Appendix One
"A Tribute to Roberta
Winter"
January 8, 1930 - October 28, 2002
After a courageous and defiant five-year struggle against multiple myeloma (a rare form of bone cancer) Roberta Winter, co-founder of the U.S. Center for World Mission with her husband Ralph Winter, passed away on Sunday, October 28, 2001. At her memorial service Ralph Winter was quoted as saying, "I remember her as a beautiful, intelligent, vivacious, loyal, affectionate and utterly honest person, who was always 'ready for anything.' "
Roberta Anne Helm was born January 8, 1930, in Industry, Kansas at the beginning of the Great Depression. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father was a cowboy-turned-shoemaker. She had four sisters and two brothers.
Roberta loved to sing, and as a teen sang in a trio with two of her sisters at churches, the nearby army base, and on the radio. She also loved to read books, and always had a love for flowers and poetry. But from her youth the most important thing in her life was her deeply personal walk with God. During her college years she trained to be a missionary nurse, working at the LA County hospital, and graduated from USC at the top of her class.
A whirlwind courtship (ask for the booklet "Five Months and a Week" ) led to their marriage in 1951, Roberta worked side by side with Ralph as he completed
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his doctoral degree, as well as doing special-duty nursing to help with expenses. During this period, her work alongside Ralph established a life-long intellectual partnership that would be a hallmark of their life and ministry together for almost 50 years.
After Ralph's seminary and ordination in 1956 they began their ten-year period of ministry to a Mayan tribe in Guatemala. Roberta continued to work as a nurse, writing a medical handbook for rural pastors, and raising a family (now consisting of four daughters). She also found time to develop an adult education course. She continued to partner with Ralph as he, along with others, developed the global Theological Education by Extension movement.
After their return to So. California in 1966, while Ralph was teaching at the Fuller School of World Mission, Roberta continued to partner with him, working with him in his office and even teaching his classes when he was away.When the School of World Mission needed missions books to be published, Roberta gladly took the lead in helping to found and direct the William Carey Library Publishers. During this time she learned much about publishing books. She also edited the first "Perspectives" Reader (Crucial Dimensions in World Evangelization), fine-tuning her own writing gift.
In the early '70s, when Ralph realized the extent to which unreached people groups had been overlooked, she took the great step of faith, along with him, of founding the U.S. Center for World Mission. She often said that being married to Ralph was like holding onto the tail of a comet.
At the U.S. Center she filled many roles, but the two that have endeared her to the most people worldwide have been her history teaching in the "Perspectives" classes and the book she wrote about the founding of the U.S. Center. Originally titled Once More Around Jericho and most recently printed as I Will Do a New Thing, more than 350,000 copies have been distributed in different editions, and even
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today people are reading her book for the first time and feeling like they have come to know her personally as a result. Even after she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 1996, she continued to teach and write and began revising her book one more time, but was unable to complete the revision.
One of her greatest achievements is that, in spite of all she accomplished in ministry, she managed to raise four daughters who not only love the Lord, but are also as committed in missions as she was. Never satisfied to simply deal with the knowledge she currently had, she boldly attacked any new challenge with the passion of a researcher. Even while battling cancer she corresponded with myeloma victims worldwide, keeping abreast of the latest research and treatments, as would a serious nurse.
She is survived by her younger sister, Vangie, her husband Ralph and her four daughters, Beth, Becky, Linda and Tricia.
The family has requested that memorial gifts be given to the:
Roberta Winter Institute
U.S. Center for World Mission
1605 Elizabeth Street
Pasadena, CA 91104
You can see more about this new Institute in the next Appendix, and / or write for more information, or visit www.uscwm.org/rwi
