It is not easy to spot the epoch-making people while they are alive. That’s just as well, I suppose. It helps protect us from idol worship and them from vanity.

But an epoch in world missions is being made, and two of the makers are Ralph and Roberta Winter, founders of the U.S. Center for World Mission. To spend an evening with them would be a remarkable privilege! You are invited to do that at Bethlehem at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 14. I urge you to put it on your calendar now.

But that’s not all. You will get a free book if you come. What Book? First, a story …

Noël and I sat down to talk after my return from Singapore. I had looked forward to this for two weeks. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder—and puts precious things in perspective.

We had agreed already that we needed to talk more—and not just about the boys. There needed to be more time. Marriage is like a radio band—it tends to drift off the station when you are not listening. So we had already resolved to be together more—not to watch TV, but to do things quiet enough that a conversation could happen.

As we talked during that post-Singapore evening, we decided that we should try to read together again. We used to read aloud to each other several evenings a week. I supposed we have read twenty or twenty-five books that way.

What book would we read this time? We decided on Roberta Winter’s I Will Do a New Thing. It is the amazing story of the U.S. Center for World Mission, founded eleven years ago by Ralph and Roberta Winter. It brings the story of the Center right up to date in 1987.

This is the book you will get a free copy of if you come to an evening with the Winters at Bethlehem at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 14. You will also get dessert. No offering will be taken.

The point of the evening is, first, to give you a sense of hope—hope that God is doing a new thing today to penetrate the last frontier of world missions: the unreached peoples.

The second point of the evening is to inform you about the “Last $1000 Campaign.” This is the effort that could finish paying for the USCWM campus by this fall. But, again, no money will be collected that night. Winter is a vision-giver, not a fund-raiser.

Let me say it again. This is a remarkable opportunity! No one can be sure, but my guess is that in fifty years (whether the world stands or not) the Winters will be studied in mission history as epoch makers. You will be thrilled (in heaven or on earth) that you spent an evening with them.

See you there,

Pastor John