Beginnings

In the late 1950s nothing could have been farther from the minds of George Verwer and those with him than the idea of a ship. They were just a small group of Bible college students in the Chicago area. Their dominant thought at that moment was how to get some sort of vehicle to transport them and their stuff down to Mexico for the holidays. For penniless students that was a problem of major proportions. Yet they were set on spending their summer vacation in Mexico; but not to stretch out lazily on white sandy beaches in the bright sunshine after a refreshing swim in inviting blue waters. They had some­thing more important in mind.

Mexico, they had been told, was a land full of religious people who believed firmly in God. Yet few of them realised that it was possible to know God in a personal way. They were missing out on the most important experi­ence in life! That was a tragic situation which should be remedied, thought the students. ‘We can’t do the whole job,’ they told themselves, ‘but we’ll do our part.’

Great ideals, but how could they be put into practice without the use of a couple of cars or a small van? The students didn’t see any solution, but they reasoned that the work was God’s work, so he was the one who should provide the answer. Many hours were spent in prayer, asking him to do so.

A young man who came to their weekly prayer times heard them praying for a vehicle. Immediately his thoughts went to his uncle who had a fleet of trucks. Perhaps he would have one he could let the students use for the trip.

‘Oh yes,’ the uncle replied when the young man asked him about it. ‘See that old truck over there on the blocks. They can have that one if they want it, but I can tell you, it will never make it out of Chicago, much less down to Mexico.’

A few days later the truck, packed with students, Chris­tian books and tracts, was headed toward Mexico. Not only did it make the trip safely to Mexico and back, it made the trip twice more in subsequent summers.

In the early sixties the same scene on a larger scale was taking place in Europe. The students had graduated. Two or three had moved down to Mexico to work there. Others had turned their attention to Europe. The goal was the same: to get people excited about knowing God in a personal way. The method was the same as well: dis­tributing Christian literature and getting into conversation with individuals. Trying to find transport was a recurring problem too.

The most daunting thought to the young people was that Europe was so big and varied! What impact could a couple of dozen men and women have? Clearly their contribution was vital, but it just was not enough. How could they get more—many more—people involved?

‘By getting the already existing churches involved! That’s the answer,’ thought George Verwer. ‘When we go into a city, instead of attempting to do all the work our­selves, we’ll try to get people from various churches to work with us. Once these people become personally involved and see how God can use them, they will want to continue on even after we’ve left to go somewhere else.’

That was the beginning of the organisation known as Operation Mobilisation, which soon became better known as OM. The idea of mobilising God’s people to reach needy, lost and hurting people in Europe began to catch fire. Each summer several hundred young people from a wide range of churches would meet together for a few days of orientation and training and then divide up into small teams. Laden with sleeping bags, air mattresses and lots of Christian literature, they would fan out to different parts of Europe and work with interested churches in those areas. Sometimes the teams would pitch tents in camping areas. Often they would simply put down their sleeping bags on the floors of the church building and camp out there.

Even though the lifestyle was very simple, money was still a major problem. Most of the young people had none themselves and OM had no money to pay them or even to provide for their expenses. Their churches and interested Christian friends provided the necessary funds. When this was not enough, and often it wasn’t, the young people prayed that God would provide from other sources. He always did provide what was really necessary, but never enough to indulge in luxurious living.

In the autumn of 1963 the first OM team set out for India. Instead of working for a few weeks in the summer, this group of young people—by this time known as OMers—planned to remain for one or two years. Each autumn a new group would head out from Europe to replace the people who were returning.

Just as with the original team going to Mexico, trans­port was a problem. Flying the young people to India was never even considered. There was no money for that kind of transport. Instead, the OMers went overland in ancient, battered, loaded-to-the-brim trucks. It was a gruelling two-month trip through mountains deep with snow and across bleak, barren wastelands, sometimes on tracks that could hardly be distinguished as roads.

Jolting up and down in the back of one of these trucks, George Verwer squirmed to try to find a less uncomfort­able position. Impatient to reach India and fretting at all the time being wasted in doing nothing but travelling, George began to reflect on the situation. ‘There must be a better way,’ he thought. Some way to cut down on expenses, which in George’s eyes were exorbitant in spite of the simple, somewhat primitive style of travel. ‘What would be ideal,’ he thought, ‘would be some way to combine travelling with the ministry of distributing Chris­tian literature and talking with people about Jesus Christ.’ As he considered the matter, an idea began to germinate in his mind.

A few months later he was relaxing with several OM leaders back in England. As the conversation drifted from topic to topic, someone mentioned the idea of using a ship for evangelism.

‘That’s what we need!’ exclaimed George, seizing the idea with great excitement. ‘Just imagine what we could do with a ship! I’ve been thinking of this for some months now and man, the possibilities stagger my mind! Think of the money that could be saved in travel alone!’

He began to elaborate about how money would be saved and how travel-time by ship could be put to good use instead of being wasted as it was by overland travel. His enthusiasm was contagious. Soon everyone in the room was throwing out ideas—some wild, some witty, but many quite serious. Afterwards some wondered if it was here that the name Logos (‘Word’) was first sug­gested, but no one could remember for certain.

Encouraged by this response, George decided to pres­ent the idea to a larger group of OM leaders. These people knew George to be a man brimming with creativity; he could spout out original ideas, colourful phrases, and humorous remarks as easily as other people turn the pages of a book. Often his ideas showed unusual perception and vision; the development of OM bore testi­mony to this repeatedly. Other times they were wild to the point of utter impracticability or even absurdity. But they were interesting—always very interesting.

So when George began to present his idea of an ocean­going ship, there was an almost tangible feeling of antic­ipation among the listeners. Even George’s most serious statements were often interspersed with humorous sideremarks guaranteed to send an audience into convulsions of laughter. And laugh they did this time. But along with the laughter was a serious attempt to evaluate George’s idea. This time it was relegated to the realm of far-out ideas; too impractical, too unrealistic ever to work.

George, however, was reluctant to let go of the idea. Hearing about an old ship up for sale in Sweden, he decided to go and see it. As he explored its interior, his mind boggled at the thought of all that could be done with facilities such as these. At that time no one wanted old ships; there was too much work involved in keeping them seaworthy. So they were selling at very low prices. This particular ship, which could carry about one hundred people, was selling at £25,000. ‘How can this be?’ thought George in wonder. His mind went back to the hundreds of old battered trucks which OM had bought cheaply and put into workable condition for transporting OMers over the years.

George became completely convinced that OM should get a ship. Not the one he had just seen, but some ship that would be suitable for the use he had in mind. More thought would have to be given about the kind of ship that was needed. The first step, however, was to convince other people of the incredible potential he saw. To clarify his ideas and make them widely known, he began to put them down on paper.

A year passed. Nothing happened. Two years passed. Still nothing happened. Hardly a person in the shipping world showed any interest at all. Of the response he did get, at least eighty per cent was negative. From one of the main OM leaders in India he got a strongly worded letter condemning this ‘wildcat scheme’ and saying in effect: ‘Here we are in India battling to get gospel tracts. What are you doing in London thinking about blowing a load of money on a hunk of scrap?’

Why have an ocean-going ship for world evangelism? read the caption on the leaflet. Intrigued, a young man in naval uniform picked up the paper and began to read. In those moments an interest was aroused that was to significantly affect the realisation of the ship’s project.

The young man was an up-and-coming officer in the merchant navy of Great Britain. The seafaring life offers enormous temptations in the form of loose women, alco­hol, and many other things, yet this man had a clear testimony as a Christian. Serving as first officer with a large company, he was already qualified as a captain and had every prospect of advancement. But after a long correspondence with George Verwer and much prayer, he left his lucrative career to work with OM for a month. He wasn’t sure OM was the right place for him, but he was willing to investigate. In 1966 he committed himself to the ship’s project.

God had provided exactly the right team to turn the vision of a ship into reality. The British captain was able to provide the professional expertise necessary and his very presence gave the venture a sense of solidity, sanity and credibility. On the other hand, George Verwer had the vision and the dynamism to keep the project moving forward.

Blond, handsome, immaculately dressed in a dark suit and bow tie, standing stiffly erect, the young naval officer was the personification of a proper British sea captain. From his perspective, there was only one way to do a thing in the shipping world and that was the ‘proper’ way. With his training and experience he knew just what should be done and how to do it.

A more complete contrast than George Verwer was hardly imaginable. Thin, wiry, perpetually in motion, whether mentally or physically, George was a veritable dynamo. To him, excellence was great but the top priority was action. Added to this was the fact that, as he launched the idea of a ship, he was almost totally ignorant of marine matters. However, he soon developed a voracious appetite for all kinds of information about shipping, read­ing everything he could lay hands on, visiting ships, talk­ing with people in the shipping world. He even sailed with an Indian Christian pilot bringing ships into Bombay, India, and got the officer to explain all sorts of things about ships.

This vast difference in personality and perspective inev­itably led to equally vast differences in opinion. Being the only professional seaman among the OMers, the British captain often felt like ‘a man among boys’, as he put it. How could he communicate with colleagues who didn’t have the background to understand and appreciate the significance of what he had to say? Questions constantly arose about the vessel. What sort of features in a ship were necessary in order to fulfil the ministry that was evolving in the minds of George and the other OMers? Which of these were actually feasible? Which were the impractical dreams of people ignorant of shipping mat­ters? More difficult yet were questions about the crew. Should these be only professionals? Should they be paid a salary? And the most sensitive question of all: who would be in authority? Who would have the final say? The captain, or George Verwer as director of OM?

These were questions that could not be answered easily. The OM ship would be unique, vastly different from the normal ship in the world of commerce. No one could visualise exactly how the ship would function because such a thing had never been attempted before, at least, not on the scale that George and the captain had in mind.

In the four years following the captain’s commitment to the project he and George spoke separately or together in hundreds of meetings. Each time they would share in glowing words their vision for a ship and would challenge Christians to pray for it. People began to get excited and to accept the challenge to pray.

Of course, there were practical matters to consider as well. A suitable vessel at an acceptable price had to be found. Even more difficult than that, professional seamen must be found—men who were willing to leave highly- paid jobs for a ship ministry that didn’t even exist as yet.

In the wisdom of God and by his power the ship was to come into being and have a ministry that would alter the course of thousands of lives around the world. However, it did not develop in the way George Verwer and the others had expected. George had first thought of a ship as a way to transport workers to India, but the ship was never used significantly for this purpose. The British cap­tain had given credibility to the project and had seemed to personify it, inspiring many professional seamen to com­mit themselves to the ship, yet he never actually sailed as her captain.

Now is the hour

Young, robust, full of vitality, and eager to sample all life had to offer, Bj0rn Kristiansen flew out to take command of a Norwegian oil tanker operating in Indonesia. Four years later he was back in Norway—this time in a hospital bed. His strange illness with its bewildering, disturbing weakness, was diagnosed as a serious case of oedema, which meant that fluids were collecting in his legs because of a heart defect. A couple of operations, instead of bringing the hoped-for improvement, left him in a coma for weeks. Periodically, tests were made to make sure his brain was still functioning. He was not expected to live.

During one of these tests weeks after the last operation, Bjørn unexpectedly returned to consciousness. A big tube thrust down his throat prevented him from making any sound, but the nurse had noticed a change in him and began to talk softly and calmly to him. He was very ill, she told him. Quite possibly he could die. But if he would put his trust in the Lord Jesus, he would receive eternal life and would live forever with him.

Bjørn was not really interested in this kind of talk. Like most young men he had lived without a serious thought about God. Not that he was anti-God. God just didn’t seem important to him. Even now, facing death, Bj0rn had no interest in hearing about God and wished the nurse would stop talking. At the same time he sensed the nurse was genuinely concerned about him and he appreci­ated that concern. When she finally said, ‘I’ll pray for you’, he gave an almost imperceptible nod of politeness, thinking she had at last finished.

But she hadn’t. Her words were not just a polite way of ending the conversation. Standing by the bed, she began to pray. Suddenly Bjørn was gripped with the awareness that God was real to this woman; she was talking to someone she knew well; and she was pleading for him— Bjørn. A yearning welled up inside him to know God as she did, to sense God’s reality and closeness as she did. From deep in his heart he cried out with longing to God. And as the nurse finished praying, Bjørn knew that God was there in the room with them.

That afternoon the tubes were removed from Bjørn’s body and he was able to swallow a bit of food and water. For the first time in many months he could turn his body, plagued with bed sores, and sleep on his side. What a feeling of relief! The next day he could sit on the edge of the bed and dangle his feet. Soon he started the process of learning to walk again. He was transferred from the inten­sive care unit to an ordinary hospital ward.

Certainly Bjørn had every reason to be in high spirits, but he wasn’t. On the contrary, he was deeply depressed. He knew Jesus had touched his life, but this very fact seemed to contribute to his depression. Vivid pictures of his past life kept forcing themselves into his mind, each one adding to a growing awareness of the sinful life he had led. He felt crushed by an oppressive weight of guilt.

Finally, in desperation he said to himself, ‘I’ve got to find someone I can talk to!’ Slipping stealthily out of the hospital that evening, he found a taxi and directed it to a seamen’s mission in the city. There he introduced himself and announced that he had just run away from the hos­pital. The pastor invited him into the house and phoned the hospital to regulate matters. Then he settled into a chair and invited Bj0rn to unburden himself. The flood­gate was lifted and a frothing, turbulent torrent of words and emotion gushed out as Bjørn began to talk about his past life.

‘Just a minute,’ the pastor interrupted after listening attentively. ‘It’s about time you got to know what God says about people in your situation.’ Opening his Bible, he read passage after passage explaining the terrible sin and guilt of men and what Jesus had done about it. For the first time in his life, Bjørn heard the ‘Good News’ of the Bible, that Jesus had died to pay the penalty for sin, so that people could have forgiveness. He finally understood that Jesus was alive today and that it was possible to follow him and entrust one’s life into his hands. The pastor put the crucial question to him bluntly, ‘Now that you know Jesus has touched your life and is calling you to follow him, what are you going to do about it?’

Bjørn decided to accept the challenge and follow Jesus. He and the pastor prayed together. When Bjørn left the mission hall, he was a new person. In fact, he was so new that everyone noticed it. Even the hospital records noted the change from a prolonged state of depression to ela­tion.

One week later, on 26 October, 1967, Bjørn was dis­charged from the hospital. He went home determined to make a break with his old lifestyle. Friends viewed him sceptically and predicted it would last no more than a few days—a month, at most. They were wrong. Instead, God was to use Bjørn Kristiansen in a significant way to help launch the ministry of the MV Logos.

After a few months Bjørn had recovered and returned to sea in Indonesia. There he met many Christians and became involved extensively in various Christian activities. As he did, he began to visualise a small ship that would be used to carry the good news of Jesus Christ to the 13,000 islands of Indonesia. In 1970 he returned to

Norway to try to get such a ship. During a visit to London he attended the meeting of a fellowship of Christians at Lloyd’s, the prominent marine insurance brokers, and shared his vision there. After the meeting someone came up to him and began telling him about a group called OM that had been praying for officers, crew and a ship for six years.

Bjørn immediately contacted the British captain for further information. He responded by offering Bjørn the position of first officer on a ship that did not yet exist. He then proceeded to enlist Bjørn’s help in trying to find a suitable ship.

For a long time the British captain had been the only professional marine officer committed to the ship’s pro­ject. In the eyes of most people he embodied the pro­ject—a captain without ship or crew. Then, in 1968, Bernhard Erne joined the project with his wife and baby son.

Bernhard had been at sea for a number of years when he became a Christian. Deciding that life at sea was not conducive to his spiritual growth, he returned to his home in Switzerland to work. Two years later he heard about the OM ship project and felt strongly that he should join it. His church could not understand his decision. Bernhard explained:

‘Our church felt we were utterly crazy. “You’re going to a movement you don’t know,” they said. “Those people are talking about ships but they don’t know anything about them.”

‘One Sunday the pastor preached about Abraham and how he moved out in response to God’s call. After the sermon I said to my pastor, “You see! You’ve just preached about how Abraham moved out because he believed.”

‘ “Yes,” said the pastor, “but he knew who called him.”

‘In spite of this, in 1968 we sold all our things and drove down to Belgium. The OM conference was at an old, empty brewery. From the letter we had received from OM beforehand we expected to find a ship’s team meeting together and learning from each other. When we got to the brewery, we were told that we would be introduced to the ship’s team. A man came in, a typical Englishman. It was the British captain. Later I met another man, but he left again. That was the entire ship’s team!

‘Afterwards we were told, “Now we will show you the place where you will stay.”

‘They took me to a building and showed me an empty room—absolutely barren, just four walls, the floor and the ceiling.

‘ “This is your room,” they said, “We’ll go and get some­thing for you to lie on so you don’t have to sleep on the floor.”

‘They went upstairs and one of them came back with a roll of corrugated cardboard under his arm. He put it on the floor and said, “OK, you can lie here.”

‘ “Man,” I thought, “what a crazy outfit!”

‘I had a nice car, a Citroen, with reclining seats. I could have slept perfectly well there. But then I thought, “If I sleep in my car, they might think I am not so spiritual. I’d better go inside and sleep on the floor.”

‘That was my introduction to OM. If I hadn’t sold every­thing, I think I would have returned home. But I believed God would provide the ship. That’s why I stayed.’

After a year or so God began to bring in other men. Someone gave a pamphlet to someone else who sent it to someone in Australia. Eventually it landed in the hands of John Yarr, a chief engineer. So convinced was he that this was God’s place of service for him that he left a well-paid job and brought his wife and four children to England in faith that the ship would soon materialise.

Other crew members began to come in: Rashad Babukhan, a young Arab deck officer from Aden, who had not even been a Christian at the time prayer for a ship began; Alfred Boschbach, a German cook who had just completed Bible college; Dave Thomas, a British engin­eer who had just recommitted his life to God after several years of indifference; and Decio de Carvalho, who left a good job with an international airline. By 1970 fifteen professional crew from ten different countries had joined.

For five years George Verwer and the British captain had been searching for a ship—not just any ship but one that would be suitable for OM’s unique type of ministry. It must have a long range—that is, be able to travel long distances without stopping to refuel or take on water. It must have a lecture hall large enough for two or three hundred people. In addition, it must have space for a small book exhibition, storage and workshop area for vehicles, and accommodation facilities for at least a hun­dred and twenty crew and staff. Above all, it must be cheap. Eighty thousand pounds (about two hundred thou­sand dollars) was set as the upper limit.

Scores of ships were investigated but none seemed suit­able. There was always some major drawback. Then in 1969 a friend in the shipping industry sent news to the British captain about a 2,625-ton ship, the Zambesia. A bit larger than was currently being contemplated, it never­theless fell within the size range under consideration. All the data seemed right—adequate range, cabin space for sixty-five passengers plus crew, and adequate space to be converted into a meeting hall for three hundred people and into a maintenance base for vehicles.

Five years of praying and waiting and now this ship! Excitement began to grow and with it the feeling that God was finally answering. George Verwer published a leaflet called Now is the hour for the ship. He and the captain went to see the ship. The visit added to the escalating sense of expectancy.

Then came devastating news! The Zambesia had been sold to Nigerian buyers! The ship was gone, but the feel­ing of urgency remained, the conviction that God was about to do a big thing, not in the coming years but in the coming months or even weeks. That summer George had meetings with the other OM leaders, who expressed their conviction that the team should move into high gear in trying to secure a ship.

Impatient to see something happening, George dis­patched two of his men to major shipping areas to see if they could uncover any possibilities. Peter Conlan, a twenty-five-year-old Englishman who had worked closely with George for three years in India and elsewhere, had just returned from the Keswick Convention in England when George said to him, ‘Peter, I want you to go to Athens.’

‘Whatever for?’ asked Peter in surprise.

‘I want you to look around and see if you can find a ship we might buy.’

With these words he thrust into Peter’s hands the plane ticket and a book about Aristotle Onassis and how he got into shipping. Although Peter later confessed he had no idea what to do next, he nevertheless set off for Greece. In Athens he visited Onassis’ private office. Onassis him­self was in Paris, but Peter was able to talk to his manag­ing director, who said, ‘Look, if we gave you free the smallest ship we have on the market you couldn’t cope with it.’ It was massive.

George’s other man was Mike Wiltshire, a young and gifted journalist who said he ‘hardly knew one end of a ship from the other’. Mike was sent to scout out the shipyards in Scandinavia. As he visited shipyards and talked with shipping agents, one name kept recurring: the Umanak. The British captain and one or two others had already visited this Danish ship a few months earlier. They had rejected it as unsuitable, largely because its ventilation system, built for Greenland’s climate, was totally inadequate for the heat of the tropics, and because it lacked a large auditorium.

But among the crew members who had come into the ship project by this time were several engineers. As they discussed among themselves the suitability of the Umanak, they became convinced it had strong poss­ibilities. One of them, they decided, should go to George Verwer and present their ideas. George listened with great interest and decided to have a look for himself. Bjørn Kristiansen flew with him to Copenhagen to make the inspection. George had looked at many ships, but as he toured this one, for the first time he felt a deep convic­tion, ‘This is it! This is the ship!’

There was a snag, however. A contract for its purchase had already been signed by Nigerian buyers, who had also put down a ten per cent deposit. The time limit for their payment had not elapsed, but they seemed to be encoun­tering difficulty in producing the money or in getting it out of Nigeria. At any rate, there was nothing George or anyone else in OM could do except wait and pray. No doubt George recalled the words he had written after the Zambesia incident: ‘The Zambesia was sold to Nigerian buyers before we could move into action . . . The tempta­tion at times like this is to wish we had moved faster. Yet we are sure that the slow method is the more certain, for no one else can get the ship the Lord has for us. ’ (Much later someone heard that the new owners of the Zambesia had been plagued continually with problems with the tail shaft.)

Early in the summer of 1970, after four years of talking about the ship and working for it, the British captain had felt he should set a deadline for getting the vessel if he was to remain involved as captain.

If God had provided a ship with the contract signed by the end of August 1970, he would take that as a sign that he should remain in the project as captain. If God did not provide a ship by that time, he would withdraw from his position in the project.

His announcement came as a shock to many people. Some people felt as if someone who had been one of the very foundation stones of the project had suddenly decided to walk out. For other people the announcement only served to heighten the expectancy that God was going to bring in the ship soon, very soon, before the end of the summer.

Each autumn all OM workers in Europe would come together for a conference. For new OMers this was a time of orientation and training to prepare them for the work they would be doing. For people who had already been with OM for a while it was a time of prayer, mutual encouragement and planning of strategy.

In September of 1970 the conference was held in a cold, draughty, disused factory in a suburb of London. One morning George Verwer came rushing out of his office, exploding with excitement, waving his arms in the air and shouting at the top of his voice, ‘Praise God! It’s free! The Umanak is free! The deal with the Nigerian buyers has fallen through and the owners are ready to negotiate with us!’

Others took up the cry. Within minutes everyone in the building had heard the news. They were thunderstruck. For years they had been praying and believing that God would provide a ship. Once it had even seemed that the ship was almost within grasp. Yet the whole idea still had a vague, ethereal quality about it. The sudden announce­ment that the ship was a reality was too much to take in all at once. But as the stunned minds started to function again, little groups of two or three began to gather around the building to discuss the new development, sometimes in hushed, awed voices, sometimes in unrestrained enthu­siasm. Spontaneously, the groups would break into prayer, sometimes pleading with God to give them this ship and sometimes simply committing the whole project to God and asking that his will be done. Conference meetings were begun with times of intense prayer about the ship. Everyone’s heart and mind were filled with one topic: the ship. The feeling of excitement and anticipation was so strong it was almost tangible. God was going to do something great! Everyone was sure of it.

That very evening George Verwer left for Copenhagen with Bjørn Kristiansen and John Yarr, the chief engineer, to discuss terms with the owners, the Royal Greenland Trading Company, which belonged to the Danish Gov­ernment. The following morning they met briefly with the owners before going out to inspect the ship again. Arrangements were made for a marine engineer, a spe­cialist, to go that afternoon to the ship to prepare a survey report. The report, several pages long, indicated that OM was ‘getting a lot of ship’—and a good ship, at that—for the money they were paying. Asked how many years he thought OM could use the ship, which was built in 1949, the surveyor estimated at least ten, perhaps more if the vessel were well cared for.

The negotiations with the owners centred largely around the attempt to get them to lower their price. But they were adamant. The ship, which was originally offered for £84,000, they would sell for £72,000. That was the lowest figure. At this point George made a request. Was there a small room somewhere that he could use to talk to God about the matter? The owners were startled. This was not the way they were accustomed to doing business. But, of course, they did provide a room.

Finally the owners agreed to sell at £70,500 (about $175,000) provided the decision to buy was made that very evening, as other buyers were interested in the ship. Immediately George got on the phone to contact the necessary people, commenting to them with unmistakable satisfaction that the owners had given him permission to make international calls free of charge so that he could get the agreement needed for this decision. The OM Boards of Trustees in both the United States and Great Britain were contacted. Other OM leaders were consulted, including the British captain. All of them felt that the price was reasonable and that George should proceed with the negotiations for the purchase.

The following morning the terms of the contract were discussed. A deposit of £7,000 was required. By the end of September, less than three weeks away, seventy-five per cent of the total cost must be paid. Fifteen days of grace would then be allowed for the remaining twenty-five per cent. Quite simple and straightforward. However, as

George later pointed out to OM people at the conference, they had been praying for the ship for over five years. In all that time only about £45,000 had been given. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘we have only one month in which to come up with an additional £25,000. This means going on our knees and praying in the remaining amount of money. We have thrown ourselves out on the limb of faith, perhaps more than we ever have in the history of the work. If we do not come up with the money at the right time, it is almost certain that we will lose our deposit of £7,000. I don’t believe that any of us could possibly conceive that it is the Lord’s will for this deposit to be lost. This means that we must get on our faces before God, trusting him for the impossible.’

Along with prayer George was aware of his need for some sound practical advice in dealing with the legal aspects of the purchase. Val Grieve, a long-time suppor­ter of OM, was contacted. As a lawyer working in the city of Manchester, in the north-west of England, he’d never dealt with the purchase of a ship, but he agreed to advise OM in the matter. Of his involvement he wrote:

‘My advice was that a Company needed to be formed to own the ship. Also, in those days it was necessary to apply to the Bank of England for permission to send money abroad. I advised that we should apply for this as soon as possible. Rather to my amazement I was then elected Chairman of the Company [Educational Book Exhibits] with the respons­ibility of dealing with this purchase. The most unusual application which the Bank of England has ever received must have then been made. It was on behalf of a Company that wasn’t formed to send money we hadn’t got!

‘When I got back to my office in Manchester I wondered what was happening. Many years of legal training had taught me that anyone who buys a house must, first of all, be certain about their mortgage arrangements so that the necessary monies were available on completion. I was now Chairman of a Company that had bought a ship by faith.’

As prayer for the ship continued during the conference, various people began to suggest names for the ship.

George Verwer, deciding that the time had come to make some decision about the name, passed out slips of paper at one of the conference meetings. Everyone was to write down suggestions for a name and then pass

Imprint

Publisher: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Publication Date: 04-14-2014
ISBN: 978-3-7368-0004-5

All Rights Reserved

Dedication:
Ein Buch aus der Reihe "OM Books" von OM Deutschland. www.om.org/de OM arbeitet in mehr als 110 Ländern, motiviert und rüstet Christen aus, Gottes Liebe an Menschen in der ganzen Welt weiterzugeben. OM möchte helfen, Gemeinden zu gründen und zu stärken, besonders in den Gebieten der Welt, in denen Jesus am wenigsten bekannt ist.