August 1977
"Not Many Mighty"
(1 Cor. 1:26)
"Would $50,000 help?"
Hal Leaman gasped, then said, "It certainly would. Who is this calling, please?"
"Howard Ahmanson."
Two weeks before, on Friday night, Beth and Brad had gone to a seminar in Newport Beach led by Chuck Miller. Chuck had married them a year and a half before, and both of them had tremendous respect for his leadership in discipling.
At the seminar they were separated into small groups, each group studying the Bible in Chuck's unique, fresh way. As the weekend progressed, they became well acquainted with the others in their small groups. Beth was in Howard Ahmanson's.
"Ahmanson, Ahmanson . . . " she said to herself when first introduced. "Where have I heard that name before?" But she just didn't connect this young man in a Bible study setting with the Ahmanson Music Center in downtown Los Angeles, or with Home Savings and Loan.
Howard had become a Christian the year his father died
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and he became one of the trustees of the Ahmanson Foundation. It was a heavy burden for a young person still in college to carry, and he struggled under the load. Somehow, during that time he had become acquainted with young people involved with Chuck Miller and had been invited to come to his Bible study seminar.
In the course of that Friday evening someone in her small group asked Beth what she was doing, and a brief summary of the story of the U.S. Center for World Mission spilled out — all about the 2.4 billion people beyond the range of current mission efforts, the spiritual struggle with Summit, the desperate need for money, and the great challenge if we should succeed.
In the larger meeting later, Chuck echoed some of her words, speaking about the Center's tremendous need and the fantastic opportunities, should God grant us success.
Howard called us on a Monday. He could promise $50,000, he said, and could hope for $100,000 more. He didn't know it, but his gift was the beginning of a great groundswell of interest and response on the part of all sorts of people, none trustees of foundations, but many matching him in excitement about God's concerns. And his gift buoyed up our faith when we most needed it.
It also turned my hopes to foundations.
I was really counting on foundations. Over and over we had been told that it was impossible to raise big money in a short time without receiving a number of very large gifts from foundations or wealthy people. "All the Christian non-profit organizations depend on these foundations," those who knew told us.
It was hard enough, being novices, to find out which ones to approach. It was harder yet to approach them. A Wycliffe executive told us, "The proposal you write to present to foundations has to be good. Proposal writing is a specialized job that requires a lot of skill and usually costs several hundreds of dollars. But we believe in you. We will arrange
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for one of our proposal writers to do one for you."
The resulting proposal was good. It was professional. We were proud of it, and very grateful. Ralph took it with him along with a notebook full of background data, when he went to visit some foundations in the Southeast. The directors only glanced at the material, and started firing questions. That didn't bother Ralph. What would have troubled him is if they hadn't bothered to ask any questions at all. Some, he noticed, seemed genuinely interested.
Back home we prayed, "Surely, Lord this is the way You will answer our need. These people have money to give to Your cause. We need that money which belongs to You, and we need it in two weeks' time or we will lose the campus to those who will lead people away from You. What are You going to do about it?"
The foundations didn't turn us down — not exactly. They just didn't pick us up.
Maybe it was because we didn't give them enough lead time. Maybe it was the time of the year. Certainly it was not God's plan for that first payment, because the money didn't come — not that way! The only Christian foundation that helped us was the one related to Billy Graham. One Christian foundation told us, "If Billy Graham's foundation gives, we will too." Billy Graham did; the other did not!
"Evidently," we consoled ourselves, "God doesn't want this campus to be bought with the money of a few wealthy individuals. Perhaps He gets more glory out of the sacrificial giving of college students, missionaries, unsalaried people, and ordinary laymen from all sorts of backgrounds and from all kinds of churches."
I was often reminded of the verse, "Not many wise, not many mighty . . ." Some who easily could have given $1,000 gave only $15. Others, hard pressed, were embarrassingly generous. Students, working part time to pay their way through college, sent in $1,000 apiece. A girl who was to be a bride in a few weeks gave her wedding money.
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Missionaries gave their entire savings accounts. One girl sold her car, and then traveled to work by bus. People from very modest homes in the neighborhood around us walked into the office with $100, $200, and $500 checks.
What was really the hardest thing for me to accept was when our staff, who worked for us all summer without pay, gave from what little they had in their savings accounts, saying, "The Lord has provided for us thus far in a miraculous way. Surely we can trust Him to continue."
We presented programs in local churches, and were grateful for their gifts. Two, both in Portland, Oregon, matched the generosity of those students in their unusual and amazing way. One was Bethlehem, Gene Davis's church. The other was Aloha.
Aloha, also a Baptist church, was like a sister congregation to Bethlehem. Some of its members had heard Ralph speak at a banquet sponsored by the Bethlehem church. They wanted their church to get in on the blessing of proving what God can do for those who truly trust Him and asked Ralph to speak at their church on a Sunday morning near the end of August. They hoped to match Bethlehem in its large gift.
"We don't know how to tell you this," they greeted Ralph when he arrived at the Portland airport several months later.
"Yes?"
"Well, our church burned down last night. Someone set fire to it, and the main sanctuary burned completely down. We have a suspicion that it may be somehow connected to the public stance the church has taken against allowing homosexuals to teach in our schools. This is the sixth church in the area to have a mysterious fire in the last few months, and almost all of these were active in that vote."
"What should I say in a situation like this?" Ralph thought. "I can still talk about missions and about the 2.4 billion who need to hear, but how can I ask these people for money to help us get that campus so we can reach the unreached?
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They are going to have to rebuild. They won't be building to have greater or nicer facilities. They have to build in order to have a roof over their heads. What can I say?"
He spoke at both services the next morning, held in a large room in the education building. After the service, the pastor and elders met to discuss what the church should do about its building — and about the challenge Ralph had presented to them.
That evening Ralph heard an amazing report:
"We believe the Lord wants us to tithe our insurance adjustment on the fire," they told him. "We hope that will bring you about $50,000, but it may not come in all at once. Then maybe we can bring it up to $100,000 like the Bethlehem Church. We will do our best."
