October - December 1976
"If You Ask Anything In My Name . . . "
(John 14:12)
Ralph, Prudence his secretary, and I stood in the entrance way and looked at "our building."
The previous month, the Summit Lighthouse cult had moved onto the main portion of the campus. Erik Stadell and his twenty Swedish missionary candidates had been very discouraged when they were told they had to move out of the dormitory they had occupied for only two months in order to make room for Summit. They were even more discouraged when they came to know more about the group, which had rented all but three of the buildings on campus.
Summit, we learned, is an Eastern mystical group which reveres Buddha, Krishna, and other so-called "ascended masters" and practices chanting and meditation. We had heard that its adherents were well-behaved and nicely dressed — not at all the hippie or drug-culture type of people. Also, we heard that though they were mainly Americans, their religious philosophy was basically Hindu. According to several large newspaper articles, Summit leaders spoke openly of their intention to buy the campus.
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Hundreds of Nazarenes in the area were convinced, however, that this campus, which God had given them sixty or more years before, was still to be used to bring men to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. After long days and nights of continual prayer, Erik's little band was also convinced that somehow God had special plans for this place. Our own guidance up to this point, though completely separate from theirs, seemed to "fit" amazingly.
For more than a month Ralph talked with college officials about the possibility of buying the campus as a center for world mission. He insisted that in order to raise the funds we would need, we had to have an office on the campus somewhere. After the cult moved in, Erik's group was housed in the only building physically separated from the rest of the campus. This building was just across the street to the north. It was this building, a former dormitory, that the college officials offered to us.
Besides office space, we had several additional requirements.
Several months before, the college officials had begun selling some of the houses surrounding the campus. They still owned 84. Ralph told them that before we would even consider buying the campus, we must be guaranteed that they would cease selling the houses and hold them for us. He felt that the campus would not be financially viable without them, and they agreed. He told the officials that the earliest we could make the down payment on the houses would be a year after completing the one for the campus proper. They would have to be willing to wait that long.
Also, he said, "the people who will be working with us will need to rent some of those houses. They cannot afford to wait years before they come up on the waiting list (which we were told had a hundred names). We need to be able to say, 'We need that house,' and get it. Can you agree to that?"
"Yes."
"And," Ralph continued, "we expect to have a number of
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other mission organizations moving in with us. We will need space for them. The rents must be reasonable. In fact, we ourselves need some free space so that we can give all our energy to raising the money for the down payment. How do you feel about that?"
"That also can be arranged!"
Like Gideon with his fleeces, we were amazed as one by one all our demands were met, most graciously. We had the free office space — two large rooms on either side of the lobby in which we now stood plus three other smaller rooms just across a small corridor.
We were also given 4000 square feet of other office space at a low rent for the organizations which we hoped would join us. If we grew as fast as we dreamed, very soon our mission research department would have to expand across the street into the science building, not rented by the cult because of all the labs. We could also put research offices into the beautiful library building, unavailable to the cult because of government restrictions on its loan.
As we stood there looking at "our space," I had to smile. All the dreams the faculty at the seminary had dreamed of could be fulfilled right here. There was ample room for a graphic arts division as well as for film and photography, both so essential in interpreting missions to local churches. There was room for computerized mailing list management service. And for graduate university departments dealing with literacy and translation, with community development overseas, with teaching English, and especially with special studies relating to the major blocs of mankind still beyond the reach of the gospel. God had answered our requests more than abundantly! And He had done it so graciously!
Before we had even moved in, word got around that we had space to rent. Almost immediately various mission organizations began calling Ralph. "Could I rent some office space?" each would ask. Some needed so much space Ralph had to turn them away. Others didn't quite fit the necessary
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qualification of serving other mission agencies. In a matter of weeks there were six organizations besides our own on campus, as well as many internal projects which we ourselves were directing. All but one were housed in the building north of the main campus, just across the street from the cult.
We had many things to do to get started. We had to file the articles of incorporation, set up rules for membership in the Center community, organize a governing board, and decide which group should join us and where each should work.
Then there were other questions to decide. Should the various organizations on campus be entirely separate entities? No, we decided not. We should work together as a missions community. Then, what about our accounts? Should each organization keep its own set of books? Or should there be one general accounting office which would serve everyone?
Some things we decided to do together — for example, mail and duplicating services. Other things each organization did by itself — for example, the organizational accounts. I can't say things ran smoothly all at once. (Do things ever run smoothly in a new organization?) But we were off and running, and the Lord began adding more organizations to our number as the weeks went by.
On the staff of the main organization, the United States Center for World Mission, we were only three: Ralph, Prudence and myself.
Ralph and I both wondered if, under the circumstances, Prudence would stay with us. We desperately needed her help, but she was aware that our salary had now stopped. Where would we find the money to pay her? How, even, were we to live?
Again the Lord proved faithful to His promise. At the suggestion of one of Ralph's former colleagues at the seminary, one local church picked up our full support for November
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and December — and even now continues with part of it. Bill Bright, the founder and director of Campus Crusade and a long time friend, for an entire year gave us a sizable amount each month out of his personal office work budget to help with our office expenses.
We began asking churches which knew us well for personal support. But it was already October, and we knew that many would have already allocated their mission money for the next year. I thought Ralph was crazy when he sent several special delivery letters to twenty pastor friends of his saying "Help!" and proposing that they give $5,000 a year for a trial year. Several who knew Ralph well answered immediately, saying their churches would be glad to take us on.
Others replied, "We'll think about it," and in the weeks to follow took up our support. Several said, "We're sorry, but you're too late." Some didn't answer at all.
One church which picked us up immediately has stayed with us through the years to follow. Either the pastors who knew us went to another church, or (in two cases) died of cancer. The composition of the mission committee might change, with our emphasis on unreached peoples no longer an exciting challenge to the new group. Or, the fact that we were not ourselves, or did not attend that particular church made us less likely candidates for their support. As with most missionaries, our personal support was impacted by the economic depression which later swept America. Yet the Lord has continued to provide, and through the years when we were struggling to buy the properties, I was so grateful that the Lord had relieved us of the strain of insufficient personal support, even though by most standards today, it is certainly far from luxurious, if even adequate.
In a matter of days, it seemed, we had our incorporation papers from the State of California. We moved in, with whatever office furniture we could find at little cost, and began to work. But it would be some time before the Lord sent the staff we so desperately needed.
