Monday, October 23, 2006

"American cities are far more dangerous than overseas missions"

That's the view of George Verwer, founder of Operation Mobilization and a worldwide missions advocate who just won't retire.

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

SANTA ANA, CA (ANS) -- George Verwer, the founder of Operation Mobilization (OM), a worldwide ministry of evangelism, discipleship training and church planting, is one of the great characters of the Christian Church, and he never pulls his punches when talking about missions or his own life.

During a phone interview with him for my Front Page Radio program on KWVE 107.9 in Southern California, I told Verwer that many Christians in the United States have a great fear of going on overseas missions, feeling it is too dangerous and that they might get sick, or even worse, get killed.

Verwer replied, "Well, I think anybody who studies the statistics* [see end of the story] will realize that living in an American city is a higher risk than almost any mission field in the world today, including North Korea. So, you"d have a real problem in finding more dangerous mission fields than our cities. Now, if you live in a town where violence is just slowly increasing you might be a little bit safer.

"So a lot of this thinking is just fear; it"s just ridiculous and, as far as I can see, a lot of people are rejecting that because the number of short termers going out from America is at an all time high."

"Ten Short-Termers We don't Want"

Verwer paused and then added, "In fact, I've just done a blog for my website www.georgeverwer.com called "Ten Short Termers We Don't Want." I wrote it because we're getting really a lot of "noodle heads" into short-term work. They have no training and they think they are just going on a bit of a lark; a sort of Christian vacation. I'm very broadminded, so I'm not totally negative about all of these things, but I believe even people on short term missions from churches who send a dozen people to a country still need training. They need preparation as we cannot have culturally insensitive people.

"When we combine American cultural insensitivity with pride and arrogance; that is bad news. We don't want these people. So, now I'm leading a campaign called, "Stay In America -- We don't Want You Yet." It's going to upset a lot of people because there are a lot of churches getting into short term missions and they think that"s the big thing.

"They don't even send career missionaries any more. They think just send people from their church on short term outreaches and they partner with other groups that are as good. But often it is in countries where there are already thousands of churches and so the really more unreached countries are not going to be blessed by these kind of partnerships. Of course, there are exceptions to that."

I then asked George Verwer, who now lives in the UK and even gets a British Old Age Pension and a London bus pass, to talk about his early days when he lived in New Jersey.

He began by revealing that Operation Mobilization traces its roots to the prayers of an American housewife. In the 1950s, Dorothea Clapp began to pray faithfully for the students in her local High School. She asked God to touch the world through the lives of those young people. And God answered her prayers! Mrs. Clapp gave a Gospel of John to one of the students, George Verwer.

"This dear lady near my high school, where I was causing quite a stir, put my name her "Holy Ghost hit list." She not only prayed that I'd become a Christian, but she prayed that I'd become a missionary and then she sent me this Gospel of John through the post. Her son also made an impact on me. He was three years older than me and was president of the student council. I, later, was also to become president of that same student council, and I saw something different in him."

The big turn-around

The big turn-around for him came on March 5, 1955, when Billy Graham came to preach at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

"Some people persuaded me, and prayed me into that meeting," he recalled. "They gave me a free seat on a bus and that night is when I experienced this whole transformation and new life and salvation in Christ; and that"s been a reality every day ever since."

Verwer then said, "I went back to that school and just at that time I was elected as president of the student council for about 1200 students. I got permission from the principal for something that is now illegal; to give out Gospels on campus and 1000 students promised to read the Gospel of John.

"I, then, found out that lady had been praying for that school for 15 years for a breakthrough and for missionaries to go out from that high school. So, it"s incredible how that woman"s life and her influence behind the scenes, unknown me, began to take root.

"We had some meetings and a few people came to Jesus. I, then, in September 1956, went off to college, which was a really liberal college, where they tried to destroy my biblical faith. But it was the perfect place, for a sort of semi-rebel like me, for my faith to get stronger. I went back home at Christmas and 600 came to a meeting in that high school auditorium. After I preached, 125 of them stood up and trusted Christ. I don't think they were all converted, but one of them was my own father who then followed Christ till he was 94 years of age. So, in a sense, that high school, just outside New York City in New Jersey, was one of the first birth places of this movement that now has 4,000 fulltime workers in 100 countries."

Mexico outreach

Verwer said that at college, he and two friends met regularly to pray. They became burdened by the spiritual needs of Mexico. In 1957 the three friends sold some of their own possessions to raise money and gave up their summer holiday to distribute Gospels and other Christian literature in Mexico. The friends returned the following summer and the next."

"I had this vision for going to Mexico because I was learning Spanish and I wanted to learn the language better and also I had a vision for evangelism," he said. "It was a passion. I'd already been in the streets of New York City sharing the Good News and I'd gone door to door in my own hometown selling books. I was seeing people come to Christ almost every week."

Eventually, in January of 1958, George Verwer moved to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, and on one visit to Mexico, took some of the Moody students with him.

"We opened up a book shop, started a correspondence course and also began a radio broadcast while studying Spanish at the same time," he said. "We saw this a winner, seeing that, what we studied theologically all year at Moody, we could then put into practice. This was one of the birth places of the whole short term mission movement which, I know even to this day, has its negative side like most things in life. And yet, I believe the positives far outweigh the negatives. So that was the early days in Mexico, learning experience, learning to be culturally sensitive and learning the language. Some of my closest friends "became Mexicans." In fact, my son is named after two Mexicans. It was a really exciting time."

How he met his wife Drena

George smiled as he admitted that he was attracted to young ladies during his teenage years. "I had about 32 different girlfriends before I was 17," he said. "That was the age of romance and hay wagons, rather than sex, so you know I never had any sex. Probably I don't even know if I dreamed about that, but I had a lot of complexity. I led a girl to Christ and then kissed her for two hours. I couldn't find that in the evangelism follow-up book; so I decided that really wasn't the best approach.

"So, I went on a two-year fast" no dating, no kissing and that"s when I went to Mexico in 1957. All during that time at Maryville College [1956-57] the girls were dropping from the trees, though they were not necessarily looking at me. Then I went to Moody Bible Institute in January of 1958. I was still a young Christian and I thought all these girls were born again. If I tried anything, they'd hit me on the head with a big giant Bible. Still, I was in love with about seven girls in the first two weeks. But I didn't do anything about it, which was wise.

"I went to rent a Moody Science film as I was going the extra mile to evangelize Chicago. As I went up to rent a film, Drena, the woman behind the desk, just blew my circuits. I broke my fast, moved in on the target and a year and a half later, we got married. we've been married for forty-six years."

"You'll probably be eaten by cannibals"

George Verwer said he told his wife-to-be, "You need to know I'm going be a missionary and if you marry me you'll probably be eaten by cannibals in New Guinea."

When they graduated in 1960, George, Drena and some friends, traveled to Europe. They began work in Spain, sharing the Gospel and distributing literature. But the task of reaching the whole of Europe seemed overwhelming.

"Spain was my heart," he said. "My original vision was very narrow -- Muslim countries, closed countries, and communist countries. That"s it. While in Spain, we started all kinds of evangelistic things, mainly in secret things with the underground church there. The country was still Franco and was sort of a Nazi kind of country.

The Great Russian disaster

"I then studied Russian and headed into Russia the next summer. That was to prove to be a great disaster. One of my favorite books is Erwin Lutzer"s "Failure: The Backdoor to Success". It"s a brilliant book. Just the title was such challenge to me as I had a real fiasco in Russia. I was arrested by the KGB and accused of being a spy, and it was all in the newspapers. We eventually got thrown out when they decided we were just religious fanatics.

"That led me to a day of prayer, and I changed the name of the ministry from Send the Light, which had the narrow vision of Muslim, communist and closed countries, to our present name "Operation Mobilization." It just hit me during a trip to Germany that Operation Mobilization was partly connected with the Second World War, in which my wife's father had been killed. I was thinking of all the horrendous things that I call "A Revolution of Hate," and so I thought, "We need a "Revolution of Love", which is the title of one of my books.

"I went back to Spain and shared this with a few fulltime Spanish workers and I asked them, "Look, do you think this is from God?" We were on a weekend retreat of prayer and fasting and they also felt it was from God. It was a big step for them. That"s when I moved to England and hit Cambridge and Oxford. By 1962 we had 200 people, and by "63 we had 2,000 and the rest is history."

The work of Operation Mobilization has grown and grown with more than 100,000 people participating around the world. Also, the three ships, Doulos, Logos2 and Logos Hope (the latest), have been serving the nations since 1970. Over the past 35 years the vessels have visited ports in over 140 countries in the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia and the Pacific. The ships project promotes international understanding and world-wide education.

Through cultural exchange programs, community service initiatives and a floating book fair a ship experience encourages all who come aboard to expand their horizons and embark on a voyage of discovery. The ships carry a multinational crew and staff of 600 volunteers whose service is a practical expression of their faith and commitment to serving the nations.

In total, over 30 million visitors have come aboard to purchase from the selection of 4,000 titles available. Titles cover a wide range of subjects, such as science, sports, hobbies, cookery, the arts, philosophy, medicine and children"s books, as well as faith in God and living life in God"s service. The books have been carefully chosen to be of interest to every member of the family, and with the educational, social and moral needs of the local community in mind. Books are on offer at a fraction of their retail value. While in certain ports, books are donated. Additionally, every visitor to an OM ship (where possible) is given the opportunity to take a piece of free literature, which explains more about the need for a right relationship with God.

George Verwer has now handed over the day-to-day leadership of OM to Peter Maiden, but still he hasn"t slowed down.

"Peter Maiden is the director of OM and I"ve been thrilled with his leadership for three years," he said. "I don't believe in retirement I just believe in change - continual change. Since I've been changing all my life one more change was no big deal. I'm actually happier doing what I'm doing now - there"s more freedom, more time for prayer. I always had a lot of time for prayer, but now I have more. I still take about 300 plus meetings a year and I do a lot of radio. I love radio."

HIV/AIDS

Verwer is now devoting much of his time in alerting the Church to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

"The more I read about HIV/AIDS, the more I was convinced this is something I must be involved in because we have a quarter of a million prayer partners around the world," he said. "We have these ships and the STL literature side has grown tenfold in about fifteen years. So when we put our hands on a book, believe me, that book will go. We put our hands on Patrick Dixon's "AIDS and You" and the book's now gone into twenty languages.

"Patrick was always shy, and a brilliant doctor; a godly man, who was always shy about pushing his own book. So I pushed it for him. He helped raise some of the money and we raised money together. It was a dynamic partnership. he's been a huge affirmation to me. I'm a person who battles with a lot of discouragement and try to deal with it day by day. he's one of the one"s that"s helped me.

"We're involved in a massive global push about HIV/AIDS, challenging the Church by every means possible, but especially video and literature, to alert people how to prevent AIDS. We also get involved with HIV/AIDS people, but, that"s more OM and that comes under Peter Maiden.

"My ministry is part of OM and is called Special Projects Ministries with HIV/AIDS as our priority. On the other hand, we're very concerned about many other issues such as the killing of the unborn, the environment, and the abuse of women. we've launched a new book about women called 'True Grit' by Debbie Meroff. It"s probably the greatest book about women that's ever been written. My goal is a million copies in the next ten years; a hundred-thousand, I hope, in the next two years. we're not quite on target, but we're giving this away.

"We have found that giving it free is a lot faster than selling. Selling is a lot slower because people want change for their money. So we just give the books free of charge and trust God to supply the funds. Since we've seen God supply funds for 51 years, I don't think he's going let us go bankrupt this year."

For more information on George Verwer today, go to www.georgeverwer.com where you can also contact him via e-mail.

And to think, this life-long adventure with Christ began for George Verwer when a believing housewife in New Jersey began praying for him.

* To read a recent story in USA Today on crime in America, go to http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-12-violent-crime_x.htm.
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Note: I'd like to thank Robin Frost for transcribing this interview.

Note to the media: An MP 3 file of this interview is available for broadcast on request from Dan Wooding at danjuma1@aol.com.

Dan Wooding is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS). He was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC. Wooding is the author of some 42 books, the latest of which is his autobiography, "From Tabloid to Truth", which is published by Theatron Books. To order a copy, go to www.fromtabloidtotruth.com. danjuma1@aol.com.