April 01, 1980 by

The World Consultation on Frontier Missions, to be held in Edinburgh, Scotland, October 27¬November 1, continues to see growing involvement of mission agencies worldwide. According to its March progress report, agencies within the United Kingdom, India, Australia, Japan, and Hong Kong have communicated their excitement and willingness to cooperate in this venture.

Larry Allmon, chairman of the Pasadena Convening Committee, states that the ad hoc convening committees, while not providing the smooth, fully organized approach usually associated with a gathering of this size, have definitely encouraged international cooperation. "This very characteristic," he commented, "has been an encouraging sign to many of us that the Consultation is more the result of the moving of the Spirit of God than the project of any single organization."

The progress report also clarified the major distinctions of this Consultation's constituency, focus, and impact. Drawing delegates from those mission agencies focused seriously on reaching the hidden peoples, the Consultation will deeply probe issues related to evangelizing these "hidden peoples: those cultural and linguistic subgroups, urban or rural, for whom there is yet no indigenous community of believing Christians able to evangelize their own people."

Viewed as an implementation oriented gathering, this Consultation will draw on much of the research already available from other sources and earlier meetings. "We anticipate," said Allmon, "an atmosphere of commitment and determination to implement specific strategies to be carried out by the power of the Holy Spirit in measurable steps."

Leiton Chinn, Consultation Coordinator, is presently in England with the Executive Committee of the World Evangelical Fellowship's Mission Commission.

Students "Volunteer"

The U .S. Center for World Mission has received news of three recent initiatives which have engaged students as "volunteers" for frontier missions. Students on two U . S. college campuses, LeTourneau College (a Christian college in Texas) and Occidental College (a secular college in California), have formed student volunteer groups focused on frontier missions. News also arrived from South Africa of the formation of a new Baptist Frontier Missions Society. Twenty¬one students have already enlisted as volunteers.

Newsworthy

A team of three researchers from the Institute of Chinese Studies just returned yesterday from a sixweek excursion to the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. More on this in the next issue.

Twenty students and two faculty members from the Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) Department on campus attended the International Conference of TESL teachers in San Francisco this past month. Key officials from Kuwait, China and other foreign countries were there to interview applicants for teaching positions overseas. Our TESL delegation was actually the largest representation from any American university.

Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, home of Evangelism Explosion (EE) invited Dr. Ralph Winter to be the main speaker at its First Annual World Missions Conference. Dr. Winter will also be speaking at the Missions Emphasis Week at Wheaton College in Illinois this April.

The Services Division of the Center has been working for the last several weeks in an effort to transfer many of the specialized mailing lists and information on to computer. A Caltech graduating senior has joined staff who, providentially, majored in computer sciences.