December 01, 1979 by Roberta Winter

I write this letter in Ralph's absence. He is in London, speaking to the Evangelical Missionary Association, and will return tomorrow.

Sometimes we at the Center wish we could more adequately share with you the challenges, inspirations, and visions which are our daily meat. You would have to be with us from 7:L5 to 8:30 every morning as we meet for prayer and sharing from the Word. Or Wednesday afternoons at our staff meeting. Or join us in our periodic prayer retreats. What a blessing and encouragement they are!

You can join us any Thursday night. George Verwer, Director and Founder of Operation Mobilization was with us last time. His talk on "The Principles of Survivalship for the Missionary Candidate" was simply great. We are beginning to tape (and sometimes videotape) some of these wonderful talks and hope to make them available to you or your church in the near future.

When Mr. Verwer mentioned the embassy hostages in Iran, I couldn't help but think back to other times of crisis in history. For 300 years savage Vikings plundered Christian Europe. Celtic missionaries had gone most everywhere else in Europe, but very few had tried to win these murderous Northmen. But the time came when the Vikings became an unleashed monster, covering England with rotting corpses from north to south. Because missionaries didn't go to them, the Vikings "came" for the Gospel Scandinavia was finally won to Christ  mainly by Christian girls carried off in Viking raids to become slaves and wives in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.

In our day we have relatively speaking given only token concern to winning the Muslims of the world. Muslim evangelism is very difficult. But it wasn't easy for our forefathers to be reached, if we could just remember. Now we face a critical international problem with a nation of Muslims, and it may be only the first such we will face. Yet even today I know of no way to really solve and prevent such international crises other than the age old method the Spirit of God has always used. The Gospel that changes men's hearts is really pivotal, even in human political history.

As Americans, we are aware that massive efforts to reach our own non Christian neighbors is costly in money as well as time. How much more will it take to reach people who are very different from us? People who don't want the Gospel, but whom Christ claims for his bride? Will we reach them before they "come" for the Gospel? Can we afford to? Can we afford not to? Let's keep on praying, but let's also obey Christ's command to "go"!