The Birth of Om — George Verwer

Well, if you haven't been you will be this summer. I'm haunted by the lack of time. I I yearn to be able to keep my eyes open longer and To get more hours out of the day. Be able to get up earlier. It's just so much to be done.

Now don't forget those girls exercises. How many girls are coming out for the exercises tomorrow morning? Look at that. Look at that Revivals sweeping through the auditorium. I'm not gonna leave them.

I Don't know the women's exercises, but we had two girls volunteer to lead them at 630 in the girls parking lot. Which is over here. The men's parking lot is over by the highway where the noise is and We believe that's a good thing.

Well, let's pray. Let's pray. Let's get our bearings for the message. Lord just help us to know what's on your heart. What's on your mind. You look to you. We praise you and worship you in Jesus name.

Speak. Oh God. Amen. Let's turn to Acts chapter 29. What are you laughing at? You know that acts ends in chapter 28? Now some of you of course knew that ahead. Because you've heard my tape what happened to acts 29.

Acts 29 and the Continuing Work of the Holy Spirit

You know, it is interesting in quite a few churches to see the dear Saints paging through their Bibles and all seriousness looking for acts 29. Especially Embarrassing when the pastor behind me is paging away.

But I believe that we are acts 29 and really I don't have any message tonight above any kind of Outline or anything. I just want to share from my heart something of the early history of this work. Somebody said to me some years ago and I never forget it was an OM leader every once in a while they say something really good and.

And he said he believed the spirit of OM had to be born again. Every year in each individual. Any movement of the Holy Spirit. I would tell you if I didn't believe that this was a movement of the Holy Spirit of God.

If I thought it was a man-made organization, I would get out tonight and the leaders I think the leaders who I know that I would. I Want to move where the Holy Spirit is moving? I don't want to invest my short life in something that doesn't count.

I don't even waste one year. And I know that the Holy Spirit Can leave a movement and Ichabod can be written across the front of it. You know what Ichabod means? You should you know. It means a spirit of the Lord after departed can happen.

This is why every year we need the spirit. The spirit of what God did in the beginning even though it will continue to grow and mature and change and we don't expect you To be exactly the same way. We were in the beginning, but but we believe the vision the impetus the compassion the spirit of abandonment and Love must be born again Year after year and I think you deserve to know something of those early days.

I Don't share this much. In fact, I'm not sharing this probably in a similar way since last Year in Detroit and I can tell you one of the reasons I'm sharing it tonight because a brother Don Hammond Who encouraged me after that message last year and said it was really meaningful.

I don't know what's meaningful and what is not meaningful and The last thing I want to do is blow my trumpet really I know I'm so scared of doing that. I Was greatly encouraged by Paul Tornier. I tell you he's a man to read.

I'm ashamed that we don't have some of his books. I want to apologize for our selection of books. It's not Bernie's fault. We've just got so many things to do. We got so many books so much money invested in these books.

We can't keep up with all the good books. It takes a very skilled trained man. Bernie's just come into this job to keep up with all the really tough books. You'll see a lot more when you come over to Belgium but Paul Tornier is a man you'll want to read and He believes that it is relevant and sensible and good to speak about ourselves.

Not everyone who speaks to you about himself is on an ego trip. In fact, we can overreact against speaking about ourself. Because in fact our ego is too much in fact Paul Tornier was a great encouragement to me on it of just feeling free about myself.

I'm a human being. I respect myself. I accept myself. I have a story to tell because God has worked in me. And I I don't want to blow the trumpet, but I want to pronounce the truth. And I want you to know what God did and why we are the way we are today.

It's so difficult to communicate in these few days. Why we believe certain ways. Why we are a bit what some people think is fanatic concerning the use of God's money. Why George never hasn't bought himself a new suit and he's got a Charlie Chaplin pants and whatever else.

According to Leonard Ravenhill. He's not always the most accurate preacher. But I Believe with all my heart it will help you to understand something of what God did in early days and I Hope this will ring of Acts 29 or Acts 1340 or wherever else we are in the continued work of the Holy Spirit.

Unity With Other Works of the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is working in many different ways. I want to be the first one to say that OM is only one. Only one of many many ways that the Holy Spirit is working and it is one of our greatest burdens to esteem these tremendous other groups.

Actually, I had invited Glenn Wagner of the Pocket Testament League to be here and speak to us. He was unable to come. He was one of the great original four horsemen of the University of Minnesota many years ago those back a long way.

He never got hurt playing football, but he broke his finger. I think passing out Gospels in the in Asia. He was a great influence on my life. One of many many influences and the Pocket Testament League to me is a great work of the Spirit of God.

Harry Lou Alfred Coons and Many that are going on today. It was a Pocket Testament League gospel that I received. Back in those early days praise God for every work every movement of the Holy Spirit. Right down to the last local church.

The last prayer cell most of you know the original story because that's given more often. Dear lady praying for high school 15 years. Prayed for me for three years. Sent me a gospel John actually in the name of her son who was a very godly brother whose life made an impact on me.

I Read this gospel for two or three years. Few other people were praying for me. Don't want to go into the details of my Selfish little life some of you have heard that. Which sometimes I use when I'm speaking to unconverted people.

She Prayed for me for three years. I went to the Billy Graham meeting my heart prepared by the gospel. I was converted to Christ. I went back to that high school. We had a distribution campaign with Pocket Testament League Gospels at a thousand students in this ungodly high school outside New York City to promise to read a gospel of John.

That very very very first year we saw maybe a dozen or two come to the Lord. Just after I graduated and went back to the high school. We had a meeting and 125 young people came forward in the high school auditorium into the cafeteria to accept Christ as their personal Lord and Savior and Then a year later when Billy Graham came back in 57 I don't know how many more came to Christ in that high school.

Her prayers were answered. Some of you know that she is going to be with us on the campaign this summer. Mrs. Craft and her husband both of them wonderful people of God and We're looking forward to their visit to all and after all these years.

She's very much wanted to remain in the background. She's a very very ordinary woman. God moved in that high school. I can remember the very first night of prayer. You're all teenagers 16 17 didn't go very long.

And then in 57 when Billy Graham came to New York, we organized nights of prayer. I remember one of the first ones was in an Episcopalian Church. It was a very interesting night. I Remember another one was in a reformed church my old church, which was basically liberal and I was trying to bring in a bit of revolution at that time and In fact hired a bus for that campaign out of a church parking lot.

About that time my father who was a deacon and didn't know Christ Was on his way toward the Lord and even though he was an usher in the Billy Graham meetings in 57 he went forward when there was a call to come to Jesus Christ and Then he came to know the Lord.

But I remember in that church. We organized the night of prayer and I Invited all the pastors and all different kinds of people. And I really thought a night of prayer this has got to go right through the morning eight o 'clock in the morning.

And I told you know, I was a rather naive. Say the least, you know, I thought some of these people would come and pray right on. Well about midnight. There wasn't anybody left one or two others. Now I was rather too stubborn.

I felt we should pray on about one or something. I guess everybody left. Well, I didn't make it. I prayed and prayed and fell asleep on the kitchen table. Woke up at about seven o 'clock in the morning.

That was one of the first nights of prayer that I ever experienced. So don't feel too bad if you fall asleep in a night of prayer. You can always have a partner and agree to wake each other up. If he's willing to stay on that long.

Early Evangelism and the Importance of Follow-Up

I Mentioned these things that are because there's a danger that you you think you're too young to really be involved all out in this kind of spiritual revolution. But we were only 17 and 18 at that time.

I think I was 17 and a half. When those meetings were born the original name of this work with very few people I've ever even hardly heard of. It was very very dull. It was called Christian Youth Committee.

Dear me, I only found that out when I saw the picture of the original Dodge truck that went to Mexico and I had CYC on it. Christian Youth Committee. The story of the first campaign in Mexico is a very interesting one and I tend to drag it out.

I have to try to condense it. I went to college right here in Tennessee Presbyterian school that I thought was evangelical. It had been evangelical it had gone completely neo-orthodox and liberal. They mocked Any kind of biblical Christianity.

And they're in the province of God, oh I tell you the province of God. I met Dale rotund. He was a year older than I was. I Was warned about him. I hadn't been on the campus a week and I was warned about Dale rotund.

I was a freshman. I was green. I had only been converted about a year and a half two years. I had already recommitted my life to Christ. In that summer. I still have one of my businesses is firefighting Apparatus business and I drove as an old truck all the way to Las Vegas selling firefighting equipment and it was in Grand Canyon my mother told me no matter what don't you dare go to California, so I only went to the border and came back.

But I remember in Grand Canyon does God ever speak to you through natural beauty. I tell you how we should thank God for the natural beauty of this country. I have been all over the world and There's the natural beauty of this nation is completely beyond beyond me and Grand Canyon and That part Zion National Park north of there, right?

You just just Can't can't believe it and I went out on the edge of one of these rocks. I love rocks and mountains and I just recommitted my heart again to Jesus Christ. I had actually chosen Maryville College because they still had dancing.

I was a fanatic dancer at Some people I remember some Christian tiptoed up to me. The Christians in high school were all scared of me then, you know, which way I was going. When I got saved there are only few of them they all seem to be scared of their shadows.

They said did it George, you know, then we don't believe in dancing. I'm not even dancing. I Had never heard anything about not dancing Billy Graham. I didn't touch that in that message. He had preached that I had to forsake dancing you come to Jesus Christ where I would have Forget it.

You know It's amazing how God is so gracious with us on our weak points and I found this person solves about dance. Boy, I took that Bible look buddy. But it was that summer just before going to college.

Around that time that I recommitted my life there in Grand Canyon. But I went to my own sister's wedding and they wanted me to put on a little dance Exhibition rock and roll and was just coming in. We were more or less still Jitterbugging that shows you how dated I am.

And that was just going out and the twist and rock and roll and all this kind of stuff. Which is really really really fantastic. It's good. I got out of it. But at that wedding When they asked me to do this little dance exhibition, I thought Lord is anything better I can be doing in this.

Is this really the way to? Demonstrate your life and I went out into the woods outside that that it was a bar really and I prayed to the Lord God is this thing this dance. I'm such a grip on my life. Is this really right.

It's often you know, man can't can't do something Takes God to break in and as I walked back from the woods my atheist grandfather I'd never witnessed to walked out of the bar. He's very upset. Somebody upset him.

He was an excitable man. I tell you my grandfather who and for the first time I had a chance to share some Jesus Christ with him and It it came together in my mind. This is the better thing to do every minute sharing Christ every minute the work of the kingdom.

Don't think I ever danced again. There's a real big experience my life. Anyway, I arrived at that college with all the dancing every day they had dance after lunch. And I never did dance once but then I met Dale wrote on and brother Dale I was warned about him and They said poor lunch out for this fellow.

He's baptizing guys in the shower and They've got these extremist prayer meetings. Going on they're praying for everybody at the dances and they're praying for all of us sinners and People used to go by my door at college and I'd sing Jesus say Jesus saves green stamps.

They'd laugh and go down in their room. We had many pre-ministerial students. Most of them are agnostics. Pre-ministerial students and big gigantic pictures of nudes at the end of their bed. I thought that was the new liberty some of our seminaries.

This was true 20 years ago. 17 years ago knows now what it is. One of the first places they take you when you get to the seminary is down to the special rooms. Underneath the seminary where the fellows and girls shack up together after the parties seminaries.

Anyway, they're at college. I met Dale. I remember when we first talked we were walking back from a little Presbyterian Church. And and I knew here was a man who was just completely sold out hungry for God.

And almost everything he said everything he did made an impact on me then he introduced me to one or two others. He introduced me to a Hungarian. He was thinner than I was. I tell you this guy's put your hand around his chest.

He. But he almost died as a Hungarian refugee. But all the love of Christ, this was another major influence in my life the love of Jesus he showed. It was a beautiful thing. Beautiful thing and I met just a few others and I remember one night we got on a bus.

Now I've been distributing literature house-to-house, but I hadn't caught the vision yet. I'm just giving it everywhere. No on the bus a Little bit, you know a little bit reserved my own money funny way and I remember getting on the bus with a few of these other believers and Bang to have a move down the bus given our tracks.

And I you know, I was a bit still bit of a phony and I you know, I just immediately. Oh boy, give me a Jackson. I moved down a bus, you know, I've been doing it for 20 years. First time I ever gave out tracks in the bus.

I Never stopped after that. We went into Knoxville. Knoxville is one of the most significant cities in my whole Christian life. I used to hitchhike to Knoxville every almost every weekend work among the people in the bus station and among the trumps and then with you for Christ a little bit and And.

And that and that one time we were on the bus we were going to the two Elderly people living outside Knoxville called mom and pop Goodman and they lived in a little old lighthouse. Funny little place.

I never met two people in my whole life. So totally given over to world missions. I just can't both of them gonna be with Jesus. That one night in their house was just another major influence. It was in that house that I heard the testimony of Boston Trotman on tape.

And hit me like a ton of bricks. It was in that house that I heard about the great work of HC JB. Was in that house said that I saw these two people with pictures of missionaries throughout the entire living room.

Every inch was covered almost with pictures of missionaries and they were praying they were praying. They had had to come back from Latin America because of health and they were just totally given over.

They had a few of us students out trying to warm our hearts for missions. So many influences God uses in our lives. It's amazing, isn't it? You've had many of you the same experience. We started to pray together a few of us at Maryville.

I Started to work in the local jail. I started to work down among the down-and-out children and I started to read More and more Christian books. Christian books in the first year of college just began to come into my life.

It only been a few before that time. Because I was very much out of the evangelical Stream. I remember when I got my first Bible and was told that I was allowed to market. I didn't know you can mark a Bible and I remember almost when my first pen marked my Bible and I started to mark this Bible was in those first Year and a half in college that I received the foundation from the Lord.

Prayer, Scripture, and the Growth of a Missionary Vision

Forever went to Bible school of the orientation tapes that are listened to to this day. I went through and underlined all specific subjects every verse on love and then listed them every verse on unity and listen to them.

Every verse on prayer listed it every verse on this subject. That's have you had a big long piece of paper I put on my desk listed all these verses and I thought this this this is God's direction and then in God's mercy I was able to take a correspondence course on soul winning.

From a movement that unfortunately went completely screwing and the director committed adultery and married his secretary. God used that that that little course on soul winning. To challenge me to to win a specific number of souls the week.

It's true that I probably lack knowledge. It's true that I probably did some of this in the flesh. I think a great danger in our thinking is when we become black and white thinkers. You're all the flesh.

You're all in the spirit. I tell you my life is a long history of being in the flesh in the spirit many times at The same time he's a random and I never heard that before. Well, you can study but sometimes it's true that I force people to accept Christ.

I Had learned that a self. When I went into the Knoxville bus station after studying my lessons on the correspondence course on soul winning. I believe you say that's that's not scripture, but I believe that God was going to give me souls.

And I tell you I must have offended a few people. I tried to listen to everybody but Sometimes perhaps I was a little rough. And almost every week someone came to Christ almost every week or two weeks someone in the jail came to Christ.

I'm sure some of them were not real. I kept a list of those people. This is 19 years ago. I'm still praying over that list. I Have it written. I have a little book one of my The most important principles of my whole life and I yearn for it to be true of this whole movement is That every person who comes into your life for any length of time is significant.

Now every person is significant. You can't do something for everybody when you start meeting a lot of people. I Remember Jim Shemansky the first young man to accept Christ in that jail 19 years ago. I wouldn't be able to give you his name if I didn't remember.

Unfortunately, he didn't make it they shifted in Nashville, Tennessee he went on for the Lord for a couple not two years even opened the door for me to preach in the state penitentiary in Nashville and then saw a lot of upsetting experiences in the prison he backslid and in my early Christian years the most devastating life-shaking things.

Connected with the people. I thought I had led to Christ when they backslid. Just just shouldn't and I saw that five percent of the work was leading a man to Christ. I saw this before I was 20 years of age and 95 of the work was follow-up building a loving relationship with that person feeding it on the Word of God showing him you cared laying down your life for him being walked on being spit on and Just keep giving and giving and giving and giving.

There are many other lessons that I learned back there at Maryville College, Tennessee. Significant that we're back in Tennessee tonight. There's not time to tell them and I saw that God worked through prayer and I saw on and believed that this was the main thing must be the main thing of my life.

I believe I was 17 or 18 when when somewhere I think was my own room back in Jersey. That I said to God only one thing I want in life I want to learn to pray. I Want to learn to pray. This seemed to be the key thing.

I saw this in a number of ways, especially in the life of mrs. Clap the lady who prayed me into the kingdom. Well, I remember brother Dale Was an unusual person and And In some ways we were going separate ways.

He actually fell in love with a girl around that time after he convinced me completely of the bachelor life. Because my life was a bit interwound up with women before then and I really decided to lay off this for a couple of years about a few weeks later old Dale Fell in love with this girl.

They spent most of their time memorizing scripture. And I wanted to go out and go to the jails and go to Knoxville. So we didn't we didn't go out too much. But he continued to be a major influence and when God put it on my heart to go to Mexico.

The First Mission to Mexico

That's a long story. I've got time to tell I went to Dale and I said Dale look would you come to Mexico? Well, he had already signed up in summer school at Wheaton. He was already getting out of Maryville.

He was a good student very bright. But he wanted to get out and go to Wheaton College. But he agreed to go we only then could go in August because he would be in Wheaton during all of July. So in July, I worked with the Billy Graham campaign.

Just from the local area as I mentioned to you. And then God had given me a Christian roommate of all things in that school. I had a born-again roommate and he became one of my closest friends and went to Mexico with Dale and I in August of 1957 about two years and a few months after my conversion I I Haven't got time to tell you all that happened how we got that first on vehicle.

We had nothing we had no money. I sold my fire extinguisher business most of it and sunk the money into Christian books. I Slowly was beginning to discover Christian books. So why did I went off to Wheaton to study?

Walter my roommate and I decided in our own home area in the daytime the Billy Graham meetings right night. We're to go house-to-house with Christian books in our own town. Not only did we sell books we made a profit of about four dollars an hour selling Christian books to non-christians and Jews.

And don't let anyone tell you you can't sell Christian books. We used to load our car and go door-to-door and what exciting times we had. God gave us some prayer partners and in those days some of the men who became our prayer partners are still on the board of directors today.

They've stood with us 17 and 18 years. When they first agreed to come on the board, which is a year after what I'm just talking about now. How does a miracle? We bought this old truck for $150 a 1949 Dodge this was 1957.

I Tell you it was old. And we trusted God. He supplied finance in strange ways. I even got a job teaching Spanish. I didn't even know Spanish and I got about five dollars an hour for teaching Spanish.

The guy was a funny fellow. He had about 25 30 cats living in this house where I had to go teach and Boy I tell you. Interesting situation, but I remember praying. We were constantly praying. We're having more extended prayer meetings.

We're also showing films locally and trying to win souls to Christ out of our home area in a high school. And I remember once driving the car my father had an old Pontiac. I was driving it down the road and a fox darted out under him from the bushes and Just stepped on the gas a little bit hit it.

$30 bounty. I think it was $30. I got on that Fox. I don't know if they still pay these things. This was some of the first money God was supplying For this work. Now I'm not. I am not exaggerating. There are people here like Livingston, you know.

Been listening to the story. For 10 or 15 years. Wait till I tell about him boy. You're gonna really get knocked out. But God was showing us that he worked through prayer. We were only kids. You're teenagers.

You're just I guess starting to go into that ripe age of 20. I thought by 25 you were out of date. I Looked at people 25. He's too old. Too old. We need young people. Interesting now we turn people down because we're there.

Well, you know, we look out. Some of yours are young. May God deliver us. Well, we went to Mexico. The vehicle exploded on the Pennsylvania Turnpike outside Harrisburg. I didn't know much about vehicles man, but my whole relationship with vehicles over the years has been a nightmare.

But even as we pulled out of my driveway in New Jersey, we had some literature. We had ordered literature from Moody Press. We're gonna pick it up in Chicago. We were told we never get across the border.

We were told every negative thing you could think of. We wrote the missionaries. Several wrote back hopeless impossible. Don't come. But this missionary John Beakman said come. I had met a sister going door-to-door in Midland Park, New Jersey.

You say come come and stay with a Whitcliffe Bible translators here in headquarters. Boy. That was a wonderful letter. Praise God for a few open-minded people. Short-term work was almost unheard of in 1957.

But God had put it on our heart. We didn't even know what short-term was. We weren't even thinking about what it was. I was just asked to fill up a huge document for somebody doing a PhD on short-term work.

I Could not answer one question. What were the social implications that led you in the short-term service? What were these implications that let. I couldn't answer the questions. I wrote the guy and said look man, this is beyond me.

What led me into short-term service. But God worked and we prayed there in Harrisburg and we spent the night in a skid row mission. Do you still call them that I'll never forget that night this place.

We didn't want to spend any money. We didn't have any hardly we're praying for an engine. We've been giving our tracks all day in the pen in the station the railway station, it's a good spot for evangelism.

We went into this skid row mission. I don't think I've ever told this story and I wanted me to take off my clothes all my clothes right there and in sort of public. And they put a sheet over me. I don't know if you've ever been in these places, you know.

They're afraid you have rice and so all my clothes went off and I got in the sheet. He said the dormitories down there and I walked down these stairs. Creaking stairs around the corner. There were about 100 beds.

Triple-decker, you know. Dark little light in the corner. Well, I was a bit, you know a bit apprehensive. Cost us a quarter I think. Anyway, I finally got in a bed and I was just about going to sleep and somebody started shaking.

You're in my bed kid, what are you doing in my bed? Car exploded out of the highway. This guy's shaking my bed. I'm dressed like an angel. I Tell you I wanted to quit and you'll have your experiences in OM2 and you'll want to quit.

And tell you when you lay down at one o 'clock in the morning after a night of prayer. And discover you're in the girls dorm instead of the boys. It can be a pretty heavy experience. But this is why I preach so often on the rest of faith.

Anyway, God worked he supplied a rebuilt engine. God touched some people's hearts who only found out about it by almost by accident. Perhaps this is a little sad part of the story, but the man who put that engine in Henry Reid Ike was a relatively Well wealthy man.

He drove a Cadillac in a big construction business. What happened in those days so hit Henry Reid Ike? They were never the same again. He sold his whole business and This is about two years after he gave us the money for that engine he launched out to Bolivia as a missionary at 57 years of age and He was flying missionaries doing a tremendous work for God with this plane.

He got all the licenses for flying at that age. He developed this skill. Flying missionaries all over Bolivia and evangelizing was only this year a few months ago. At Henry with four Bolivian Nationals got lost somehow and cry in a cloud.

I don't know made him in vertigo. I don't know what happened but he was taken to be with the Lord and It's people like this really that we owe a lot to. In fact, he was a man that paid for those original Gospels.

I can say it now because he's been the Lord that paid for those original Gospels to be given out in high school. I. And those of you who don't actively seek out prayer partners in the coming days. You're missing one of the major principles of this movement.

I have knowledge that I was weak back then. I knew I couldn't do it myself and God gave me men like Henry and And others who are living today and others who are with the Lord and they stood behind me in prayer as I went forward in fear and trembling.

Crossing Borders and Trusting God’s Provision

While we got to Chicago, we picked up the Gospels. We headed down to the border. We prayed so much about crossing that border. And those days Mexico was semi-closed. They were stabbing people for giving out tracts of Mexico in 1957.

Men's would sweep down on Protestant orphanages with torches burning to the ground. We don't discuss that much anymore. They were hard days for the Mexican Church persecution the persecution of the Christians in Mexico made the church grow and grow and grow.

And Anyway, the man who was to inspect our vehicle was completely drunk sort of looked into this old vehicle as black truck looked like a hearse and Go ahead the next morning. We were in Monterey. And we were giving out tracts in the middle of the street.

And I tell you I can't explain you what happened to us in that first summer. That's why I'm so convinced in taking Teams of young people out summer after summer. I must admit my flesh gets very tired of it.

I've been to 16 or 15 June conferences and I get everybody mixed up. I'm a far more sensitive person than perhaps anyone will ever know. I live at any conference like this. I live in perpetual frustration.

I Hate to forget people's names. I like to meet with everybody. I'm embarrassed to walk even down the corridor. You think I'm the big strong Christian leader prancing around here. I'm I'm almost scared to walk in that dining hall every day.

I hate to tell you that I'll be harder tomorrow. Because there's so many people and I feel sometimes Self-conscious and I I want to meet and talk to everybody and and I used to in the early days of the work.

There were six people ten people a dozen people. You can relate to them all you can know them all. Now the whole thing seems To be explosively out of hand. But the thing that has helped me in that is just a simple knowledge.

It's not my work. I'm just a tiny tiny tiny extremely tiny little part of a great work. And so I ought to relax and just pedal on paddle on and proceed for my faith. But In that first summer in Mexico, we saw God work.

I remember going into my first Mexican prison in Monterey. I tell you the way those men were living. I just couldn't believe I didn't know anybody lived that way anywhere in the world. Made the Nashville State Penitentiary look like a palace.

And God opened the door. We played gospel recordings. I was just learning to speak Spanish. We played gospel recordings. Hundreds lined up behind the truck. Listening and I saw that young nobodies who couldn't preach it who didn't know a thing could be used of God.

We had dozens profess Christ in that first campaign. We only had a month. We had some problems as well. We got sick. A standard part of missionary initiation is sickness. We were all sick up in the Whitcliffe Bible Translators headquarters.

I remember John Beekman coming up to visit to us. John Beekman is one of the first heart tracers. Ever put in a human being. They said he's supposed to be dead 15 years ago. He's a man. I mentioned this morning.