Summer 1983
"Not One Detail Will He Miss"
(Isaiah 34:16)
"We need your prayers today. Bill Dickson and I have to go to the house of strangers and ask to rent a square foot of the back wall of their house. I went there yesterday, but no one was home, and when I tried to leave a note, I was scared off by a huge black dog. Pray for me. Will you?"
We all laughed. Rent a square foot of wall? What was Bob up to now? And scared off by a dog?
Bob is our "resident St. Francis" — the kind who picks up wounded birds, takes in stray cats and dogs (and humans!). He is also a Caltech grad, with a major in computer science and in neurobiology and one of our resident geniuses.
Bob seems always involved in something new and unusual. It was Bob who heard that a Catholic college in the area was closing down and selling its library. He had grown up a Catholic and was comfortable approaching the sisters for a favorable price. When they learned about our goals from Bob, their price dropped fourfold! A real answer to prayer!
Even earlier, Bob had worked out the initial papers for
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the William Carey University to send to the State Board of Education. He had compiled our first catalog of studies. He got our computer center going, and persuaded a number of his Christian friends at Caltech to come on staff. He worked out the arrangements with the government surplus office so that we could get equipment free or at low cost. He persuaded World Vision to give us their 200-line phone system free when they bought their new one. He developed the initial concept for the Frontier Fellowship. And he wrote the first Daily Prayer Guide (now the Global Prayer Digest). And "The Plot," a little booklet that explains in humorous cartoons the idea of daily saving our loose change for pioneer efforts to unreached peoples. He was the person who interacted with Bob Waymire of Overseas Crusades when he was deliberating locating his Global Mapping Project office on our campus so as to be able to take advantage of our computer staff and equipment.
You might say that Bob Coleman is a very useful man to have around! He is what secular, scientifically oriented companies call "a skunk" — brilliant, creative, unpredictable, the kind of person who needs his own den to work in if he is to dream up ideas, which just might prove to be extremely valuable. But, they warn, no one company can handle very many.
The U.S. Center for World Mission already had a 40-terminal computer, which we had bought at low cost, again through Bob's services. But the research offices on campus, especially the Global Mapping Project, would require very sophisticated computer equipment in order to build and hold a comprehensive database of the Hidden Peoples of the world and the missionary force available to reach them. Bob knew exactly what they needed, but it cost five times more than what we could even imagine being able to afford!
Bob is not one, however, to let such little problems stop him. Somehow he learned that the Lake Avenue Congregational Church (where a number of our staff attend) was in
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the process of buying a computer. Bob, typically, saw unusual possibilities in the situation. "Keeping track of a wide range of information about how church members are involved in a large, active church," he thought, "is the same kind of problem as keeping track of the wide range of information about the characteristics of Hidden Peoples. I wonder if we could share a powerful machine to do both?"
At Ralph's suggestion and after a few days of careful research and proposal writing, Bob appeared before the church's Computer Search Committee. "Do the packaged computer systems you've been looking at effectively store all the information you need for as many people as you have in your church?" he asked.
"No, not really!"
"And do you have skilled programmers to write your programs?"
"No, but I suppose . . ."
"Well, it so happens that the kind of computer we need for our research could also handle all the data you need. And we have on staff highly skilled programmers who could program that computer to fit your specifications exactly. If we could somehow work together on this, we could save you immense programming costs which you, in turn, could put into a better system of benefit to us both. With your money up front to buy the machine and our manpower to program and maintain it, we could both have exactly what we need. What would you think about that?"
It took several months to persuade these seasoned, cautious businessmen and church leaders. But at last they agreed, and asked our computer center to help them find the equipment necessary for all they (and Global Mapping) needed to do. They had $45,000 available for the shared computer — no more!
Forty-five thousand! Wonderful! But like the youth who is delighted with his gift until he sees something just a bit better, Bob groaned. For $20,000 more they could get a
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model that would more easily expand to keep up with our research programs. It was called "the 500 model." Sigh!
Nevertheless, Bob contacted a company in Silicon Valley (in Northern California) and ordered a sophisticated "data base management machine." Then he sat back and waited to hear when it would be available.
Weeks went by, then several months, and everyone concerned was beginning to get restless. Finally Bob called the company near San Francisco.
The salesman was most apologetic. "We're terribly sorry, but we've been unable to fulfill your order. Look, I'll tell you what we'll do. We have another model which is not exactly the same . . . really a bit better. But it's the only one available just now. We'll let you have it for the same price."
"Just which one is it?" Bob asked, and held his breath. After so many months of delicate negotiations with the church officials, he didn't want problems now!
"It's a 500 model."
Bob gasped inwardly. It was exactly the machine he had prayed for.
"God had to be in that shortage," Bob reported to our staff when it arrived. "The name plate says the machine is the cheaper model, but they obviously put on a new label just before they shipped it. The insides are essentially the machine that costs $20,000 more. It's a miracle!"
"But we still have one problem," he added a couple of mornings later. "The computer will be housed here on campus so we can care for it. In order for Lake Avenue Church to use it, we will have to run a special phone line between the church and the Center. Unfortunately, the telephone company says that the church and the campus are in two separate exchanges, and the interchange circuit we would need to buy will cost us an additional $8,000. We simply can't afford that.
"But I've checked around," he continued, "and found out we can avoid that expense if only we could rent some space
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on the border between the two telephone districts and install a small piece of equipment there. I've looked all over the area, and there is only one house that answers all the requirements.
"That's the house with the big black dog . . . and I wouldn't want to tangle with him!"
So we prayed. For Bob and Bill Dickson who was the computer expert in charge of making the computer link work. For the occupants of that house. About the square foot of their wall which we needed. About their dog.
The next morning Bob had an update. "We went to the house before breakfast this time, hoping to catch the people before they left for work. I was really dreading it. How do you tell people that you want to rent a piece of their wall? Sounds pretty silly, if not downright suspicious.
"Well," and he breathed a big sigh, then smiled. "We noticed right off that their car had an Icthus bumper sticker. We felt better right away. 'Hmm. So they're Christians . . .'
"When I told them I had been there the day before, they said they had gone to a Bible study." Again he smiled, took a deep breath, and continued. "We wanted to make friends before asking our outlandish request, so we asked where their Bible study was. Do you know what? They attend one of the new churches that meets right here on our campus! Imagine that!"
We all laughed at God's goodness. "And they'll rent us as much wall space as we need. Isn't that wonderful?" he finished.
Within a few months the dream became a reality: Lake Avenue Church acquired one of the finest church computer systems anywhere, the Global Mapping Project moved its office to our campus, and Bob Waymire and his team began to collect and store vital data on the world's Unreached Peoples. The first color-coded map that showed up on the screen was indeed beautiful to see.
The sample maps they are producing are advancing mission
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strategy many years into the future. All because a local church was willing to take the risk of collaborating with a campus whose future was still uncertain. That, perhaps, was the greatest miracle of all!
