1982 Review
What did you see in 1982?
Thursday, Dec. 30, 1982, about 40 of our staff gathered for an hour and a half to ask God to remind us of the things He had done. Here's what we came up with. You can help us add other things you feel, were outstanding evidences of His hand in history.
We were absolutely required to catch up on our payments by Dec. 31st, 1981. God helped us to do so through many generous and sacrificial people.
The '864 page book finally came out: Perspectives on the World
Christian Movement By mid year it already had to be reprinted. At about the same time a companion Study Guide came out, 170 pages, 83x11. Ten thousand of these books are in print now, used in many seminaries and colleges as' well as in our own Institute of International Studies.
The Student Missions Coalition was formed and by now has helped coordinate prayer meetings on approximately 100 campuses. The Caleb Project is also working effectively on 40 campuses. We thank Cod for these two organizations.
The annual meeting of the German Association of Evangelical Missions took as its theme "Hidden Peoples" (in English!).
Today's Mission magazine resumed publication (now in 1983 to be called the World Christian magazine). It is a superb, four color popular magazine covering the whole world of missions the only such magazine in the world today.
The largest "Urbana Onward," which was held on the campus of the USCWM, merged with our annual SCOWE (Student Conference on World Evangelization).
The IFMA's new Frontier Peoples Committee had its first meeting. Efraim Rios Montt became the new President of Guatemala the most outspokenly evangelical head of state in the world. Pray for him.
A Reach A People confab, organized by the Lausanne Committee, met and simplified terminology: "Unreached Peoples" are now defined the way "Hidden" and "Frontier Peoples" have been. We can all get together on this now.
A "Future of the Missionary Enterprise" meeting was held in Ventnor: the swan song of those mainly liberal and ecumenical agencies that cannot see the Unreached Peoples beyond the boundaries of the existing national churches. No young people present. Depressing!
The Asia Missions Association (its Third Triennial Meeting) met in great style in Korea. This meeting was all but overlooked by even Christian news media, but its Seoul '82 Declaration is a ringing declaration of hope and determination.
In September the annual IFMA and EFMA meetings the largest associations of mission executives in the world both focused on frontier and unreached peoples.
Without our solicitation both Malone College (Ohio) and Northwestern College (Iowa) indicated their interest in backing the Perspectives course on secular campuses in their states. Now in 1983 Grand Canyon College (Arizona) may also. Many others are considering doing the same.
Keith Green went to the mission field and came back sold out to missions. His next few weeks were to be his last, but he was faithful to the heavenly vision, and now his entire constituency is a missions tinderbox.
The World Christian Encyclopedia came off the press. Its statistics show that the world Christian movement is more extensive than anyone could have believed a monument to the impact of the gospel across the centuries, especially in the twentieth century. Time Magazine gave two pages to this subject.
"Chariots of Fire" emblazoned in the sky once for all that America wants clean, high minded, even missionary theme films. Since Christian investors have been slow to believe this fact, maybe the financial success of the non Christians who made the movie will encourage others to finance such films.
New organizations linked up with the Frontier Fellowship: Bible Translations on Tape, Episcopal Church Missions Committee,' Evangelical Free Church of America, Gordon Conwell Seminary, RBMU International, Send International, United Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship, and the World Evangelical Fellowship. Several others which we cannot mention have given us strong hints that they may join. Response to a letter in November brought positive replies from 25 more organizations while will send representatives to a February 6 8 meeting here.
North Africa Mission tries out an audacious new experiment: It has conceived and established a semi autonomous younger division. Greg Livingstone, heading this up, hopes it can be characterized by young people getting to the field far earlier and yet continuing their education much longer.
The Escuela Misiological Latino americano looms into view, paralleling in part the Peruvian Escuela Misiologica. This new emphasis spells nationals getting into crosscultural missions in Latin 'America.
Time Magazine gives its Christmas cover story to the cause of missions!
The State of California completed its examination of our large M.A. program in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. Then a few weeks later it was official this degree now has the highest certification the State offers.
In December, Mission '83 brought together for the second time 8,000 European students for a missions conference. Something is happening in our world!
In December we were quieted (shall I say slightly paralyzed?) by the enormous debt that had accumulated. We had no spectacular, scarey foreclosure warning as we had the previous year. Yet, in a two week period over $200,000 came in. Now the March 1st deadline for another payment is upon us. Then only one more, June 1st, and after that the biggest challenge of all ¬the 6 million dollar balloon payment September 1st! Who is sufficient for these things?
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