Last week, a man who spoke to more people about Christ than any other person in history went to his eternal home. Billy Graham played a significant part in my life, as I committed my life to full-time service to the Lord after Dr. Graham addressed the 18,000 students who gathered at the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship convention in Urbana, Illinois in December 1976. You can hear the end of that message at: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2vq19y. Six months later, I was on my way to Europe, via a conference in Minneapolis, with Operation Mobilization (OM). I then attended an orientation conference at the Belgian Bible Institute before joining a summer team in Alsace, France.
At the Missions conference in Tulsa Bible Church (TBC) last week, Karen and I met Jamal Hashweh, who is the Regional Field Leader of the Arab-speaking world with Global Hope Network International: http://www.globalhopenetwork.org/us/about. When I told him that two Jordanian sisters taught me the Arabic words to the song “This is the Day”, he told me their names, which I had long forgotten. Jamal, it turns out, was the leader of the team of Jordanians who travelled to Belgium in 1977 with OM!
Recently, I was given a book that was written by Frédéric Buhler, who was the senior pastor of the “La Bonne Nouvelle” church in Mulhouse, France, where our O.M. team stayed in 1977. Every morning, Pastor Buhler taught from the Book of Acts before we went out to share the gospel. When I looked on the Internet last week, I found that he was born in 1914, which meant that he was about my age (turning 63 next month) when I met him. He told me was that he went door-to-door in ’34 in the area of St-Laurent (on the island of Montreal), probably near where Bethel Baptist Church was built some thirty years later.
Karen and I had the privilege of meeting a number of veteran missionaries, including Bill Eddy, who was the first missionary sent by TBC in 1956. Bill piloted a plane that carried Elisabeth Elliot, who remained in Ecuador after her husband, Jim, and four other men were martyred while reaching out to tribal people with the gospel of Christ. We were pleased to meet Tongpi from Myanmar (formerly called Burma), who shared how the Lord is working in the lives of people in his native country. This brought to mind how Karen’s grandfather, Rev. Leonard Sparks, went to Burma with the Salvation Army before pastoring churches in Ontario.
Another speaker at Urbana ‘76 was Elisabeth Elliot, who was born in the same year as Karen’s father, Rev. Clarence Shelly. Thanks to the Internet, you can listen to her message at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HzO3gevgE0. Karen and I rose early on Tuesday to fly home from Tulsa. Our hearts were full of the love that was shown to us by the brothers and sisters in Christ there. Three years ago, on February 27th, my father-in-law’s earthly journey ended and he joined the multitudes in heaven. Praise God for rescuing us from sin and setting us free to serve Him!
Scripture for the weekend: “To God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.” Jude 25 (NKJV)
Steve