, there are just
a few of the complications.
What are some of the things we're trying
to do there where we'd appreciate your prayers
and understanding?
I put on the top recruiting.
Everybody everywhere in OM plays the same record.
We want recruits.
How many men do you think we have
actually full-time out recruiting, or even, say,
three-fourths time within OM worldwide?
There are very few.
There are very, very few.
A lot of people are doing things here
and there, but they usually have two or
three other jobs.
And a few of us, I'm in that
camp, feel that recruiting is absolutely top priority.
Telephone, letters, meetings, pastors, all these different things
are related to getting workers for the harvest.
In my own meetings in the past two
months, I've seen over 3,000 people stand
up in meetings to repent, to ask Christ
to be Lord, to be filled with the
Spirit, and, of course, to go as the
Lord would lead them.
But it takes a lot of energy, a
lot of effort.
I don't think the average evangelistic field, a
term I don't always appreciate, realize the price
tag on the recruits.
We're in that kind of work.
When somebody recruits for a long-term mission
agency, it's a very expensive thing.
But when they get a man, they usually
have him, hopefully, for life.
That's way OMF.
I've had a lot of contact with OMF.
Last few days I had lunch with James
Hudson Taylor, whatever his name, the third.
They're a life agency.
You sign on the dotted line.
That's why they've had hardly any Singaporeans join
them.
Southeast Asians, they just stand to gasp at
the army we have.
But it's because very few in that culture
are going to put their John Hancock on
a life commitment with a full-fledged American,
not American, but Western society.
What did I say?
John Hancock.
Yeah.
So the price tag on recruiting and ICT
is heavily involved in that.
It's not something you can easily bill.
We've had some people make generalizations about billing
that all we have to do is bill
everybody for everything and we're all going to
be out of the black.
Billing can help.
We're into the black.
Billing can help.
But you're dealing with a lot of hidden
costs.
You must try to get this into your
minds.
In OM, it's not just ICT.
It's U.S. General.
People make statements, why has U.S. General
gone into the red again?
I think it has or it's close to
it.
And Canada's in the red.
Malaysia's in the red.
South Africa, letter from Francois today, desperate, financial,
embarrassed, feeling terrible.
And of course, during cutback, I mean, people
were really looking for the culprits.
They're jumping on you out of the cupboards.
But we all want these recruits out here
and we understand that OM is both short
-term and long-term with a higher percentage
of our recruits short-term.
There's a big price involved in that.
You know, to get 500 recruits out of
Manchester, which we're all involved with, all of
us who live in Britain, how many people
do you have to process?
Do you have any idea?
It's thousands.
Yeah, inquiries.
Just the postage stamps.
Just the stationery.
It's amazing.
On top of this, in order to get
the wheat today in Christian work, to get
the wheat, you've got to go through tons
of straw.
And the people I have to answer, it's
just dead ends, dead ends, dead ends.
The whole Africa department is a long jungle
of dead ends.
But you can't treat people like, you know,
pieces of paper.
They need at least some kind of answer.
Not that Africa is that big a thing.
But all the different things add up.
Anyway, we're very much committed to recruiting there.
We may soon launch another man, Jack Rendell,
out of administration, leadership side, into largely ministry,
teaching, preaching, recruiting.
We already have Nigel in that, myself, and
each team member to some degree.
Another goal and burden for the team that
we need prayer on is finance.
We are committed, of course, very heavily to
seeing money come in for all fields, but
especially the subcontinent.
And I think, if we think there's been
some great shift in policy on this, we
really are wrong, because I can show you
from the earliest days of the work that
we believe strongly in clear-cut communication that
some have always accused us of hinting.
People are now accusing us again of hinting
in our prayer.
We have always had that from the earliest
days.
It's very difficult to be a character like
me who believes in laying on the line
and challenging people.
Bookshops in Mexico, correspondence courses, radio stations, ships,
name the 100 different challenges over the years,
and people not say you're hinting.
So if you're hinting, why don't you just
ask?
We have to examine our hearts before God,
and our purpose in communicating is not hinting.
Now, is it wrong to hope that God's
people have enough brains to put two and
two together, that if there are so many
million souls going to hell without the Word
of God, and we're asking them to pray
that we may give them the Word of
God, that maybe some money is needed?
Now, if that is a sin, please rebuke
me, and I'll try to straighten up.
But I think before God, He knows our
hearts.
Our burden is to see the work go
forward, is to see funds come in for
His glory, and we believe that from the
very, very beginning.
Some people think we've only used pictures lately.
When I first tried to make an impact
on Britain, I allowed my puss to be
put on a poster as having just come
back from the Soviet Union.
I had that 61 fiasco in the Soviet
Union.
And in those days, if you preached, if
you'd been in the Soviet Union, even for
a couple of days, it attracted attention.
So there are little posters.
I found one of these years later and
almost barfed.
And a lot of these things that people
are saying, OM is changing, OM is doing
things today, we've been doing them all along.
It's just that most of you have been
so busy winning souls, you haven't known what
OM has been doing.
Probably an exaggeration.
But we are committed very strongly on that
team to financial health.
And that means a lot of things.
It's not time to go into detail.
One of those things is to keep STL
going.
That's why we borrowed one of your top
workers for that program.
And believe me, STL would not work if
it were not for the motivation factors that
come from the rest of OM.
These kids, volunteers, putting in their own money,
aren't going to bust their knuckles in that
warehouse month after month and year after year
just for nothing.
They need to know why.
And they know why.
It's for the subcontinent, for the millions to
be reached.
And it's very motivating.
I speak there an average of probably 25,
30, maybe more, 40 times a year.
And it's all involved.
Of course, we're together there as one body.
The next thing I've written here is this
whole thing of pastoral care to ex-OMers.
I've been encouraging Gary to do more in
this area.
He's done a lot.
But we're all in that in Britain.
You can't have ex-OMers just around you
and not do anything about it.
It's time-consuming.
It's sometimes heartbreaking.
But we've got to do it.
We are laboring on your behalf.
What are you doing for ex-OMers?
You send them a letter, and maybe a
personal note from time to time, but you
can't live in Bihar and serve ex-OMers
in England very easily.
We are aware of the ongoing trauma of
some of these people not being able to
re-enter society.
Some of these people from Britain have been
more effective in India than they have when
they come back.
And this leads me to the next thing
I've written here is church relationships.
We are committed to building church relationships.
Everybody likes churches like Worthing Tabernacle one year
later.
But it doesn't happen just overnight.
It takes a lot of time.
It takes a lot of visits.
Even to this day they feel down there
that I'm almost obligated to an annual visit.
But you get a lot of church relationships
after 28 years in the ring.
And fitting in the annual visits is not
always so easy, though, of course.
And a lot of churches that have wanted
us to come, at least wanted me to
come, and have given me an open door,
I can't go, just you don't have enough
Sundays.
But we're very much committed to this church
relationship.
Again, we've had people hassling us at times
over our phone bill.
Where these relationships all take, it's either phone
or letter, you cannot even measure the results
sometimes you get from one phone call.
And yet phone calls are costing more and
more.
When you're talking to a pastor, it isn't
all neatly categorized.
Now, is this conversation benefiting India, or the
Muslim world, or my family, or Britain, or
the summer campaign in France?
I feel I'm busting my knuckles as much
for the summer campaign in France as I
do many other things.
Because the great host of recruits we get,
they all go through Europe before they ever
get to you.
So it's difficult to divide it in little
cuticles and send out bills.
The work of God, I think, could be
greatly stifled and hindered in some ways if
we tried to do that.
Anyway, keep praying for those church relationships.
Realize our commitment to that.
Not only in Britain.
50% of all of my letters and
communications go outside of Britain.
Though I've not been in the States much,
probably I've been able to influence the States
by living in Europe more than many people
perhaps who live in the States.
We have a unique relationship with the United
States.
We have not abandoned the States.
Some of you read the memo I did
about that last year.
But that does cost.
I made one phone call to a very
bitter ex-OMer living out in the West
Coast.
They had a horrific experience with us.
Not India.
Middle East situation.
I tell you, that call, though it may
have cost $5, $10, $15, meant so much
to them.
Hardly anyone has contacted them.
They're a family.
They've been working on this bitterness and struggle
for over a year and a half.
We can get up and talk about pastoral
care, follow-up, love, sensitivity.
But who's willing to pay the price?
Even for the phone call.
It costs.
The ministry we are in costs.
Wayne said 5,000 rupees for a trek
out into...
That's peanuts!
The way a lot of people think.
Maybe not the way O.M. Nepal thinks.
But I wouldn't want to...
The price tag of Brother Andrew's operation to
get literature into some of these places.
It's just staggering.
That's why he shifted his whole emphasis.
His big emphasis went to the USA.
And the big mega bucks came out of
this wide, nationwide advertising program in the United
States so he gets money from everywhere.
He has a major fundraising operation going on
right now in Singapore and Malaysia.
You should see it.
It's all excellent.
Mainly excellent.
You should see the literature and things that
are turning out in Singapore and Malaysia to
get Bibles for their next big thrust into
China.
Another thing I've just quickly listed here is
relationships with other missions and groups.
You know, I talked about the miracle of
credibility.
That doesn't happen just overnight.
You're working on that kind of thing now
in India.
You know, these trip subs you've just had
with Christian leaders in the Northeast.
And we've seen what Chaco's been able to
do in Bangalore.
There'll be a price tag on that.
No doubt your fees for Operation World will
help cover it.
But this relationship with other groups has been
very beneficial.
And it's certainly another one of our major
tasks there.
People that we win back there ultimately can
affect what you're doing here.
A lot of it is indirect.
On the people, you take the relationship with
K.P. Yohannan.
Many of us have been involved in that.
It's been an ongoing drama.
Philip, David Hicks, especially David Hicks.
Ray, some of you, you know.
Somehow in an unusual way because believe me,
most of us in our relationship with him
we just wanted God's will.
We were not thinking about any big money
coming out of that.
Contrary-wise we were ready to, you know,
just the opposite.
And yet in God's providence suddenly 40,000
at a very appropriate moment and 10,000
if the pot was done comes out of
that ongoing relationship.
This is what we're into, this team, through
endless...
We have more contacts on our little ICT
than probably most groups in the world because
we've got Neil Brinkley up with his computer
and all those contacts.
My family list is up to 1,700
people.
Very cream list of people.
Built up over 28 years.
We've got, you know...
Of course, we never can do justice to
all we have because we're so few of
us.
Roger Malsted, I don't mean the contacts he
has.
And a lot of people look to us,
of course, for information, for getting linked up.
We're short-staffed as you know.
Another ministry we have we'd appreciate prayer on
is defending the faith.
I use that because it's found in the
Bible.
But, you know, in the work of God,
it isn't all positive.
And we have had to defend OM against
criticism.
More than that, we've had to sometimes defend
the strategy we have and stand against cults.
We have to make all kinds of decisions
about who we work with and don't work
with.
Ten year trauma with Christ is the answer
only to see them split in two.
It's quite amazing.
And it takes some time and effort.
One book.
You take that one book.
We're very much, as you know, involved in
introducing literature into the whole worldwide scene.
But that one book, Healing for Damaged Emotions,
that we laid hold of.
No one in Britain barely knew that book
existed.
It was a relatively unknown author.
We had introduced his tapes.
We laid hands on that book.
STL does not even handling it.
Not even handling it.
It's a victor book.
I tell you, the feedback we're getting from
that one book, Healing for Damaged Emotions, is
quite staggering.
And now books like God Wants You Rich.
I have a couple copies of that with
me.
It may seem like a small thing, but
boy, I tell you, the enemy is constantly
trying to get people into extremes.
And even into a win.
So that's something else we're very much involved
in.
Literature projects, I think you know just how
much we're involved in that.
Neil Brinkley, another complicated family situation.
And I don't think Neil would mind me
sharing with you that he just had an
ongoing trauma to see support come in.
And here we are in Britain.
This is in India.
And this family has battled and battled and
battled and has not seen financial support, which
means it has to be subsidized.
But I will tell you, even if we
run in the red doing it, somehow I
believe that families like this, unless the Lord
clearly shows it, need to be helped temporarily.
I believe they're going to see a breakthrough
in God's timing.
Neil goes out selling books.
He's seen quite good book sales.
Doesn't officially go to his support, but it's
a factor we keep in mind.
Now with Philip coming back to be based
in Bromley, I think we'll be even more
effective.
Not just because of us.
There's not that many of us, but we've
got the links with everybody else.
We can pick up Dale one minute.
We can talk to Stritcher.
They're all ready to go if we ask
them, generally.
It's got to be within reason.
Peter Maiden in Carlisle, the finance department.
It's all there in the end of the
phone.
In fact, as you know, I have a
push-button phone.
Just push the right button.
I don't even touch the phone until I
hear the voice.
Then I pick it up.
Of course, my phone bill, as you know,
can be discouraging for the finance department.
The fact is, it's not what it should
be because I'm not as motivated always to
make the phone calls as I should be.
So pray for the whole literature ministry and
realize what's involved in that.
Then next I just put a word about
vehicles.
It may seem like little things, getting in
those Carnets.
Praise the Lord, it shifted over to Holland.
But there's a lot involved in the whole
vehicle thing.
Then next I just put the word equipment.
This is where Gary has been such an
enormous help, running around, getting all the different
equipment that you want, that you need.
And we want to be of service and
hope that we can do a better job
in the future.
And then another thing I put is speakers.
Coordination of visiting speakers.
Again, this takes a lot of work.
Sometimes I think we want to throw up
our hands and say, you know, forget it.
We know that one out of four or
one out of five that come, it may
not work out.
But, you know, OM is here today because
it was built on risks.
OM was risks from the very beginning.
The very fact that God would even, in
his sovereignty, build anything on a character like
me was a risk.
It was a big gamble from the beginning.
And I think we need to continue sending
out some of these speakers because it's a
life-changing experience for them.
They often are also a blessing out here.
They're not all Tony Sargents, but if we're
to find the wheat, we've got to wrestle
with straw.
And I hope that you'll pray for Gary,
who very much is involved in that.
And it has a lot of possibilities.
As you know, another main ministry, just for
the next on your list, we're committed to
is building unity.
One of the things that would encourage me
is if you could reread memos you've received
from us in the past, just to know
people are at least reading what we're saying,
because it does cut down the error factor.
If we follow some of these instructions, security
regulations, it definitely cuts down on the error
factor.
And some people who have studied things have
said, you know, a lot of the problems
in OM are simply people not following instructions,
not obeying very basic things.
The great need isn't for radical, freak-out
changes.
We need constant change, I would agree with
that.
But it's to obey some of these basic
things that we put down in our manuals,
in our literature, in our memos, and to
go at it with all of our hearts.
Of course, we're discovering just to send out
one memo, just to communicate one thing to
OM worldwide is a big, big price tag,
talking about hundreds of pounds.
And then this hidden cost, for instance, hundreds
of pounds, but now they want a new
machine to handle the post, what they call
a meter machine.
So you've got hundreds of pounds posted, but
then you've got, at the end of the
year, a new machine, which is, I think,
Neil Porter mentioned something about a thousand pounds,
I guess.
One of the advantages in God's sovereignty, let
me just throw this in, of us being
so based, OM has certainly got one of
its major bases, to say the least, the
British Isles, is that with the dollar going
up against the pound, Britain is one of
the best places in the world right now
for buying things, and for living, especially when
your income is in dollars.
And you can't understand Manchester's expenses unless you
realize how many services they are performing for
everybody else.
Every financial report you read in OM, you've
got to look at the asterisk, footnotes, and
sometimes it doesn't cover it.
So we're very much committed to this thing
of building unity.
You know, when I arrived back in Europe
last year for these conferences, I had to
put probably 50 to 100 hours just into
trying to get what I felt the OM
ship back on course.
Of course, I had Rotan leading me like
a galloping horse.
He immediately...
Dale Rotan and I had our longest time
of fellowship in 20 years as a result
of the crisis that was there when I
got back.
And I just got to know him a
lot better.
We were so united it was hurting us.
But we did go around and talk to
a lot of other people.
But it does take time.
Now, you may say, well, what does this
have to do with India?
It has everything to do with India.
I don't think you want to see OM
split down the middle.
When a movement splits down the middle, at
least quite a few people flip out.
They can't handle it.
And we are committed on this team to
keep OM as one body.
We don't believe the ship should become a
separate entity, neither with presidents or prime ministers.
We believe the ship is a vital part
of the whole OM thing.
Other people feel this stronger than me.
I was almost ready to, you know, see
it become separate or at least almost totally
autonomous.
But as it was examined and prayed about,
well, I know the time is gone.
I have here just this thing of recruiting
prayer partners.
I feel this is another one of the
major commitments.
We need new prayer partners.
People die.
Quite a few people get in contact with
OM and actually become missionaries.
And then their giving stops and in turn
they need giving.
And so we need new prayer partners.
You know, if we don't answer these letters
of these people, it can be a little
discouraging for them.
Now, right now I've only got a backlog
of about 500 letters.
I know maybe we could throw them all
into a miracle computer.
Some kind of answer would go out.
But I feel a high commitment to prayer
partners.
I've written more thank you letters for gifts
in the past six months than I've ever
done before for a number of reasons.
But this is something that we're very, very
much involved in.
There is a very interesting group of about
500 people around the world.
That's just a guess number.
If next year I tell you 700, you
won't worry.
It's a guess number.
Who are providing a very interesting amount of
our income.
I don't know the amount.
The more I look through the computers, I
realize most of our gifts are small gifts.
But there's this one group.
I tell you, the Everett Langlis, the plumber
in New Jersey, the Ken Taylor, you know,
there's a group, a few hundred.
And I tell you, they are as committed
to this work in some ways as you
and I in this room.
That's not as much.
Their life, major part of their life is
to give to OIM.
Give.
We have a commitment to those people.
To send them a free book that may
help them with a particular problem they're wrestling
with.
To phone them and show that we care.
To spend time with them.
I now go to the USA Conference 50
% of my time is just meeting ex
-OIMers, prayer partners, people that show up.
And so this is a vital ministry that
we have on your behalf.
Again, I'm mentioning these things because they're not
easy to see.
They're not easy to measure.
And as we increase our personnel in ICT,
which we must, at least I don't want
criticism from the subcontinent.
I'll handle it and I'll get it from
other places.
But I hope the subcontinent understands.
We are serving you.
You are our top level commitment.
And we need your understanding, etc.
You might say, what to do?
Very quickly, pray.
Pray, pray, and pray.
There's nothing more important than prayer.
As you pray, God will answer.
If I didn't believe that, I would just
freeze up and close shop.
Number two, you can recruit for us.
Some of the people out here now, they're
not long-term potential for your part of
the world.
You can recruit.
Jerry Davies asked me again to represent the
challenge of STL in a way that when
people come back from the field, they could
be involved indirectly in India.
I'm working with STL, following in the footsteps
so you can recruit.
Number three, you can give, not grudgingly, not,
oh, but you can give.
If the Lord has given to you, even
if it's just a percentage, especially while we're
still a hundred thousand in the hole.
That was quite an agony for Jack Wendell,
much more difficult for his temperament than mine.
There's a side of me that can be
pretty thick-skinned.
There's another side that's so thin I can
barely survive.
And then, perhaps more than anything else, we
do need your support.
We need you to believe the best when
some things go wrong.
If somebody comes back to Bromley and they
don't get the warmest, most loving, overwhelming treatment,
we have more people passing through than we
can even think.
XOMers, fellow travelers.
And some of our people are overworked.
They're worn out.
And they just don't have the hospitality, loving
energy to give at every single moment.
Criticism came back to us early this year
that we were cold.
Of course, Neil Porter read the letter out
for the devotions.
I wasn't there.
That was an interesting thing.
It's amazing.
Others wrote back a week later that it
was a warm, loving, accepting place.
You know, you win some, you lose some.
I just, in closing, want you to see
this not as a separate entity, certainly not
competing with you.
I don't think it's in any way competing
with you, but as your base.
Maybe we ought to call it subcontinent headquarters
instead of ICT.
Maybe that would communicate.
But we do need your prayers and your
support.
And I hope that this little plea will
bring something along that line.
Let's pray.
Lord, I just thank you that I could
get this off my heart.
And I know what I've said about ICT
could be said to some degree about New
Jersey, about Manchester, about Smolinsteiner, about some of
these other places.
We are in this together.
We just rebuke Satan in any effort he
makes to drive a wedge between the offices
and the evangelistic frontline fields.
We don't want these people in the offices
to be thought of as second-class citizens,
those who didn't make it, rejects, other words
that have been thrown around at times and
have, in some cases, really hurt people.
And we ask, Father, you'd minister even now
back in Bromley to Neil Porter, to Susan,
to Tricia, to Marge, to Sam over in
the garage, to Peter Conlin, in and out,
carrying on so many different ministries now, to
Nigel and Neil Brinkley, other people's names just
don't pop into my head right now.
Pray also for STL.
Look at the massive amount of money they've
sent in our direction.
We think of also the fact that anybody
in STL sits there week after week being
exposed to India, to the subcontinent in a
very strong way.
Some of them, like Paul Bounds and others,
are now out here.
Help us, Father, to find the recruits we
need.
We have an awesome task at times, sometimes
knowing where a secretary should go.
We want to esteem also Jonathan's need and
thank you for what you have done for
him.
And Lord, we're just going to believe you,
believe you for greater victories.
Father, we know that Pakistan's rapid growth has
been linked with other foundations in other parts
of the world, that the existence of the
work in Nepal is linked with what this
team, which was once actually based in Nepal,
has been able to do.
We're in this together.
We want to give you all the glory.
You know this overwhelming indebtedness that our team
has.
We don't want to rob Peter to pay
Paul.
Our burden is the financial health of the
whole work.
And Lord, if we're to be a temporary,
somehow last team in the queue, then that's
what we want.
We believe big gifts can come to wipe
out this.
We don't believe it should come from grants,
especially when people are in financial trouble themselves.
We believe big gifts, book sales, small gifts
are going to come.
Lord, it's humanly crazy to think that people
will designate money to ICT.
They don't even know what it is.
But we know that it can come to
us personally.
It can come in fluke ways like that
house that we inherited.
We want miracles.
We're not finished with a day of miracles.
We believe that even 85 could be the
year to pull this team out of the
red as it absorbs overheads for the whole
work around the world in a dozen different
ways.
We look to you now.
We leave you for the victory.
In Jesus' name, Amen.