Coordinators Conf 1974 Pt1 — George Verwer

Heavenly Father, we thank you, praise you for tonight. You may be a little tired. You are with us. We praise you that faith is the victory, the victory that overcomes the world. We ask, Lord, that you fill our hearts with faith tonight.

We pray in Jesus' name as we look into your word, as we look at this work in the past year, the positives, the negatives. You show us your plan and your will. We give you the glory in Jesus' name. Amen.

George Verwer's Burden for the Coordinators

I'm kind of in a great privilege to be able to speak to you tonight. I don't know if you realize how few opportunities I have to speak to the very leaders who I'm supposed to be helping to lead. I'm very conscious, of course, that I am.

The majority of you, or many of you, haven't helped very much, probably hindered in some cases. But I have had some struggle in my heart at times because it really has bothered me, or whatever word you want to use, when men who have been leaders in the work have misunderstood or not understood what I really believe, what I really want, what I really think is the burden and vision of the work.

As I have known it from those first days. And one of the reasons I like the ship is I feel that people who come on the ship get, in most cases, not every case, a balanced view of what I really believe true spiritual life is and the vision and the message of the work.

And, of course, in all these things there are the negatives and the positives. But I felt that I should take this opportunity to speak. I don't speak much at these conferences in terms of a message. But I feel that I should at least share tonight something with you.

Where are we going? You know, I'm an unpredictable person, as you well know. And I probably frightened a few people last night. People who don't know me very well don't understand that I am a person that does not bottle in and refuses to bottle in my feelings, my emotions, my convictions.

Generally I only pour them out on one or two. Last night, a few more were in on this. The struggle. I found in my life that the victories don't come without struggles, without doubts, without fears, without seemingly all hell releasing itself.

Apologies. But as I said in the prayer meeting last night, and tried to reaffirm today, despite doubts, despite fears, despite questions, despite even the desire at times, a strong desire, to be the leader of the one who destroyed the structure of O .M.

And let's each one of you get on where you are. I certainly have no intentions of getting off this ship any more than I expect Captain Padgett to get off in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Such a transition would take time.

Such a transition would take the unity of other men of God. Who am I to make a lower self-styled decision? I'm built with a price. I may have whims, fancies, desires, dreams. Any decision I make must be in the unity of the brethren.

I'd have to be able to persuade McCrasty and Marley and a few others, even my wife. Plus older men, and we do have older men. The board of directors in New Jersey, the board of directors in Manchester, all these people are amalgamous.

And what I expressed last night and a little bit today is just the fact that I am not finding it easy, and that your actions and reactions do affect me. I'm not a little lonely iceberg floating out in the middle of nowhere.

But I'm a part of you. And I know just that my actions affect you. And if my actions in these two days have been of some negative difficulty, please forgive me. I think the long-run experience after we finish this conference will be healthy.

But I think an OM conference is a battleground. It's a time of counting the cost. It's a time of being extremely brutal with ourselves, being willing to face up to incredible weakness and error, and then falling at the feet of Jesus and believing that he will carry us out.

Your confidence must not be in me. I know it isn't. I give the warning anyway. Your confidence must be that the Lord can hold me. Anytime you see me tottering, if you really want to keep me going, just go into prayer and fasting.

The devil can't really resist that. And I know that many of you have been praying for me. I have no guarantee what other incredible things the devil may throw at me in the days to come. Nor am I in one minute saying that some of these things that I say or feel are all just sort of tricks of the devil.

Commitment to OM's Long-Term Mission

So I just want to, first of all, confirm to you that since none of you have gone along very well with my suggestions about other leaders, and since we don't seem to have an alternative at this present moment, I know that I certainly don't want to step out or even aside at this stage.

I believe that we must go into this year's program 100%. 100%. I never expect you to do it, but I'm not going to do it. What if they're following? So I am expecting you to do it. If you stay on past this conference, and most of you are already committed, I believe it should be 100%.

Next June, you're entitled to make other decisions. The challenging thing for me tonight is that Brother George Miley has assured me very, very much, not under pressure, that he is in this thing long-term.

He even used the little word, life. Now we can have our one-year commitments. I asked him, of course, what his life was, and we'll be discussing that later on. If the work of O .M. is going to go on, a work of this size, a work with this kind of thrust, this kind of impetus, this kind of radicalism, it's got to have some die-hards.

You know that term? It's got to have some people who say, look, this is my brand of Christianity. This is what I want. That's not saying you can't leave, because God needs you at any time. But I have to be free.

We're all free, no matter what we say. But believe me, it's foolish to plan grand programs and schemes if we don't have a method. We don't have a method. This movement is made up of myth. And that's very, very important.

So by God's grace, I'm committed to you. My burden for you, first of all, is to serve. Do not think for a minute I'm interested in being any kind of a dictator. I'm not complaining much about my lack of authority.

There's a little need there. I mean, it would be good once in a while to hear about some of these plans before they go up in his face. But that is not my concern. I want to serve. I chose originally this word coordinator many years ago because I thought it would represent the word serve.

Maybe we need to scrap that word. We have scrapped it in India. Except for Ray and Alfie, everyone else is called a leader. We have no other coordinator in India. Because we found people putting status on the word coordinator.

Just as George Marley said last night, how sickening from the sight of God to put status on the word coordinator, as if there were a difference between a leader and a coordinator or a prayer warrior. It's crazy.

So maybe we can make some changes. But of course, human beings, being what they are, just changing names, doesn't really help. So I want to be committed to you in that I want to serve. I want to serve.

Please feel free to write me and tell me how I can serve your field. I've visited almost every field in O .M. almost every year since its beginning, with a few exceptions. I don't think I can continue to do that anymore.

Dale is going to visit some of the fields in that place this year to recruit, to encourage, to help. And it's just not possible, humanly speaking, with family and everything else, to be everywhere every year.

But I want to know how can I serve you. Basically, I determined my year program on what you requested of me, within limitations, especially very much bending around my need to keep my family as a top priority.

Preaching as Service and Spiritual Calling

Second, I want to serve as your leader by preaching. And I believe, and I hope you understand, this guy has called me to preach. I have a message. I have a burden from the Lord. And every time I preach, I'm happier.

Probably the problem yesterday was I hadn't preached. Preached all that. Discussions, committees, arguments, all this just, you know, surrounds me to some degree. But to preach to unload the burden, even if it be on ten people, is something very important to me.

They all said, woe is me if I preach now. And once you have sent God's anointing upon me as a preacher, I'm not saying I have much anointing, but I have some. Otherwise I couldn't preach. A man who preaches without anointing is a fool, wasting both his time and those sitting in the pew.

I'm not talking about testifying. I'm not talking about showing slides. I am talking about preaching the holy message of God. But I believe that God wants me to preach. And people have been complaining, a few, that they heard I was going to take a holiday in August, part of August, but I didn't do it.

I was preaching every night, twice a day. That was a holiday. A holiday, to me, is doing what you want to do most of all. Now, another thing I wanted to do was be with my family. That means much to me.

And I went mountain climbing with my son, just to keep the record straight. We went fishing in the rain with the president of our board of directors, Val Greve. And we went cliff climbing and almost got ourselves killed.

And we did a lot of other things. But when union came around, the real joy was there, to preach, to see people recommit their lives, to see books throughout our sales work. For a weekend, it's just 1 ,100 pounds or something.

And we ran out of supplies and a lot of other things. I want to serve you through preaching. I believe that through preaching, God will call forth recruits. And you all need recruits. I believe through preaching, God will call forth prayer warriors.

And we need prayer warriors. I believe through preaching, souls will be saved. Many meetings that I've preached on in discipleship, people got saved. How did Alexander Sandler get saved, who was doing so much for God?

I thought he was saved through a book. He told me he was saved through one of my sermons, which was for believers. And so I hope I can serve you in this way. I want to serve you through intercession. My burden is the ministry of intercession.

The Ministry of Intercession

My greatest day last month was a time of two days, a day and a half of fasting, of intercession. I have pictures of 1 ,500 people who I believe God is working in. Most of you have your pictures. I don't pray for these nearly as much, and I realize it can become a ritual, so sometimes I don't even bring them with me.

But I believe that the potential of the ministry of intercession is one of the greatest thrills of leadership. Tough for God. I'm corresponding with people in about 150 countries, half of them non-laborers.

Not much, maybe some of them one letter a year. But to take their prayer letters and to intercede, to pray, to believe that God is going to work, and then to get letters back that God has worked is a tremendous thing.

And I believe every leader and all of us here need to make sure that we're pressing on in our ministry of intercession. A key in all you're doing in this is, what do you do when there's no arranged prayer meeting that week?

You know, you're on the road. Now, I do what I like to do. And I've done it. I've said, well, Lord, this is your week for me to be free from a night of prayer. Because night of prayer doesn't appear to me.

I'm a man who loves sleep. God has shown me that when there's no night of prayer organized, I organize one. Maybe not every week. And if I feel I can't pray alone through the night, which I can't do. I mean, I go through alone through the night.

I've tried it. Or I pray all day. And I recommend this to you. I've done it before, but some of you are new. Take days alone with God in prayer, and if possible, fasting. And it will be an enormous help to you.

So I want to serve you through the ministry of intercession. Do not be afraid to write what the real issues are in your country. You hinder me by not writing. Because I find out anyway. When I find out anyway, I get the wrong twists.

I get it through someone who may not be so keen on your field. And so he tells it. A little upside. But if I get it from you, I get a more balanced picture. I told George Miley on the phone, George Miley likes to minister to me through giving me the positive.

As you know, sometimes I don't always handle the negative as good as I should. And I told him on the phone some time ago, Look, Miley, stop just throwing out all the positive things. Whenever you talk to him on the phone, Please Lord, everything is wonderful, fantastic.

And it's quite funny, really. Especially when I'm in one of my low moods. At the other end of the phone. But he's been giving me more of the negatives, and others on the ship have also been sending very, very negative letters.

A few cases. Which really helps the ministry of intercession. I want to serve you through that. The ministry of intercession. You realize this is my introduction. I want to serve you through staying involved in evangelism.

Evangelism Among the Unsaved

I believe that it's more important that I stay involved in evangelism than some of you. I know there's some of you who feel that you're of course a much, much different temperament, a different gift, and you have a different way of approaching your evangelism.

And I don't judge you for that. I say always keep open. Always be ready to grow. Always be ready to change, and I will as well. But I want to evangelize. I want to win souls. I want to preach evangelist messages.

I want to write unsaved people. I want to see people converted. And I know George has this same vision. He was just sharing with me how much it is meant to him to be an evangelistic preacher. I have a mini dose, a small amount of evangelistic gift when I preach evangelistically people orphaned or saved.

And I want to do this. Though more than that, I want to be in the streets giving out thanks. And I want to be out in the streets banging on the doors. And I don't get near enough. I'm ashamed of the time I've spent on the doors lately.

Of course, in India we get more used to streetwalking. I've become more of a streetwalker. And public places, maybe. But I want to serve you through that. It may sound strange. But I believe it's important.

I believe that even now I may be going through some trials and struggles because I've been in conferences. Conferences are one of the hardest things for my makeup. Now, one of the things I do, except for the coordinator's weekend, every weekend I'm out in some evangelism preaching, reaching people.

The only time is when I have to cut that and come into this coordinator's class. Except I will preach tomorrow night. But I try to remain spiritually sharp, keen. I must be reaching people. And I must be talking to unchained people.

People with real problems. You know, some of you share your problems. You have some problems. But I tell you, when you compare you people with unchained people that I've dealt with, you look like injuries.

Really. And when you get depressed with your team, and you feel your team's not doing so well, it may be that you have not been getting enough time for real, raw, unsaved people. Really. Because when you get really involved with those kind of people, trying to pull them through drugs or drunkenness or just immorality, your team will suddenly look quite nice.

Not all of them. Some of your team might have deep problems. Well, I'll leave that. There's other ways I want to serve you, Pat. The last way is through trying to hang on to the organizational side of the work.

Organization as Follow-Up Ministry

Some people have said, well, just step out of the organization and be spiritual. That is not my makeup. I can do that if I leave it like that. I'm willing to do that, as you well know. But as long as I'm in something like this, in which so much of the organization was my own creation, my own burden that meant as much to me as preaching the sermon.

I'm a book fanatic. You can't take books out of my life. I'm a book fanatic. I'm a book extremist. Most of you know that I'm not satisfied with the way we go about our book distribution in most cases.

But there's been a lot of encouragement this year. I feel we lack vision in this. We lack initiative. We lack so much in this area of literature. But what I do see is very encouraging. I was telling Jerry that it would be good to send a few people out to see this thing finally.

Incredible thing. And I think that this kind of initiative, this kind of thing is very encouraging. And I want to, by God's grace, stay involved in literature. I want to see more and more and more projects coming off the press.

I believe that we have to push in to at least another 20 or 30 more languages in the next couple of years. We don't have to do much. I'm not talking about going to another country. Just a little catalyst.

Sometimes it just takes one letter. That's all, one letter. I've got more publishing projects going through just one little letter. A few sample books. You'd be amazed. And it's very, very encouraging.

So I want to serve you through organization. I realize I've got my own style. I'm still a learner. I have many failures. But I believe that in a work like this, in the complicated 20th century in which we live in, not many spiritual leaders will be able to be totally free from organization.

Some will. Not many. Not in 1974. The world is too complicated. You go out. You preach a spiritual message. Forty people come up to you after the meeting. You ever had that? More frustrating than preaching.

When I preached in Urbana to 9 ,000 people, I had 100 people around me. What do you do? Excuse me, I don't talk to people after the meeting. It gets too complicated. Excuse me, excuse me. Push away. No, you take names.

You take addresses. You've got to organize that. You've got to produce a list. You've got to send them books. I get two letters every day from people who read Come, Live, Die. Books now got over 100 ,000 copies all over the world.

I know the answer more personally. I tried that. Dropped it two months ago. Sent them a duplicated letter with a note on the bottom. Sometimes they don't get anything. But I believe that those of us in spiritual ministry must be willing for some organization because organization is follow-up.

To me, organization is people. The great burden of the letters on my desk, which gets greatly neglected this weekend more than any other weekend of the year, is not paper to me. It's not paper at all.

People. People. People are important. When I go away from my wife, I write her letters. When you go away from your wife, you better write letters. When you go away from a convert, when you go away from a spiritual son, a spiritual daughter, you should write them.

And I think that's very, very important. I want to serve you and the church through the little I can do in that area. Now moving on to the main source or main bulk of what I want to say. What are the positive and negatives of OM74?

Positive and Negative Forces in Christian Work

You may be surprised by this. Do not think. And I hope you don't misunderstand when I jump from the negative to the positive very quickly. Don't you ever do that? Is there anybody here that never jumps from the negative to the positive quick, or the positive to the negative?

Boy, you, praise God, you've got an unusual gift. Maybe you haven't lit normally. As I read the newspapers, it's all negative. It hits me. Bangladesh people suffering. Murder. I was stunned the other day.

I was reading an article that in the United States, you know what's increasing now? The sport of pitting dogs. They get dogs and they teach them to fight. And they watch these dogs rip each other's guts out.

And they gamble and they bet. Now that's negative. I read that and it hits me. No, I can't dwell on that. Christ, flip over the positive. If you understand that, you'll understand me better. There's a negative, there's a positive.

And they're running along, and it's a constant struggle. To me, it's equated to the verse in Galatians that says the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the two are contrary, one to another. To me, all of life is at war.

Everything in this earth has an enemy. Every positive has a negative. And there's struggle, there's war going on. The Moody Science films show this. I love those films. Boy, they've been a great factor in my life.

Especially when I went to rent one and found Greta behind the desk. That's how we met. But that's got a positive and a negative as well. She's the positive factor and I'm the negative. But as we look back over 1974, being as objective as we can in the light of God's Word, in the light of the history of missions, in the light of the present day mission situation, that must be kept in order.

And I stay very much plugged in to the missionary situation of our day as much as I can. I had a thrilling time with Christian leaders in Los Alamos. It was a great experience. It almost blew my mind.

Positive and negative hit me like, you know, every five minutes I went out at home. There's so many negative things about such conferences. But the positive thing, the positive thing was the people. People that God is working in.

And I was really blessed, fellowshipping with Lauren Cunningham, the head of YWAM. I was greatly blessed in fellowshipping with Jack McAllister, a man I have never been able to understand. He and I are so different in so many ways.

And so similar in other ways. And he and I sat down and had our hearts finally linked. You see, he switched me off ten years ago because I was in California and I was going to see him first and then Bill Brighton.

And he just chopped up Bill Brighton. I couldn't believe it. He was really anti-Bill Brighton those days. He told me, don't waste your time seeing him. That was before Bill Brighton was really in order.

Head of Campus Crusade. They both lived around a flock of each other. Things since then have united. That really frightened me. Plus, when I talked to him, I didn't get any words in edgewise. When he told me I had 60 overhead in his organization, I just thought.

But over the years, I've seen how God is so great, so sovereign, and I've seen and used those every home crusade people out in India. So I wrote him a letter. After many years of silence, when you ever get the silent situation with somebody, you write the letter.

Don't wait for them to write you. So I wrote him. And I said, look, praise God, Jack, for this work you're doing in India. He wrote me back. And said something. He said he read the discipleship manual.

He thought it was a real thing. And we met in Los Angeles. And I tell you, I was encouraged. Meeting this man, I don't agree with it. But I admire him. And it, again, broadened me. And I think most of you want me to stay a little broad, huh?

Because if I don't stay a little broad, some of you may find yourself on the end of that foot. That's being too blunt. Of course, I probably couldn't kick anybody out of OM if I tried. But I may try and somebody would get hurt.

The reason I think that OM has a broad spectrum of people we're willing to work with is because, to some degree, God has broken into my head, into stubborn head, about this. Well, I never dreamed, of course, that anything would ever happen.

In terms of money, that didn't even enter my head. Because I know they're up to their necks with the budget. Boy, they have a budget. Somehow, they are tithing now to Operation Mobilization. We've had three checks for $4 ,000 each from dear Uncle Jack out in California.

Well, I don't know what meaning that's supposed to have. But, I praise God. As you know, last year, Youth with a Mission sent us two checks of $3 ,000 or $4 ,000 each in the midst of their crisis. They lost $50 ,000 on their ship.

And it's been God breaking me and enabling me to accept these other groups. I always had, to some degree, with many wrestlers, that I have been able to somehow, also, to some degree, accept the struggles that I expressed to you in the depth of my heart last night.

And in saying this, I would say that 1974 has been a phenomenal year in this world. And anybody who comes discouraged, apart from a few attacks to the enemy they have, after seeing what God has done this year, you need to re-read your Bible.

You need to re-read your Bible. God has answered prayer. The prayers we prayed last year, over in Barrow Baptist, one of the funniest little conference centers we've ever had, have been answered. And we should be praising.

Some of you, all you do is come to the conference, the Coordinating Conference, and you catch me, this and that. But I happened to preach two nights before I got here, very strongly on the subject of joy and rejoicing.

I believe as strong in that as I believe in weep with those that weep. I preached on that a few days before that, where Paul said he was in great heaviness and continual sorrow. And where he says in Corinthians that we are sorrowful, yet always rejoice.

I was in great sorrow last night for various reasons, but by God's grace I came through to rejoice. And you will have these experiences. Great sorrow. You see some of your faithful men go down with two.

You see some of your programs blown into the sky. You see some of your dreams collapse. Every man of God has had that experience. And Brother Pump expressed that very, very well. So I believe 1974 has been a tremendous year.

It's been a year of many answers to prayer. I wrote a memo a year ago, through Greg's encouragement, but I wrote a memo through his encouragement, after so many of my negative memos, you know, shape up, discipline yourself, get up, holy things.

I don't believe for a minute, you know that if you've listened to my tapes. I don't know if any of you listen to my tapes, some still are. But I don't believe that's true spirituality. I say 100 amen to what George said.

I do know that I miscommunicate. But if I get carried away on literature evangelism, and the only time you ever heard me preach was on literature evangelism, have you go out of there thinking that I'm screwing.

So 1974 has been a tremendous year. I am very, very encouraged. I have tremendous struggles through certain areas. So let's be specific. First of all, the ship has encouraged me beyond words. And I can speak more objectively about the ship because I'm no longer the leader.

The Ship and the Work in Turkey

How can you speak about that when you're not what you're leading? People will think you're egocentric. Because most of you already know I have that problem. So I can speak anyway. I want to tell you, if you can't get stirred up about that ship, if that doesn't excite you, probably even to some degree, at times more than your own field.

Because it is the most unusual thing certainly God has brought our way. That's not pitting it or putting it against your field. And I just told George Milan that I am not in favor of this deck extension.

I'm not in favor of a lot of these things until the rest of the work around the world is more reinforced, financially, manpower, and everything else. Then we'll think about extending the next. Now, I can change my mind next week because this guy is an influential person.

And look who he's married to. And, you know, two against one. But, plus he's got his whole crew down my neck. But, of course, you're probably on my side to some degree. I believe, this is a separate message, I haven't got time for it, the work in Turkey must be reinforced.

We must be committed to Turkey ten times more than the extension of the decks of the ship or the second ship. And George Miley says amen. Please say amen. Thank you. If you think he's a yes man, you're really confused.

But the work in Turkey must be reinforced. We've got to go into these universities, Yale, Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, Doolittle, wherever, whatever university, we've got to get some men to go to Turkey.

How many of you will pledge yourself to that? You don't need to pray about it, just raise your hand. How many will pledge themselves to put Turkey a little bit more in the forefront this year? Those who can, raise your hand, you can write to me.

I love to get letters from you guys. You can pray about that. There's a lot we can do to reinforce Turkey. But the first thing is prayer. Everywhere we go, we must give the challenge of Turkey. Everywhere we go, we must get this filmstrip on Turkey.

People who produce the filmstrip, they want to do 20 copies. This is the kind of winky dink, mishy mouse vision we have in this work. You can't produce 20 copies of anything for Operation Mobilization.

Not even a tissue to blow noses, because there's 900 people. And many of them have colds. So let's show the Turkey filmstrip. Let's put Turkey on the map. Linked with that, the whole Muslim world must become the central main focus of the movement.

Mission Priorities Across Europe and the Muslim World

Now to keep that in balance, in no way am I chopping at anybody here. I am absolutely fanatically sold out on the work in France. Let's get the record straight. Rumors finished. The only reason I don't go to France more, I don't speak French, I have an inferiority complex, and they don't need me.

Maybe once a year at the France Museum I can give a message, so they know I'm still in favor. That's a political move. But I believe fanatically in the work of France. It was the first country I ever went in.

I stood in the streets of Paris and almost got hooked by a prostitute. That's the truth. But instead I gave her a track, and I just thank God for that day. The first one that ever walked up to me and took my arm.

You know you don't have that every day, not where I came from. My wife of course was praying. I'm also very, very convinced at this stage about the work in Belgium. I believe Belgium is a strategic little place.

This place is as paving, as lawn, it's as much a desert of need as many other countries where since the ship has visited. Now Miley needs to listen to this because your vision for Europe has did a little bit, hasn't it?

A little bit? You could have just told me. Asia, Asia. Now basically I agree. I have the advantage of going to all these places, and every place I go to just gets into my bloodstream. But I believe we have got to continue this thrust in Belgium.

Case and wrong is more radical in some ways than case. They're very cooperative. Last year we had a big argument about how many people they should have, and they know that I believe we should watch the numbers.

I don't believe the impact is in direct proportion to the numbers, especially the long-term people. But I'm for that effort. I'm very much convinced about the work in Spain. Daniel Dandalus told us today in a private meeting he feels the work has got five times better than it ever has when he was caught in the O .M. straightjacket.

Now I can almost grab onto that and want to peel everything off in that way. But as I've thought about that objectively, it's not easy to be objective, and my temperament is the hardest. You know that.

That's why you're praying for me. But I believe objectively every field is different. Every field is different. Because so much depends on the man. There's no other Daniel Gonzales in this room. Not one.

There's no other Giovanni de Finis in this room. And so this very much depends on you. I was willing to see France go off and be on its own if that's what they want. If they came to me, or Mike came to me, they don't want that.

They feel they need the O .M. structure. They need the impetus. I don't know what they need. They can tell us that. But they want the structure. John Corrida came to me today. He's a little bit shaken by a few things I've said.

He seems to also want this O .M. structure. Now if some of you leaders want this O .M. structure, if you want the Zobington Finance Office, the recruiting program, the literature, the impetus, the slides, the films, the funnel that channels men all over the world, then we'll keep it.

It's your decision, not mine. But if you don't want it, you tell me. And together, we'll take it down. Piece by piece. Some countries don't need it. Others do. So I just want to say that I have committed for a long-term work in Europe.

It was never the policy of the work that the work in Europe was short-term. The policy was that the priority is the Muslim world. But God showed me, what was it, 11 years ago, that one of the main priorities in my life was the British Isles.

He showed me that I should be an immigrant to Britain and that this should become, basically, my homeland, if possible. The only problem in that is whether my children will be able to adapt to that. It's a tricky little thing for children.

You can't inflict on children. My children cannot get away with being British. The children in the school tell them they're Yankees, and they've got them convinced. They've got a Yankee passport, and so I can't inflict on them.

Otherwise, I probably may even have a British passport by now. Not because I don't like America. I love the United States. The more problems America has, the more I love it. I always liked problems. I have more burden for the states now that were in such a mess than I was when we really thought we were the muscle flexors of the world.