The Moving upon the
Waters
O earth, earth, earth, Hear the word of
the LORD!
Jeremiah 22:29
Shortly after Michael and Sandra remarried, during their days in Tustin, Michael came out of the apartment one morning to find a girl he knew, who sometimes acted as their babysitter, crying. She was standing by a car with the trunk open, while behind her were two men with cocktail glasses in their hands. Michael recognized one of the them as an auto wholesaler — a ripoff artist and a drunk. The other man was fat and wore a Buddha necklace.
"What's going on?" Michael demanded.
The fat man spoke up. "She threw a Coke bottle at our car and cut the tire. We're making her fix it."
By this time the girl had lifted out the jack and was carrying it to the front where the tire was flat.
"What did they do to you?" Michael asked her.
"Made fun of me. Whistled at me. Tried to proposition me."
Michael took the jack away from her, but the fat man came toward him. "Get out of here. She's going to do this."
Michael jacked up the car and began removing the tire. "She is not going to do this. Where's the spare?"
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"Got no spare . She has to fix it."
Michael stood up, went to his car, and removed the spare tire. He brought it over and put it on the wheel.
"You don't have to do this," said the wholesaler.
"Get the money from her for your tire," said the fat man.
"You keep the tire and get out of here. I don't ever want to see you again," said Michael. At that the two men closed in on him. He stood, the tire iron in his hand, and the old MacIntosh was flaring, but he caught himself. When he spoke it was in a quiet tone: "Don't pull anything on me. I rebuke you in the name of Jesus Christ." The moment passed and the men drove off.
Michael invited the girl to Calvary Chapel where she soon became a Christian. But a few months later she was tragically caught in a traffic accident on Pacific Coast Highway at Corona del Mar. Her small sports car was crushed and her body badly mangled. As it happened, a friend of Michael's was horseback riding near the highway when the accident occurred, and he rushed to the scene. Seeing her condition and realizing there was nothing he could do, and being a Christian but not knowing who she was, he asked her if she knew God.
"Yes," she whispered, "but please pray for me because I haven't been doing too well with Him." He prayed with her, and she nodded her desire to give her heart afresh to her Lord. Before other help could arrive, she died.
That incident played a central part in changing Michael's attitude toward his fellow human beings. The weeping girl, soon to die, became for him the exemplar and personification of every defenseless and needy human being on the planet. She taught him his role. Instead of using a pretty woman as he had done in the past, he had defended her. Instead of taking his own part as in all his fights, he had taken someone else's. He saw now what God
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wanted him to do with the rest of his life, and later found it confirmed in Scripture: "Open your mouth for the speechless.... Open your mouth, judge righteously, And plead the cause of the poor and needy" (Proverbs 31:8-9).
When Michael made his first trip to Asia in 1973, he met that man who had said to him, "I have a vision for China, Mike." He was "Brother David," an ex-Marine living in Manila who found Jesus Christ at Billy Graham's 1969 Anaheim Crusade in California. His friendship with Michael ripened, and in the spring of 1976 he invited Michael to go with him on a fact-finding mission to the Chinese borders. For Michael, the heart of the three-week journey was a five-day visit to Burma, where missionaries have long been forbidden but where Christianity is thriving in spite of repression. In Rangoon the full gamut of human misery and wretchedness met his eyes. As he walked down the main street he was overwhelmed by the sight of deterioration, the boarded-up banks and principal buildings, the soot, the apparent lack of human initiative and desire to alleviate the poverty and distress everywhere evident. He remembered the text: "...plead the cause of the poor and needy" (Proverbs 31:9).
A main business in Rangoon was to deliver one hundred Burmese Bibles to the Baptist church. Michael was given the role of carrying the suitcase of Bibles down the stairs of the Strand hotel to a taxi. The cab turned out to be a 1941 English Austin. Michael spotted it out the window, then looked down at the hotel restaurant kitchen just as three rats, each the size of a cat, ran into it. He reached the street level and saw two Burmese wearing sunglasses, reading newspapers and watching him. He hurried out to the taxi,, followed by the pair, and got in the cab, which refused to start. Eventually the driver took a crank from under the seat and got it started with a snort and a bang. They arrived at the Baptist church with the electrical
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circuit on fire and smoke coming out the rear. Two minutes after the Bibles were delivered to the waiting Burmese pastors, they were hidden. Among the Karen Baptists of Burma the ratio is twenty-five Christians for each Bible.
The real challenge of the trip, China, was presented to the little party of four after they flew north along the Irrawaddy river to the romantic — but poverty-ridden — city of Mandalay. Here they had established a rendezvous with a Chinese pastor who had walked for two days from the People's Republic to meet with them. The man made a permanent impression on Michael, who saw in him a symbol of a billion people. Forty years old, the pastor had been imprisoned by the Red Guards during the "cultural revolution." A huge scar on his face was caused by the butt end of a rifle. He was, however, a difficult prisoner, as one jailer and a number of cellmates were converted to Christ during his internment. Now released from confinement, he was the founder of nearly a thousand Christian fellowships.
With more than two dozen people gathered in a house, which was really a hut, on the main street of Mandalay, Michael was asked to share his Christian testimony. Lookouts were posted on the street while he spoke. When the Chinese pastor learned about his deliverance from the use of drugs, he inquired about the extent of the drug traffic in America. His home was close to the "golden triangle" where much of the world's opium is grown. Michael told him the nature of America's problem, and the pastor replied, "Please tell the people of America that the young people in China who love the Lord Jesus Christ are praying for the young people in your country who have drug problems." And Michael thought, I wonder how many young people in America are praying for the young people of China?
Michael flew back to America with a fresh vision for his
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ministry. He determined to establish a school in San Diego where people would be trained "to serve God in a purposeful ministry somewhere in the world." The Lord gave him a name for this exciting venture — The San Diego School of Evangelism. But the more he thought about it, the less he wanted it to become a conventional Bible institute. Rather, it would take a person already somewhat grounded in the Bible and put him or her into active service for the Lord.
And now was the time to act! The angel was moving upon the surface of the waters, the end was near, and many millions were waiting to know the saving, renewing, healing love of God in Jesus Christ.
