January 01, 1990 by Ron Shaw

Over a dozen people, all of high caliber, attended our January 1990 Staff Orientation Week (S.O.W.). Though property is necessary for the U.S. Center for World Mission to function, people are our most important resource. Therefore, Staff Orientation Week is a very important event, held twice a year in Pasadena. The January S.O.W. was hosted by Bruce Koch, Personnel Director. Sessions included cameo appearances of most Department heads and the Winters. The week covered the Center's goals, history, covenant, policies, and ministry team development. Three kinds of people usually attend S.O.W.: 1) those already committed to working with us (in Pasadena or at a Regional Center); 2) those needing to know what this might mean for them; and 3) those interested, but unsure of God‘s leading.

BARBARA SARGENT, McPherson, KS Barbara heard of USCWM through a relative and became one of our original $15.95 donors. She was put on the mailing list of Mission Frontiers, “forever and ever.” At first she read it, but was not terribly impressed and began giving them away to whoever would read them. Then the course of her life changed. Her husband died, and her last child left for college. Friends recommended a change of venue, so she visited California. A notice in M.F. for volunteer help stuck in her mind, so she visited the Center.

By noon the day she visited, she wanted to help teach the children of staff. But the Personnel Department needed her more, and she has been there full-time since. In addition to her work here, Barbara serves on the mobilization committee for three counties near the Center and is resident assistant at her dormitory. She is still raising support, but is totally assured that “whom God sends, He equips.” Looking back over her lifetime, Barbara realizes that she has always been ministering to other people, and that all her experiences were preparing her for this, her second career.

ELLEN STEVENS, Raleigh, NC “I’m just an ordinary girl,” Ellen replied when asked about her pilgrimage to S.O.W. She had heard of the U.S. Center through a date who later became her husband--Bob Stevens, Regional Director in Raleigh. Bob encouraged her to take the “Perspectives” course. Ellen had been to Urbana Missionary Conference in 1984.

As Bob and Ellen's relationship grew, she found it easy to accept him but harder to accept his work. The Perspectives readings helped her better understand God’s purpose of mission for all Christians. She began to want God’s best, not only for her own life but for Bob’s, also. This oneness of life direction drew them into marriage five months ago.

The S.O.W. fellowship meant a lot to her, as did the discussion led by Ralph and Roberta Winter on what it means to live in a missionary community. What part will she play in her husband’s work? “First things first; we want to take a year, to build our marriage.” In the future she is not sure yet how they will work together, but she knows she will encourage him and pray for him. “Abraham and Sarah went out by faith, and so will we!”

MARK HILLS, Atlanta, GA Mark began to prepare himself for missionary work several years ago: reading mission magazines, and spending short terms in Liberia, Korea and Thailand. After college, he paid off his school-loan debts as quickly as possible, even taking a second job and moving back home with his parents. His church gave him opportunity to work with Cambodian refugees in their neighborhood. He tremendously enjoyed working cross-culturally and found a growing love for internationals.

As he was considering further short terms, Art McCleary, his former supervisor in a work-study program at college, called to invite him to work in Doorstep Opportunities, connecting returned missionaries with agencies working with ethnic groups in the States. Mark delayed saying “yes” until he lost his job. When he told his mother, he found she had been praying for God to send a crisis into his life to get him moving! Now he is convinced that working with Doorstep Opportunities gives him much more potential to impact ethnic minorities with the gospel than serving overseas.

MARK SCHWEER, Pasadena, CA “My interest in missions started when I was less than 10 years old and my Sunday School class in Minnesota sent supplies to Taiwan. I corresponded with a Taiwanese boy for several years.”

At age 20, Mark became a Christian, through the Navigator ministry in the Navy. By the time he entered the Naval Academy, he was supporting an orphan in Taiwan. Sea-duty took him to East Asia; during stopovers he would visit missionaries. On Taiwan, he flew inland to visit the orphan he had been supporting!

His association with the USCWM began in 1978 when he became a founding donor. With that he began receiving Mission Frontiers, and “made the fatal mistake of reading nearly every issue.” On leaving the Navy, he joined the staff of Navigators, working with individuals but committed to frontier missions. Though he helped the Center through the “Touch Ten” and “Last Thousand” campaigns, he never envisioned himself working here. Reading the Adopt-a-People strategy captured his imagination. He wrote for more information. Because of a shortage of help at the time, he never got an answer!

The summer of 1989 he planned and led a 10-day Summer Training in Missions, bringing 20 people to the U.S. Center, auditing the “Perspectives on the World Movement” course, touring the campus, interviewing affiliated agencies and visiting ethnic pockets of East Los Angeles. During a visit to the Adopt-a-People office, he commented on the shortage of people to carry out the strategy. “Why don’t you do it?” Phil Bogosian challenged him. It took Mark and his wife, Sherri, two months to pray through to God’s answer.

Now Mark serves as Acting Director of Mobilization, seconded by Navigators, helping implement the Adopt-a-People program. “I believe God has given me the gift of administration,” Mark says, “and I feel compelled by the Adopt-a-People strategy to use that gift here!”

SHERRI SCHWEER, Pasadena CA, “I have never really been interested in missions, but in people,” Mark’s wife Sherri reflects. “Missions is conceptual, idealistic. My interest is stirred by genuine encounters with people, and helping them come to Christ.” She began finding cross-cultural encounters very exciting in their “rainbow neighborhood in San Diego (Vietnamese, Chinese, Hispanic, Filipino and black, with a couple of Anglo-Saxon families mixed in).”

“I was interested in Mark before I was interested in Christian work. God used him as bait, and drew my attention to the issue of the Lordship of Christ by using Mark’s life as an example. I asked God to show me the right man to marry, and whether full-time service was right for me. God answered in reverse order; ‘Yes to service’ came first, through John 15, 16 and 17, bearing fruit that would endure. Then He said it was ‘Yes’ to Mark. I was never specifically called to Navigators or to the U.S. Center, but I was called to serve with Mark.

DOCK CATON, Aurora, IL Dock (his nickname) comes to work with a Regional Center out of several years of missionary experience; he and his wife opened the field of Spain for the Free Will Baptists. Since then he has been a “Tent-Maker,” serving The European Missions Association as U.S. Coordinator, while selling insurance. One of his duties was to help set up the Mission ’90 Congress in Utrecht, Holland for students in Europe (see page 28). He received a call from Phil Bogosian, USCWM, about introducing a new poster on “AD2000.” After agreeing to this, “Phil kept on talking,” and soon sent an application to become affiliated with the Center.

Dock hopes to help strengthen the Midwest Center for World Mission, by teaching churches to “act locally (teaching English in their own neighborhoods) and think globally (going on short-terms of from 2 weeks to a whole summer).”

TIM BRAUNS, Dorchester, MA Through the missions-oriented church Tim grew up in, he made a decision in his early teens “to be available for some sort of service” for the Lord, then forgot about it for years. During college he had to work his way through existentialist philosophy, socialist politics and a small Bible-study group with cultish tendencies. Seminary brought much healing and freedom “from so much of the legalistic driven-ness of my past, so I am free to love Him in many ways, and live out my faith in love for other people.” Also in this time he was exposed to speakers and seminars on World Mission and mobilization through prayer. A turning point was the 1986 “Vision Conference” for New England students at Mt. Hermon, where Ralph Winter spoke. Coordinating the ’87 Conference and attendance at Urbana increased his understanding. He began to volunteer in the New England Center as a part-time intern. After graduation from Gordon-Conwell he became Acting Director. He said he hopes to remain working there “because this position is a development of God’s leading in my life to be involved in missions mobilization.”

TOM WINHOLTZ, St . Paul, MN Tom became a Christian at age 14 through hearing Bible programs on the radio. Born blind (“travel” blindness until 17; total since then), he joined a Lutheran Church that had an Adopt-a-People program, was active in InterVarsity in college, and took a Perspectives course. Through his father, Howard, Tom heard of regional centers for world mission and together they attended a Regional Conference in Pasadena. There they met Jim Neilsen, who had started one in Minneapolis and decided to cooperate with him. Tom does jobs at the Office like mailings, phoning for Concerts of Prayer, representing the Center at church meetings. When accepted on staff, he will be “Director of Constituent Relations.”

HOWARD WINHOLTZ, Rochester, MN Howard has been connected with the Methodist Hospital in Rochester (affiliated with the famous Mayo Clinic) for many years, the last 11 as CEO. He has been interested in missions for 35 years and felt blessed as many went to the field from his church. In 1978 he heard of Dr. Winter’s challenge to give $15.95 to buy a campus and felt “it was a pretty small amount for such a big project,” and a worthy investment. He has been on the mailing list of Missions Frontiers ever since, and from that grew a desire to see a Center begun in his area. He and son Tom (see above) now cooperate with the Midwest Center in Minneapolis.

“I drive up every Tuesday, and work three days at the Center. I man book-tables at church meetings, pick up and answer the mail, do the bookkeeping (potential volunteers, please take note!). I accepted Christ publicly, sometime in 1935-36, and have committed all of my adult life to His service and direction.”

FOREST RISCH, Clovis, CA God has worked in several phases of awareness in Forest’s life. After a promising career with the USDA Soil Conservation Service, he felt called to accept Christ’s Lordship of his life and attended Fuller Seminary. Nine years ago he moved to Clovis to help start a church.

A young couple studying to become missionaries met Forest and his wife on the street one day, were invited by them to live in their guest house, and join their church. They prayed together regularly and from this were planted seeds of love for missions. Later they heard of the U.S. Center through Bruce and Christie Graham and were invited to visit them at the Center. Who was leading the tour? Phil Bogosian, and “that really did it!” They heard that one-half of the world had not heard the gospel of Christ, that missionaries were not going to that half and that Christians should live a “wartime lifestyle until the task was finished.”

The Risches will work in Fresno, with John and Eldora Schwab of Turlock, California, together forming the “Central Valley Regional Center.” They are phasing out their business and plan to raise support to serve full-time. “I believe God is calling Christians to reach the world, through developing: 1) Concerts of Prayer, 2) evangelistic strategies, 3) and awareness of Unreached Peoples. God has been actively moving in us with a burning desire to see His kingdom come in our generation!”

CHERI RISCH, Clovis, CA At one of Campus Crusade’s regional conferences on “Master, Mate and Mission,” Cheri was challenged to allow Jesus to be Lord in each area of her life. “I responded and the Lord has been faithful to give me a keen awareness that my life belongs to Him.” Her Christian service has been as “a wife to my husband, mother to our three sons, and teacher to neighborhood children at our church-home.” She has had training in sharing her faith through Campus Crusade and Evangelism Explosion. “I believe the Holy Spirit is raising up people all over the world to focus on His heart to take the Gospel to every people, in order that He can return for His bride!”

SCOTT GOSSMAN, Pasadena, CA Scott has come through physical difficulties that should have taken his life. Born with cystic fibrosis, he has been in the hospital over 40 times, had scoliosis with a double-S curve of more than 70 degrees, and a 30% lung capacity. Of the more than 30 youngsters with this disease he has met in “growing up in the hospital,” only he and his friend, Dave Richey, have survived! And it was through Dave that Scott found Christ.

At a summer-camp for cystic fibrosis children, they met Robby Butler, who had been marvelously cured of the disease. Robby has kept track of Scott and Dave, discipled them and now steered them in the direction of the U.S. Center where he works.

After an operation on his spine when he was 21, Scott went into business for himself. But he began to want all his energies to be spent on things of the Lord and sold it. He is now Youth Pastor at his church, seeking where the Lord wants to use him. As a “World Christian”he wans to see youth groups all across the country get a vision for missions.

NOW WHAT? Bruce Koch is planning another Staff Orientation Week in August, open to those who are interested in serving on the staff of the U.S. Center or one of its Regional Offices. Please contact him at the:

Personnel Office U.S. Center for World Mission 1605 Elizabeth Street Pasadena, CA 91104 (818) 398-2330.