November 1977 - May 1978
"Seek Ye First The Kingdom of God"
(Matthew 6:33)
May, already! In three months the second half of our down payment would be due — another $650,000 — and we still owed $150,000 on the loans we had received the previous September. We had been very eager to pay off those loans quickly. But after October, 1977, the money came in trickles . . . or not at all.
Back in November, Ralph had asked us to take a step of faith that seemed a bit foolish under the circumstances. Many of us had assumed that we would pursue the wonderful visions the Lord had given us after we had secured the campus; we felt we were too busy to do so before. But Ralph was convinced we shouldn't wait.
"I believe God expects us to begin immediately with the work for which the campus is intended. Anyway, how can we ask people to give to us if we have nothing to show them but buildings?" he asked. "We have to prove why this place is essential to the cause of missions. We can't just raise funds to pay for the property.
"I know that trying to start new projects and raise funds
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at the same time is difficult, but I don't see that we have any other choice. Jesus promised that if we seek first His kingdom, He will give us all we need. We'll just have to believe that!"
There was so much to do. Could we do more, no matter how crucial it was? Ralph felt he needed advice, and called Dr. Harold Ockenga at Gordon Conwell Seminary near Boston. "Should we perhaps begin by offering a month-long student missions program during the inter-term month of January?" he asked Dr. Ockenga.
"Yes, I think you should," he responded. Bruce and Christy Graham, long-time volunteers with us and graduates of the SIIS as well as experienced in motivating students, offered to take on that job for us. It would not be simple. We still had only the one building, which fortunately had a kitchen where student means could be prepared. And just about that time a young volunteer — would you believe it? a professional cook — came to join us.
What about the adults? How could they be mobilized?
For two days we brainstormed, trying to figure out what we could do that would spread the vision of the unreached frontiers throughout the United States. The amazing miracle of the $850,000 that God had brought to us made us believe as never before that we should (in William Carey's words) "attempt great things for God and expect great things from God."
In just a few months we had our first World Awareness Seminars ready to be presented in nearby churches. Ralph wrote several key articles, which were published in key magazines. Our amateur staff produced brochures, charts and maps — anything we could think of that would help the church see the world yet to be reached.
Ralph was away speaking much of the time. He flew to Oregon, to North Carolina, to Boston. On speaking trips in Brazil, the Philippines and Hong Kong, he also worked to set up Sister Centers for Frontier Missions, of which there were
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soon four, later followed by dozens more.
There were also some really big projects that consumed our energy. Becky, our second daughter, recently graduated from Caltech, worked with Ralph to design and produce our first Hidden Peoples pie chart. I remember how shocked even Ralph and I were when she inserted the small symbols that represented the number of missionaries working in the different areas of the world. Some areas had so many missionaries that she had trouble fitting in all the little figures. In others — the Muslim world in particular — she had an ocean of space in which to place only half a figure.
I was busy at work with three projects of my own. It took me months to check my facts, search diaries and put on paper the thoughts which eventually became Once More Around Jericho, the earlier edition of this book.
Whenever my inspiration lagged, I worked to complete a 2' x 3' wall chart called "Two Thousand Years of Christian Expansion," with some help from Bruce and Ralph. Because desktop computers were not yet available and we had no graphic artists on staff, I spent weeks over the drafting board, pasting on hundreds of names of people who, down through history, took the gospel to cultures beyond their own.
I also helped to finalize our Word Study Concordance and Word Study New Testament. Every holiday for years, our daughters had worked with us on these tools, transferring the numbers in Strong's Concordance to the Englishman's Greek Concordance, and then adding, at the top of every entry, the page number where that Greek word was discussed in all the major reference works. With these, even a layman without any knowledge of Greek could go directly to the Greek words, allowing for a much richer and more accurate study of Scripture. At one point, the number of 3 x 5 cards became so massive that we asked and received help from the entire student body of the Bethany Missionary Fellowship in Minneapolis. By the fall of 1977, in spite of all the other distractions,
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it was almost done, the concordance lacking only an explanatory introduction and a final section comparing the Greek words in several of the early manuscripts. I assumed that Ralph would do these, but, as could be expected, he had no time. So I did them both, under his guidance.
Then, in February, 1978 Ralph asked us to take the hardest step of faith we had ever taken.
He had always been concerned that we not compete for funds with mission agencies. But with the massive amounts we needed, how could we do that? For several months we had prayed for God's guidance concerning a small, one-time-gift plan. And I confess that it was with a great deal of trepidation that I concurred with him that this idea was from God. (Didn't Christ feed 5000 men — plus women and children — with just five loaves and two fishes?) Basically, we would not ask for large sums of money but rather for a one-time $15.95 gift, the odd 95 cents to pay for the materials we would send in response to the $15 gift.
Not everyone was happy with this decision. By a sheer miracle we had made the first part of our down payment, and we had not limited our asking to small gifts. The amount we needed to pay in seven months was just as great as then. Would we not be foolishly tempting God's providence to put unnecessary limitations on how we raised funds? And if, by God's grace, we should be able to pay the remaining $650,000 due on the campus plus the $250,000 down payment for the houses, starting the following December every three months for years we would have to make large mortgage payments. Our only strategy to meet them, other than prayer, was to inspire 14,000 new people each quarter to give $15 apiece. But to reach that many people we needed a much larger staff.
I felt overwhelmed, as did most of the staff — perhaps even Ralph. With September coming closer every day, to be involved in anything other than fund raising seemed foolhardy, to say the least, especially if we had to somehow
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contact so many people that we didn't even know. But fundraising was only one challenge; we were doing all sorts of other things as well. We all laughed when Ralph commented one day, "It's sort of like building a boat out in the water," . . . and one of the staff added, "Yeah, while trying to win a race!" But little by little we seemed to be gaining, and that gave us heart.
Along about May still another responsibility was dropped in our laps, one which we could hardly refuse.
For some years, Ralph had been concerned about the need to give American college students in secular schools a more in-depth orientation to the missionary movement. Every three years he saw thousands of students go away from the Urbana Student Missionary Conventions ready to give their lives to missions. But without further inspiration, within a matter of months their zeal would wither away and eventually die.
After the Urbana meeting of December, 1973, while he was still a full-time professor at the Fuller School of World Mission, Ralph had started the Summer Institute of International Studies. It met for several years on the campus of Wheaton College in Illinois, utilizing mission professors from around the country for one week each. In the first three years, more than 200 students were really "turned on" to the cause of missions by what they learned there.
But Ralph was not satisfied. "That's barely 65 per year. Somehow we've got to get larger numbers," he insisted at the SIIS board meeting held in the winter of 1976 before the U.S. Center for World Mission was founded.
Several of the board members disagreed with him. Some were even irritated. "Fifty students is just the right number to try out something new," insisted one, an expert on educational models.
"If we have any more, we'll lose the sense of community, the feeling of closeness," another added.
Rarely have I seen Ralph so frustrated. He was thinking
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in terms of a movement, they in terms of a laboratory experiment. He wanted to inspire thousands of young people with a compelling new vision; they wanted to perfect an educational and community pattern. He had started the program yet, as a seminary professor, he had many other responsibilities. Reluctantly, at the board's insistence, he turned the program over to others to run.
I remember how Ralph paced the floor as he made that decision. "It's such an important tool for mobilizing students," he said. "We can't let it die. But Jack Frizen (then Executive Director of the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association) and I seem to be the only ones who feel it must grow rapidly."
As the months passed his "grow or die" fears proved well-founded. From a high of 120 students the summer of 1975, enrollment dropped . . . to 75 in 1976, 50 in 1977, and then . . .
In early May, 1978, Ralph sat listening, the phone to his ear. I could tell something serious was being discussed. Something serious . . . and a bit painful!
"Ralph, we have only 30 students enrolled for SIIS this summer. To break even at the University of Colorado where we intended to hold it, we have to have at least 60. I feel just terrible, but we're going to have to cancel the program. And I thought I ought to let you know."
Ralph also felt terrible. It was May already, really too late to do anything now. Whatever had gone wrong?
Our daughter Beth and her husband, Brad Gill, had met at SIIS the second summer after it started. He had come from Boston with a group of 21 students from Park Street church led by Bruce and Christy Graham. Brad recognized that without those early SIIS students, we would have almost no staff at all at the Center. Most were SIIS alumni.
"Dad," he said when he heard the news, "we came out okay with the 25 students we had here in January. Don't you think we can run the SIIS here? Anyhow, a lot of the professors
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we use come from this area. If we hold it here, we won't have to pay their travel expenses."
"Who would organize and run it?" Ralph asked. "I certainly don't have the time!"
The situation was far from ideal. After managing the January course, Bruce and Christy had gone to India on a survey trip, hoping to set up a follow-through program which would give IIS1 alumni a brief overseas exposure.
"You know, Brad," Ralph cautioned, "the one in charge has to have taken the course himself. With Bruce and Christy gone, that doesn't give us much choice. With so little staff, the personnel work you and Beth are doing is critical right now. Do you think maybe Beth could handle the personnel office by herself so you could run the SIIS?"
More work! Right when we faced a major financial crisis!
Worse, some of those who had registered for SIIS when it was scheduled for Colorado decided to drop out. We were left with only five registrants. "In order to make ends meet, you'll have to get at least 20 more before classes can start," Ralph warned.
Like the crew of a becalmed vessel caught in the doldrums of a motionless sea, we had watched helplessly as the days and weeks came and went, wondering how God could possibly deliver us from all our problems. But, paradoxically, the almost impossible challenge to rescue the SIIS course served as a wind to fill our sails. God had called us to serve, not to save ourselves. Our duty was to obey faithfully. The results were His responsibility.
Our young staff swung into motion, arriving at 6 A.M. to call SIIS alumni whom they knew all over the country. They asked them for names and phone numbers of other students who might be interested in taking the course, and then called those. Incredibly, within three weeks they had recruited another 25 students.
With the students came the need for a dormitory, a cafeteria,
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and a classroom — all in existence across the street, but inaccessible to us for three more months. In the meantime we had to make do and pray that, by fall, God would send us more students (or agencies) to help fill the campus which would be ours if, indeed, God did work another miracle.
I had always thought that when Jesus told us to "seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness," He was speaking of our need to seek salvation. And I am sure that in one sense He was. Now, however, I believe this verse refers far more to our priorities as Christians. If we we'll put His concerns first — if we will seek to advance and spread His kingdom, even if it means possibly jeopardizing a work to which He has called us — He promises to give us "these other things" as well: food and clothing, and all the other things for which we need money.
The seminars, the book, the historical chart, the concordance, the IIS study program, the talks Ralph gave all over the world — all these were done to advance His kingdom. In the time of our greatest financial need we had very little time to raise money. Would God really provide the funds we needed?
It was His promise; thus He had pledged Himself. We would rest on that.
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1. I have used the terms SIIS and IIS somewhat inter-changeably. The original organization was the Summer Institute of International Studies (SIIS), which operated only in the summer. In January, 1978, however, we began on our campus an "interterm" one-month program which eventually led into programs running all year round in extension locations throughout the U.S. as well as on our campus. When the SIIS, under other leadership, decided to shut down, we continued the program, dropping the word "summer." It is now better known by its main course, Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, and operates in 62 extension locations throughout the U.S., and in almost an equal number in other countries of the world.
