September 1977
"He Does Everything Well"
(Mark 7:23)
"Roberta," Mercedes said to me one Monday noon in early August. "What do you think of putting on a benefit concert?"
Mercedes Gribble was the founder of Providence Mission Homes, an organization working closely with us which found housing for furloughed missionaries. She was a woman of great faith and persistence. And she was 100 percent for us. But her idea was a new one for me.
"I know absolutely nothing about such things, but why not? Who would do it?" I asked.
Norma Zimmer, her first choice, couldn't come. By the time Mercedes got her answer, she had already booked the civic auditorium for one of the only two nights it was available in September. What a shame to have to cancel!
"I have a good friend who knows Pat Boone very well," Ralph suggested. "He says he's a great, Spirit-filled Christian, really interested in missions. He is even on several mission boards!"
The idea of asking Pat Boone seemed ridiculous. He was far better known than Norma, and if she couldn't come,
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would he?
But Ralph called his friend, who called back to Mercedes. "You realize that Pat's schedule is usually very full, and that he gets $20,000 per performance. A benefit performance, of course, would be free. I'll ask him. You never know, he just might do it for you!"
Amazingly, the only night Pat Boone had free was the only other date available at the civic auditorium. His secretary, a wonderful Christian girl and a minister's daughter, had read about us in Christianity Today and was warmly sympathetic to our cause. "There is just one question Mr. Boone has," she said over the phone. "Is this project likely to succeed?" Mercedes took a deep breath and answered, "Yes." And that was that!
The next three weeks were a flurry of activity. David Bliss just happened to have had experience organizing a Leighton Ford crusade on Cape Cod and for a month or so postponed leaving for his missionary service in South Africa in order to help with the concert. The day he began to work on it, Mildred Rylander just happened to walk into our offices and volunteered her services. For years the extremely capable and efficient owner of a secretarial pool, she seemed to know just whom to call for whatever we needed. Moreover, because they knew her personally, almost without fail they donated their services.
Pat Boone's office had suggested we have a second performer who could spell him off for a breather from time to time. Mercedes remembered Nancy DeMoss, a talented young musician and head of the primary children's ministries at Lake Avenue Congregational Church, though she was only nineteen. For years she had been very interested in missions, she said, and added she knew Pat well, she had been in his home and he in hers. Of course she would help.
"We need some testimonials about the Center from well-known Christian leaders," David told Ralph, and they called
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Dr. Harold Ockenga at Gordon Conwell Seminary and Dr. Billy Graham. (It was quite exciting for our receptionist when Billy called back and told her who he was!) Both men were glad to help. David planned that we would call Ockenga from the concert and amplify the conversation so that the audience could hear. But Billy Graham's comments over the phone would have to be taped since he would be out of the country at the time of the concert.
David shook his head about that one. Where could we find decent recording equipment. That evening at the Prayer Council he had set up, he asked for prayer about it, and the vice president of the chain of radio stations just happened to be there and volunteered his equipment.
It was that way all along — providence after providence, God providing all the way. The concert could have cost us thousands. Except for the rental of the auditorium and the cost of printing materials, everything was free, from radio spots to graphic design to bouquets of flowers. Wonderful Christians in all sorts of businesses pitched in to help, even though they really didn't know us. How wonderful to belong to the family of God and to have such beautiful brothers and sisters!
As I look back, only God's grace kept David sane. Concert preparations, like conferences, take time. And that was what we did not have! So many things could have gone wrong, but didn't, in spite of our inexperience and frenzied preparations. And before we knew it, the night had come.
Seated several rows back out in front of the curtain, I froze when my sister tapped me on the shoulder and asked, "What are those tracts being passed out, out in front?"
"Oh, no!" I thought to myself, and went to look. There were two kinds, one put out by a semi-Christian cult (not summit), and the other by its detractors. The people passing them out were on public sidewalks, so there was nothing we could do. Going back inside, I glanced to my left and again froze when I saw an entire row of people dressed in light
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blue — all Summit top staff.
"Lord, it's in your hands," I prayed. "You have taken care of everything so far; don't let Satan spoil it for us now!" We didn't know until later how perfectly God answered that prayer.
Bob, inserting the slides for the multi-media into the carousel, realized that he had left one complete set in the studio several miles away. It was rush-hour traffic, and his car was ancient, but he got there and back just as Pat Boone walked in the door.
Because of the difference in time zones between the east and west coasts, Dave had scheduled the amplified phone call to Dr. Ockenga for early in the program. All the details had been carefully worked out ahead of time and Dr. Ockenga said he would be ready. Ted Engstrom of World Vision, our master of ceremonies, three times dialed the number Dr. Ockenga had given. But each time the operator responded, "I'm sorry. You have reached a number that is disconnected."
"Dial 1," someone in the audience called, and we all laughed.
Then Dr. Ockenga was on. "Dr. Ockenga, I have Pat Boone here beside me," Ted Engstrom began.
"Pat who?" In Southern California, that question brought down the house.
Pat was smooth in his performance, and warmly spiritual in his approach. Ralph told me later that he had tears in his eyes when Pat, at his specific request, sang "Jesus Loves the Little Children" (all the children of the world)."
Nancy also was very good, especially with the mission medley which she had worked out. And all the rest of us were having fun, wonderful Christian fun, happy in the Lord and in His care for us.
High up on one of the multi-media platforms behind the curtain, Bob was trying to catch his breath. He had been working all night and all day on the slide show, and then had that mad dash to the studio and back. But now at last his
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slides were ready. "How I wish we could have gone through this thing just once," he thought to himself. "But Lord, you know we haven't had time. We've done our best. Now please make it right?
I was pleased at how well organized everything seemed. Just the right pictures. Just the right words. The slides faded into the motion picture portion, then back again, only one slide slipping slightly at one point.
Out in front we didn't know the half of what was going on behind stage. The movie projector had started to smoke, and Bob was blowing on it furiously to keep the film from burning. By the time the slide projector clicked in again, it's light burning into Bob's eyes, he had become quite faint from hyperventilation, was losing his balance, and almost fell the twenty feet from the high platform where he sat. Out in front, we saw only the one slipped slide.
That was the way the entire evening went. To those of us out in front, it was a beautiful, polished performance. Backstage, only God held it together. Not one of us could doubt that this was another of His miracles.
