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- Gcowe 1995
Gcowe 1995
George Verwer

George Verwer (1938 - 2023). American evangelist and founder of Operation Mobilisation (OM), born in Ramsey, New Jersey, to Dutch immigrant parents. At 14, Dorothea Clapp gave him a Gospel of John and prayed for his conversion, which occurred at 16 during a 1955 Billy Graham rally in New York. As student council president, he distributed 1,000 Gospels, leading 200 classmates to faith. In 1957, while at Maryville College, he and two friends sold possessions to fund a Mexico mission trip, distributing 20,000 Spanish tracts. At Moody Bible Institute, he met Drena Knecht, marrying her in 1960; they had three children. In 1961, after smuggling Bibles into the USSR and being deported, he founded OM in Spain, growing it to 6,100 workers across 110 nations by 2003, with ships like Logos distributing 70 million Scriptures. Verwer authored books like Out of the Comfort Zone, spoke globally, and pioneered short-term missions. He led OM until 2003, then focused on special projects in England. His world-map jacket and inflatable globe symbolized his passion for unreached peoples.
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Sermon Summary
The video shown during the sermon was a powerful visual representation of the challenge of reaching the unreached people in the 1040 window. It was well-received by the audience of three to four thousand delegates at the Jacobi Main Plenary Session. The video, produced by the music department and their partners, showcased the need for missionaries in this part of the world. It is expected to be a key recruiting tool in the future and was a great answer to prayer.
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Sermon Transcription
Father, we do thank you for this opportunity to reflect on what you've done there in Seoul, Korea over these past days. Some of us have literally just arrived. Katrina and I, just last night, we may not be as alert as we should be, but God, we want to just share. We want somehow this to be an item of praise. We want this to be a stimulus for greater prayer, and we need your help. Just guide us together as we will be asked about this event, so that what we receive today, as we've been exhorted to do in 2 Timothy, we may be able to share with others who can share with others also. And we just give you the praise, we give you the glory, in Jesus' name, amen. Well, I was on the plane preparing for this talk, and I wrote out the word, G-C-O-W-E. I actually spelled it wrong. To start with, put a G, G-E, but it doesn't have an E. It's just G-C-O-W-E. And I thought I would just try to confine my thoughts, though I'll surely go on a few tangents, to five words, and they start with those letters. The first word, G, for global. If we think about G-C-O-W-E, we think about something that is very, very global. One of the things we're very aware of in Korea, and we've been aware of also through articles that we've been reading, is the enormous shift of enthusiasm in missions into the third world. If you look at the listing of the people which I have with me who were there at G-C-O-W-E, you can get the feeling of that. Just for example, Germany had seven people in G-C-O-W-E. Brazil had 248. Korea, of course, they didn't have very far to go, but it was very select. They ran a simultaneous pastors conference for pastors that were not allowed to go. Some of us had the opportunity to speak at that, and that turned out to be a bonanza for Operation World and Korean. But there were 257 delegates from Korea at G-C-O-W-E, 66 from South Africa, 42 from Argentina, 176 from India. One of my great concerns is that the enthusiasm in Europe is not what it should be. I think there are still wonderful people in Europe that are very, very committed to world missions. I spoke to one of the main leaders of TEMA. He was in our track, missions mobilization track, and he just shared with me how hardly any organization in the whole of Europe has taken ownership of TEMA, the greatest, largest missions conference in Europe, which could be five times larger. Very few even go from England, Great Britain. The German world is the biggest participant in TEMA, and that's coming up again soon. Global. Of course, the goal of AD2000 is to see the gospel for every person, a church for every people, so it's got to be global. There are quite a few critics, of course, of this kind of conference, but I think one of the things we need to keep in mind, these conferences don't take place that often. I haven't been to a conference like this since 1974, so the way I'm going, that's probably it, and that was Lausanne, 1974. For people that come from all over the world, for many of these people, this is a very motivating and life-changing experience. I think we need to praise God that it really went off so well. I hadn't heard of anybody, any major accidents of all these people traveling there. Many, of course, came by air, and I hadn't heard of any great accidents during the Congress. There was a lady in our track whose father suddenly died, and we gathered around and prayed for her, and I'm sure there are many, many things that have happened that I wouldn't know about. So that's the first word I hope might stick in your mind as you think of the AD2000 movement. One of the reasons I committed myself to this is because Jokowi is not where it's at. Jokowi is just the mid-decade conference and mid-decade evaluation of where we are. This thing sort of birthed back in 89, came somewhat out of Lausanne, came somewhat in an unusual way out of a conference in Singapore in 89. But this great Jokowi event that we've just come from is only, I feel in some ways, a small part of all that God's doing. People can be very much involved in this vision without having gone to Jokowi. That's one of the reasons I'm doing this tape. We would like those of you who were not there in Korea to be able to sense something of this vision. In the British delegation where there was a tremendous debate, let me just explain that though we were there for 10 days, quite a bit of that time was in our tracks and then in our national groups and then in regional group. European regional group mainly heard about Hope for Europe from Stuart McAllister. The national group which I didn't get to so much, I heard that the British national group, at least in the end, came up with some degree of consensus. Not so much about starting AD2000 in the UK, which may not happen as a large scale organization, but the vision, the concepts. To me, everybody in O.M. should be excited about this. Naturally, there's different levels of excitement. But never before in any major congresses has the 1040 window or the Muslim world been so featured. Whatever other little things we don't particularly like, that should surely stir our hearts. Or do we prefer? Do we prefer that the average person in the body of Christ never gets the vision of the Muslim world? Certainly we in O.M. in 40 years of labor have not been able to give it to them. We've given it to some. In many parts of the world, O.M. is a very, very tiny voice. Out of the 80 nations we work in, 50 to 60 of those nations are relatively small works where the leader would say, we're sort of still being born. We had Bagus there representing O.M. Indonesia. Do you know the present size of O.M. Indonesia, especially when you consider the size of Indonesia as a nation? Well, it's quite different, believe me, to be an O.M.er in a nation with three or four other O.M.ers and to be an O.M.er on ICT or Germany or India or even Pakistan and other countries which are well developed. So I think the global challenge of AD2000 should warm all of our hearts and that we should be able to focus on the 1040 window. I think one of the great highlights, again, I wasn't at all the meetings because the Koreans had me go in the other meetings. And I was in the midst of a few other things on the telephone. But I think one of the highlights was showing the 1040 music video that was produced by our music department here and their partners. To be able to show that to 3,000 to 4,000 delegates, the evening meeting of Jikowei, and to have copies available outside as the people went out that they could buy was a great answer to prayer. And I'm convinced that little video will be one of the key recruiting tools in the world for the next few years. They're wanting to put it into many languages. I don't know how they can do that. It's, of course, something that's powerful whether you understand the language or not because it's so visual. I'm sure Bill Drake is going to get quite a few more invitations, including Korea. And that was exciting. After the video, I had 11 minutes to speak. And believe me, at Jikowei main plenary session, 11 minutes is something that you highly esteem. And I just somehow attempted to share, again, the challenge of the unreached. And I would ask you to pray that the Lord would use that even though it's now history because it's all, it gets into writing, it gets into magazines, it's going to have phenomenal coverage right across the world. The 1040 window has been recognized. It's absolutely amazing that something like this, which was somebody's idea really of how to market this part of the world, how to get this across to the average person and across the world, has been so relatively successful. And we always tell people, of course, that they can build their own window if the 1040 window doesn't cover their favorite country. There are a number of very unreached places that you sort of have to reach up out of the window to get to, parts of Central Asia, Indonesia. And that always gets sometimes a good laugh. The second letter, C, I've written the word catalyst or catalytic. I don't know if that word's in the dictionary, but catalyst is. And I think as I attempt to look objectively at Jikowei, I believe it's a catalytic atomic bomb. That's probably the greatest single thing that will come out of this event. Catalyst and the church, we all desperately need that. So many tens of thousands of conversations going on. There were so many ex-OMers there, I think if we had called an ex-OMers meeting, we could have had a couple of hundred people. We got frightened away from that due to logistics. We did have a meeting of OMers. That had about 50 or so because some are so busy. But it was exciting to meet people that we hadn't seen for many, many years. And I think it was a beautiful thing for people that came from countries where they don't get the opportunity to travel so much. I met in a little Nepali army sort of moving around and linked in with them and prayed with them and had pictures taken. That group was led by Resham Raj, ex-OMer, known to a number of people. These people were really challenged and really excited. The word catalyst, I think, is a beautiful word. It's a ministry God has given our ships. I always say more happens after the ship sails away than when it's there because it's like a catalyst bomb. Far more will happen after Jokowi than happened there. At the end of the day, it's a conference. It doesn't mean the world is going to all be evangelized, but it does mean that 4,000 people go from there. If they all share with 10 their vision, what if they all share with 100? What if 4,000 all managed to share out in Brazil? That's no problem with thousands in the churches. That can be very, very exciting. I believe another major catalyst factor in this is just being in Korea because it is so clear that Korea is to be such a major player in world missions. It doesn't mean they're going to catch up with the United States overnight. Any country that thinks they're no longer needed in the world missions challenge, you're just making a huge mistake because the task is so great, the task is so complex, no nation can be left out. We want to say that here in Britain as this word gets around, oh well, Britain's not such a major sending field anymore. We got so many problems here. Britain is still one of the top nations in the world as far as the resources, the manpower, the roots that the church has. As I spend time in Britain and the States and also places like Brazil and Korea, I'm not going to let one be in competition to the other. I think that's completely ridiculous. In fact, on the plane I was reading one of the back issues of Ralph Winter's amazing magazine on frontiers missions. The magazine last year, I hope many of you have read on the subject of money. In that, he brings out this challenge of American missionaries and the need to continue to see American missionaries. The big event that many of us will never forget took place in this Olympic Stadium. If I did things properly, I'd have some slides. It's just uncanny that in God's providence, I was the main foreign speaker. There were just mainly two of us that spoke, Louise Bush for five or six minutes, and then I had the main message of 25 minutes. A hundred thousand did not come. It rained. They were aiming at a hundred thousand. They only got eighty thousand. What a big disappointment. Eighty thousand for a missionary meeting. The thing that really blessed my heart is that when people were still talking about a hundred thousand, the Korean leaders made it clear that it was between seventy-five and eighty thousand. The most emotional moment of the stadium meeting was when all the Jokowi delegates, three to four thousand, they weren't all there that night, when all the Koreans were singing. They already had one message. They all came in. There was this big drama and dance going on out on the field and all the tremendous music. Then all these missionaries and all these delegates came in and were given a great, enormous welcome. I'm sure there were many, many tears. Of course, it was raining. True Korean style, as the people worked their way into the bleachers, they were all given rain coverings, some kind of raincoat so they could sit in the rain. We, of course, up on the main speaking platform were warm and dry and comfortable. A wonderful English missionary reminded me of that when we met later on, that they were being soaked as we were sitting up there, warm and dry. It was sort of a drizzle. It wasn't a massive downpour. I think at the end, it may have actually stopped. Another one of the great global Catholic highlights was our mega balloon. The whole world now knows about these balloons. The whole world wants these balloons. After I preached, I threw it into the air and it bounced over the delegates and landed somehow, carried right in the middle of this giant Olympic stadium. Then someone tried to pinch it, but Perry Rickard rescued it and deflated it and brought it back to me. I had to present that eventually to Pastor John Oak, the chairman of the OM board, the pastor of one of Korea's largest churches. I could go on and say a lot more about the catalysts, just so many things, from individual conversations to seminars to track meetings to the Korean churches to the generosity. I heard that every delegate from the emerging countries, the poor countries, not only were all their expenses paid apart from the airfare, I heard they were all given a lot of cash. How much? $600. If Mei Wei is accurate. If she isn't, then we'll forgive her. That is amazing. Are they Singapore dollars or American? That's why our book table did so well, because people seem to have money. But what an act of generosity. Pastor Oak shared with me that their church put $100,000 into this effort. Quite a challenge, quite a testimony. The third word I've written is an O-G-C-O. I see all you writing this out. I've written under that word or letter O, overwhelming. I find these events overwhelming. I'm still overwhelmed. I'm overwhelmed by the challenge of the goals and the aims of the movement. I'm sort of hanging on for dear life. I find that when I express some of those things honestly, in our track especially, and in other places, people still love me or accept me. There is a place in this movement for doubting Thomases. Some of you who are struggling with the goals and aims, don't let that frighten you. In the final grand finale evening, and by the way, God just might have used Peter Conlon. He was like Mr. MC. I think Fortunato sort of wooed him in saying, we need somebody to make announcements. But Peter Conlon was really helping that whole thing hold together. Announcements, of course, in an event like this are so important. For those of us from OM, sometimes watching us on video screen, one minute we're looking at Frank Fortunato. The next minute we're looking at Peter Conlon and we're wondering, is this Jokowi or Love Europe? Then we walk out and there's Don Bellboom flogging books with Mae White gasping for breath, following behind, and we wonder what's happened here. I wanted to read the Jokowi declaration. There was some debate whether this should be read on the final evening because it is a little bit long, but they decided to read it. I believe it is a significant document that has come out of this great event, and I would like to read it. I think it's more important than some of the other things that I would say at this point. Jokowi 95 declaration, 82,000 and beyond movement. We, about 4,000 Christians from 186 countries, were graciously hosted by the Churches of Korea in Seoul, May 17th to 25th, 1995, for a global consultation on world evangelism. We continue the spirit of earlier consultations committed to the task of global evangelism or evangelization, and I appreciate this so much, building upon the biblical foundation and call to mission set forth in the Lausanne Covenant and the Manila Manifesto, as well as the statement of faith of the World Evangelical Fellowship and inspired by the vision articulated at Singapore 1989 consultation. We desire to move further toward a church for every people and the gospel for every person by 82,000. Our mandate, basic to our vision, our mission, and our strategy is the incarnational model of Jesus Christ. I won't read all the scripture references, but they're given, sprinkled throughout this whole declaration. He alone is the way, the truth, and the life. In obedience to him, the disciples went forth in the power of his spirit to be his witnesses and to establish his church across the earth. The Lord of the harvest calls us to follow him, to take up our cross and to measure our lives by the priorities of his kingdom. By placing the emphasis on becoming like him, Christ intended that his disciples grow not only in holiness, but also as active participants in his mission. To make reproducing disciples of Christ is a way of life. It is the way our crucified and risen Lord lived his life on earth, and now the way he commands all of his disciples to follow, our vision. We came together around a vision created in us by the command of Christ to make disciples of all nations and to preach the gospel to every creature. Our concern is for the whole church to take the whole gospel to the whole world. Our primary but not exclusive focus is on the 1040 window, the area of 10 to 40 degrees north of the equator from West Africa to East Asia, where most of the unreached people's groups are located. There also we find the greatest degree of poverty, illiteracy, disease, and suffering. We confess a deep awareness of our failure in the past to do all we could have done to make Christ known throughout the world, especially in the areas where no church movement exists. We also repent of our needless divisions and competitive attitudes that have hindered the advance of the gospel. We resolve by our God's grace to no longer ignore the challenge nor miss the opportunity set before us. This is the time for which we were born. We see the close of the millennium as a unique occasion to reemphasize the urgency of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth. The year 2000 can serve as a milestone to mark the advance of the gospel both as a focal point for intensified evangelistic work and a transition to a new century of missionary outreach. Our purpose, we seek in a spirit of servanthood to encourage, network, and motivate Christian leaders and churches by inspiring them to obedience to the Great Commission and the Great Commandment. Our intent is to stimulate cooperation among existing denominations, congregations, parachurch organizations, and missionary societies, and service groups of all kinds in order to work unitedly toward this objective. The expected result is the establishment of a mission-oriented church-planting movement among every people in the world, both in rural areas and urban centers. This will ensure that everyone has a valid opportunity to experience the love, truth, and saving power of Jesus Christ in fellowship with other believers. In the face of widespread tribalism and racism, only the gospel can bring lasting peace and reconciliation among peoples. Our strategies. Our strategies are often hindered by blunders. I had to get this water, and for those listening to the tape, we knocked the tape recorder off as Verwer attempted to get some water. Our strategies. Satan is trying to hinder on every side. No. Our strategies. With this end in view, we wait on God in prayer and fasting. Without heaven-sent revival, all of our efforts will be in vain. We yearn for an outpouring of sovereign grace and power in a mighty spiritual awakening across the length and breadth of the church. The magnitude of this task is beyond our resources, but we know that with God all things are possible. Our role is that of a catalyst to arouse concern and accelerate divinely motivated initiatives. As God enables, we will do this by disseminating information and facilitating cooperative missionary efforts, leadership development, compassionate care for physical needs and social justice, and evangelistic efforts across cities, nations, and continents. We will endeavor to maintain accurate progress reports of church planting efforts among the least evangelized people, so that all might be aware of people, groups, everywhere that have not yet heard the redeeming word. We recognize that these strategies need to be worked out in specific country-by-country cooperative plans. We gratefully acknowledge the example of the brothers and sisters of our host country, Korea, who have challenged us by their creative plans such as a one-one-one intercessory prayer movement, every member praying for one minute at 1 p.m. every day for one non-Christian friend, or one particular country, or one unreached people, or one missionary friend or pastor. A call for every Christian living in a country whose per capita gross national product, GNP, is more than five thousand dollars to give at least one dollar a month to help those in poverty, and a summons to courageously stand for the universal upholding of human rights and religious freedom. Strategies, however good, should be matched by commitment to their implementation. And then finally, our commitment. The tremendous potential of AD2000 and beyond movement was vividly portrayed by the powerful Korean student Mission 2000 event at the Olympic Stadium. On the evening of May 20th, 1995, 80,000 students assembled under the banner of the cross dramatically dedicated themselves to obey the Great Commission. We too covenant to pray and worship as we work together for the evangelization of the world. We must have the empowerment that comes from on high. Therefore, in total dependence upon the Holy Spirit, we dedicate ourselves anew to Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us. Despite the difficulties, we look expectantly to the day when the gospel finally will be preached in all the world, and the redeemed of the Lord will be gathered from every tribe and language and people and nation to praise him forever. Our commandment to world evangelization directs our energy toward this goal, to which history is moving, and when the completed church will be presented to the Father in all the beauty of his holiness, and every knee shall bow and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God. Amen. The 1995 Jiko-e Declaration. We'll be making copies of this available, and we realize that this kind of dedication is far more meaningful for some people than for other people. One of my pleas, especially for those of us who come from so-called westernized countries, is that we may just be somehow a godly model of self-control, of humility, as we see new emerging mission-sending countries. Brazil, for example, are very aware that their first big batch of missionaries that went out from Brazil, many returned discouraged. They're more than aware of that, and we've got to encourage that, encourage them that this first wave, may have not been the very first wave, that was researched and came up with some discouraging statistics, that this would not discourage them, because we know in missionary history some of the first waves that went out, say to Africa, they in fact were all dead within six months, and people could have easily become discouraged. It seems that in mission work today, we don't see as many people martyred or dying of disease as much as back then, but Satan seems to have other strategies to discourage, to confuse, and to cause people to have to return, and that may not have been the Lord's plan. Well, there's just two other letters in this word Jiko-e. You probably wondered what I was going to do with the word weak, the word W, so I put down the word weak, and I just want to be realistic. The 82,000 movement in some countries is incredibly weak. We acknowledged in our track, we had 300 attending our mission mobilization track. We acknowledged to our people who came from all over the world, that we as a track are just being born. The whole movement of Jiko-e, in some ways, is just being born. It is very new. It is very recent, and in some places in the world, especially a number of European countries, it's very, very weak, at least outwardly, but don't be deceived by that. God is in this thing. God is uniting people through this. Our own fellowship of OM has had a quantum leap of relationships, networking, material distribution. I'm thinking of the literature. Just at this Congress and related meetings, we sold more copies of Operation World in six days than in the previous three years, as we ordered by faith 5,000 copies, and so a good percentage of them sold. We even, last minute, were able to bring copies into the stadium. Though we didn't have it organized enough to sell so many, we did sell over a thousand copies. Some of our OM Korean workers were up to three in the morning together with David and others, putting them away or shunting them to the next place, preparing for the next last-minute entrance into some golden opportunity to get that great book out in the Korean language. So pray. Pray for Louise Bush. Pray for Thomas Wang. Pray for people like Roger Foster in this country, Chris Foster, Roger's son, who's still sort of holding the AD2000 office together in this country. On September 20th here in Britain, there will be a key meeting between leaders in Britain and the Evangelical Alliance with those who were at Jiko-e and others to see what is the next step forward here in Great Britain. I met Mr. Zaninari. He could have been in the Distinguished Persons track, a man from Jordan who's been linked with us for many years, a business person, but he stayed with the Jordanians. He was so excited he wanted to go back to Jordan immediately, start all this, appoint a director, and get on with it. It doesn't always work out that easily. And I would appreciate your prayers for these different national groups as they go back, and I'll attempt to somehow keep you informed at least to some degree. And then the E, G-C-O-W-E. The most basic word I've written down is the word evangelical. This is another reason that people should be committed who may be quite conservative in their theology. They may be nervous about some things because definitely AD2000 represents a quantum leap in marriage and cooperation between those from the charismatic side of the body of Christ, many of whom want to be called charismatic evangelicals, and the evangelical side of the body of Christ. And I think this is very beautiful. This is where O.M. is. We should be thrilled that now more than ever across the world there is a sense that we can work together despite our differences. But this is an evangelical. It's an evangelical movement. I had somebody criticize the thing because they heard that some Catholics were in the march for Jesus. Now AD2000 is not easy to understand. It's a network. Many things are linked in with this network. And then things are linked in with the things that are linked in with the network. So of course there would be Roman Catholics in some march for Jesus, maybe Greek Orthodox, maybe some other major denomination. But if you know anything about what happened in 1989 when there was a thought of cooperation with Roman Catholics in worldwide evangelism, the Latin Americans walked out, a lot of other things happened, and this clear decision was made by Jokowi, though I'm sure they acknowledged Catholics who love the Lord Jesus, that this is a movement of evangelical Bible-believing Christians who do have a similar doctrinal foundation. This is not some kind of ecumenical trick. Now of course there would be friends. There was a man who was there from Russia representing, just there as a Russian Orthodox, even though they were not officially involved, and he got up in front of the whole group and repented of the Russian Orthodox persecution of evangelicals in his country. To me that was a very beautiful thing, a very emotional thing, but I can imagine someone just reading about this or hearing about this, suddenly attacking Jokowi saying, oh well this is just an ecumenical thing and we have to watch out for this. And that would be so sad. And actually when something is this big, you can easily find some little thing that you may not agree with or that may miscommunicate. But this is an evangelical movement, and it's tied into some degree with WEF. They will have their big event, which will be a very small event, but it was in Manila a couple of years ago. It will be in Minehead in 1996, and we will be involved there as well. One of the leaders in the British delegation was Tom Houston of the Lausanne Movement, and he had some very important things to say. So to me that's very, very important, and I hope it will help you to convince more people to become owners of this vision. What's going to happen, especially in Europe, with the actual organization of AD 2000, I don't know. There is a sense in Europe that the big umbrella as far as evangelism should be hope for Europe. That's just also just being born under the leadership of Stuart McAllister. We're not interested in a lot of duplication here in Britain, and I think it's true in a number of other countries. They're trying to bring this vision, these goals, these aims into existing umbrellas, but in some countries existing umbrellas for whatever reason don't particularly want it, and I would ask you to really pray for unity. This movement, like so many things, has the potential of being divisive. If the brothers and all the exciting ones from Jikohe go back to their own country and are not sensitive to the main leaders in their churches, in other organizations, including mission organizations, it could be divisive, and Satan will really try to use that. So I would really appreciate prayer, as all kinds of meetings are going to take place to try in every nation in the world to have some kind of strategy to fulfill the goals and aims of this movement. It's going to be messy, it's going to be complicated, there are going to be mistakes. I'm sure a lot of things are going to happen as Satan will counterattack this great movement, and I would just urge all who are hearing this feeble tape and presentation to be proactive, to keep the communication lines open, and to especially read this declaration and see if that's something you could take ownership of and maybe carry around in your notebook. There are many other things I would like to say, I could get talking about the OM book table, which to me was so exciting and so much literature went out, some of it only arrived last minute, the Carlisle shipment, with all those magazines, just last minute we thought, what a disaster, they just went out, people were carrying boxes of them away. The French books did arrive the day after the entire Congress was over, and they are being stored temporarily in a church in Korea, together with some Portuguese books. It seems the Spaniards were just gobbling up our Spanish books, but the Brazilians said, we've already seen all these books, at least that's one of the reports that I had. There are many, many humorous things that happened during those days. Some people had to travel an hour and a half by bus to get to the meetings from outside of Seoul. Many of us, the British delegation, we were in the cultural center, a beautiful place, so some were four and five in a room in bunks, and they had interesting experiences from what I heard. Fortunately I was with my wife, so we limited ourselves, not having others in our room, but it was an exciting time. Pray for the church in Korea. The potential is there, the vision is there, the money is there, though they are not accustomed to giving large amounts of money to overseas missions, and they need our prayers. There's a lot more I could say. We had an OMers reunion, a few ex-OMers came there, and of course Korean ex-OMers and former ICT people seem to be there in different places to encourage us. Let's pray together. Lord, I've only just really touched on what happened there in Korea over these past ten or so days, and I just thank you. Thank you for the privilege of being involved. Thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to speak to more people than I usually speak to in six months or a year. And thank you, God, for the opportunity to be so involved with Fortunato and the music, with the book displays, with so many other OM leaders involved in different levels. Lord, we're cast upon you as this was such a great Catholic explosion, and now we're trying to figure out what happens in the fallout. We know there'll be the positives and there'll be the negatives. We thank you for the prayer movement that continues. We thank you for the reconciliation that's going on. We thank you for the commitment to remain proactive in the midst of all the complications and all the obstacles, and especially God for this tremendous emphasis on the part of the world that's been so much on our hearts all these decades. We just give you thanks for this. We give you thanks for the privilege of being involved. We ask for wisdom as to what the next step would be and should be for each one of us, and all the networks, all that we are trying to follow up right across the world in many different tracks. We look to you, we trust you, and we're believing you for far greater things on a national and regional level and in the trenches as individuals are presented the gospel and one to you, Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we pray. Amen.
Gcowe 1995
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George Verwer (1938 - 2023). American evangelist and founder of Operation Mobilisation (OM), born in Ramsey, New Jersey, to Dutch immigrant parents. At 14, Dorothea Clapp gave him a Gospel of John and prayed for his conversion, which occurred at 16 during a 1955 Billy Graham rally in New York. As student council president, he distributed 1,000 Gospels, leading 200 classmates to faith. In 1957, while at Maryville College, he and two friends sold possessions to fund a Mexico mission trip, distributing 20,000 Spanish tracts. At Moody Bible Institute, he met Drena Knecht, marrying her in 1960; they had three children. In 1961, after smuggling Bibles into the USSR and being deported, he founded OM in Spain, growing it to 6,100 workers across 110 nations by 2003, with ships like Logos distributing 70 million Scriptures. Verwer authored books like Out of the Comfort Zone, spoke globally, and pioneered short-term missions. He led OM until 2003, then focused on special projects in England. His world-map jacket and inflatable globe symbolized his passion for unreached peoples.