Preface

   The events recorded in the early chapters of this book were told about in Once More Around Jericho and its later update, The Kingdom Strikes Back.

   So much of the book this time is new — at least half of it — that I have chosen a new title, I Will Do a New Thing. This title goes beyond what God is doing with the U.S. Center for World Mission to the larger world of global mission and the approaching "End of History."

   Trying to explain the U.S. Center for World Mission has always been difficult. Now, more than ever, its larger context is crucial. God is doing something new in the world of missions, and the Center's role is potentially more significant than ever.

   The vision of the unreached peoples is not unique to us, though we have more people working full time on that problem than any other organization anywhere else on earth. Certainly, the concept cannot be said to be "new." Twice before in modern history, at the turn of the last two centuries, the vision of the unreached captured the attention of the Christian world and resulted in massive new outreach, the first time to the coastlands of the world and then, around 1900, to the interior of each continent. For our generation, however, the concept of the specific unreached "peoples" is new. Such peoples, the new focus, may be touched in Los Angeles and

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Munich, not just in Papua New Guinea. Once more, God willing, a new wave of concern will mobilize the church worldwide so that we may finish the task of the Great Commission by the year 2000.

   As one mission agency among many, our methodology is new. We work on three fronts at once: mission research, mission mobilization and mission training. Many departments and autonomous offices have come into existence on campus to aid in one or more of these fronts. This is why some have called the USCWM a Missions Pentagon. It is amazing what you can find out here: staff workers speaking 40 different languages, backgrounds in 70 different missions, etc.

   According to World Christian magazine, which for a number of years occupied several suites of offices here, "David Bryant has compared the Center to the town, Rivendale, in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings: the place where visions can be born, where fragile dreams can become reality, where battle plans can be laid for great battles ahead, and faith renewed in ultimate, inevitable success."¹ This is the dream the Lord has placed on our hearts. This is the dream which is becoming reality

   Since the publication of Once More Around Jericho, I have often been asked why my quotes are from the Living Bible. Although I use many different versions and in some ways actually prefer the New International Version for Bible study, still it is the Living Bible which, more than any other translation, speaks the language of my heart. It has been my daily devotional companion for ten years now. Its words have comforted me, condemned me, and guided me precisely because they were too clear to be misunderstood and ignored.

   Many people have helped me with this book. My special thanks go to Dr. Kenneth Cashin, recently retired from the School of Engineering at the University of Massachusetts. As a volunteer on staff, he spent months meticulously going over this manuscript, checking for typos, misspelled words

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and inelegancies of expression. He is the proof reader par excellence.

   I am also very grateful to Ron Saito for the beautiful cover design, which so well symbolizes our hopes and dreams as well as the property which we claim in the name of our Lord. [2002 Edition Note: Cover was updated by Chad Upham.]

   Many others read the book in manuscript form and made helpful suggestions. I am especially indebted to John Holzmann and to Tricia Johnson, who spent months on the preliminary revision, and to my husband, without whose help the book would have been full of many factual errors.

   As the author of this book, and cofounder of the USCWM with my husband, I should perhaps apologize for my "over-loyal" comments about him. He is not perfect, as I am not. Nevertheless, I have never known him to be other than single-minded in his determination to fully obey the Lord, even when the costs have been high. Forgive me if I seem too uncritical of him. I'm just trying to relate things as I see them.

   The years of the founding of the USCWM have not been easy years, especially for our younger staff who, as a rule, were inexperienced in spiritual warfare when they came. It would have been much simpler for them to have joined long-established organizations and to work in settled positions under seasoned management structures. Here, they didn't even have the benefit of a single experienced manager until Art McCleary came in 1983.

   Many who came intended from the first to stay only two years, yet stayed four before finally going to work overseas among an unreached people. We are still very grateful for all their help.

   Ralph and I are especially grateful, however, to those who felt called to stay and help. They could see that unless the battle of mobilization were won here, the battle of evangelization could never be won there. They gradually had

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to give up their own plans in order to embrace as their own the struggles, plans and dreams which originally we bore quite alone. But they have carried enormous responsibilities for their age and are growing into impressive maturity.

   It is to these wonderful, forgiving, patient, godly younger staff that I therefore dedicate this book. May God richly use them to bless the world is my prayer.

Chapter One  ||  Table of Contents

1. "United States Center for World Mission," World Christian, March/April, 1983, pp. 20-22, P.O. Box 5199, Chatsworth, CA 91031