It Takes a Team

By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
—John 13:35 (NIV)

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
—African proverb

The drive to Williamsburg, Virginia, was particularly meaningful on this day in February 1986. A day earlier, I had spoken at a mission conference at Appalachian Bible College in West Virginia, and Peggy and I were now enjoying the drive through rural Virginia with our daughter and son-in-law, Arlene and Steve Richardson. As we passed through Richmond, near places where we used to live when I was with Mobil, we had such a sense of God leading us by His hand over the past quarter century.

When we arrived at our friends’ home in Williamsburg, Peggy and Arlene headed out to do some shopping, while Steve and I tackled the long overdue revision of Pioneers’ policy handbook. While we were working, I started to experience some discomfort in my chest. I tried to shrug it off at first, thinking it was indigestion, but the pain just increased. Suddenly, I felt as if I were going to be sick, so I ran up the stairs to the bathroom—probably the worst thing I could have done. By this time, I could barely breathe and felt as if my chest was caving in.

Steve called an ambulance, and I was rushed to the hospital. The diagnosis was a massive heart attack. When Peggy arrived, I was lying on my back and hooked up to oxygen tubes. It was ten days before I left the hospital, and another three months before I could even leave our home and go to the office to do some light work. My family realized more than I did what was going on. They knew I was overworked and didn’t know how to pace myself.

It wasn’t since Korea that I had come so close to death and been so humbled by the frailty of my own mortality. Slowly, I recovered—due to God’s grace, Peggy’s care and the prayers of many friends around the world. On a trip to China in the summer of 1987, I even climbed the Great Wall again. It seemed as if my health problems might be behind me, but the following April I had another heart attack. I knew it was time for me to slow down and let someone else guide Pioneers. I tendered my resignation as general director, to be effective as soon as a replacement could be found, which I urged the board to do within six months.

Our board chairman, Bob Alderman, asked for my recommendations for someone to take my place. I replied that we had a lot of qualified young people to choose from, but they all seemed to be established in their ministries, so we might have to look outside the mission.

Bob asked permission to contact my son, John, to see if he would consider the position. Of course I said that was fine, but added that John would probably say “no.” By now he and his wife, Celia, were living in a remote jungle in Papua New Guinea as missionaries to the Kubo, an unreached tribe of 550 people. John had felt a call to tribal work since he was a teenager, and he and Celia had long-range plans to translate the New Testament. We all knew this was their heart, and we couldn’t see them leaving Papua New Guinea.

Yet, as the board met to discuss my replacement, there was a strong sense of the presence of God and the unmistakable impression that His hand was on John’s life. God’s leading was so clear, in fact, that the board immediately voted to offer John the position. He was just 29 years old at the time, but to everyone, including me, it was obvious that Pioneers needed his administrative gifts and vision to take the mission forward.

To John and Celia, the offer initially made no sense at all, yet they also were overwhelmed by God’s leading. John remembers walking up and down the airstrip that he had helped to carve out of the jungle, pondering the board’s offer and praying for God’s direction. While their work with the Kubo was not yet complete, they knew that God could raise up someone else to take over and see it to completion. He and Celia knew God was calling, and so by the summer of 1988, they had traded the jungles of Papua New Guinea for the fast-paced life of the Washington, D.C., area.

John certainly had his work cut out for him. For the first time in Pioneers existence, we had a cash flow deficit in our general fund. The $90,000 deficit might as well have been $9 million to us. The figure seemed astronomical, with no hope in sight to bring it down. We had always paid our bills on time, but suddenly we felt paralyzed by a balance sheet that seemed to threaten our ability to grow and expand.

John’s first tasks were eliminating the debt and finding creative ways to cut back on operating expenses. God’s provision came through my good friend, Jim Ryan, founder of Ryland Homes, who offered a matching grant through the Ryan Family Foundation. He originally offered it with the stipulation that I retire because he was concerned about my health, but I felt that would not be consistent with God’s call on my life. Jim reconsidered but held firm to another stipulation: The funds had to be raised within three weeks. John immediately sent out a special appeal letter inviting our supporters to give. All the money came in, plus some. Together with the Ryan match, we raised $100,000—and by the grace of God, we were out of debt. Jim has been a wonderful friend time and again to this mission and to me personally. The Lord used him in many ways to strengthen and encourage me at critical times in my life.

In August, I had a third heart attack, but it was mild compared to the other two. Still, it showed me the need to maintain the regime the Lord put me on and not take on too much in my zeal to reach the unreached. When Jim McCracken, our director of personnel, left to launch our Turkey team, John offered me Jim’s position. He knew I’d love my new assignment: recruiting missionaries. I did love it. It really took me back to the basics and to our early days, and I had a wonderful time talking with young people and fanning the mission flames that God had ignited inside them. God brought a record 58 prospective missionaries to our June 1989 Candidate Orientation. The most we had ever had was 22, so we felt He was saying our future was bright.

God wasn’t finished restructuring Pioneers just yet, however. We already knew the importance of teams and teamwork on the field. Now, He started showing us they were important in our home office and the board room, too. In 1989, John had met a British missionary named Bob Hitching, and the two hit it off immediately. I hadn’t met Bob yet, but John assured me he was our kind of guy—a real pioneer for the Lord. He had been imprisoned for the gospel in Turkey while serving with Operation Mobilization and had a strong interest in a Muslim people group in Eastern Europe that hardly anyone had heard of at the time—the Bosnians.

Like many creative people, Bob is a night owl, and he would call John at all hours with ideas and inspiration. One night, he called John at 10:30 p.m. and asked if they could meet. Bob was an hour-and-a-half away, but drove over to meet with John. He got right to the point asking one of his no-nonsense questions: “How are you going to grow this mission?”

John gave some faith-filled response such as, “We’re going to trust God,” to which Bob replied, “Then you’re going to die doing it.” At the time, our 12 team leaders reported directly to John. That was fine when we were a small mission with three or four leaders, but Bob knew Pioneers had the potential to grow much bigger. He told John he would need to develop a new structure of leadership to manage that growth, or he’d be the next one to have a heart attack from stress.

That late-night meeting led to others, and John, Bob Hitching and our son-in-law Gary Franz, who had returned from the field in Indonesia to become our director of personnel, identified key areas of the world where Pioneers was working. In each area, they selected key leaders, who became our area directors—and our first International Leadership Team.

Bob’s emphasis on Eastern Europe was the hand of God directing us to blaze a path in a newly opened area, and within five years, Pioneers placed nearly 70 workers in that region. Only God knew how strategic that area would become in a few years, and He made sure we had people in place, ready to serve. Eventually, Bob became chairman of our board and helped expand our borders even further. Just as importantly, he became to John what friends like Bob Alderman, Phil Steyne, Lee Bruckner, AC Levi and Ken Clary had been to me in the early years: gifts from the Lord who would offer encouragement, wisdom and counsel, and keep us accountable along the way.

As God continued building our team on the field and in the board room, we fine-tuned our mission statement with 19 words that summed up our calling and focus: “Pioneers mobilizes teams to glorify God among unreached peoples by initiating church-planting movements in partnership with local churches.”

From Mongolia to Mali, Pioneers was rapidly expanding with teams all over the world. Here are a few snapshots from China, Indonesia and North Korea.

China: Scaling the Great Wall

Back in 1979 when Harry Liu and I went to the Chinese Embassy to “make friends,” the wall around that country did seem high and, indeed, great. How would more than one billion Chinese hear about the Lord Jesus? How would people groups such as the Tibetans, Mongols, Uyghurs, Buyi and others ever know His love—peoples who spoke their own languages and had their own unique cultures?

We knew it would take teamwork to get the job done. Our work in China started with a team of two English teachers, whom we recruited in response to Mr. Cheng’s invitation. As I write, that team is composed of 52 adults, who reach out to unreached people groups all over the country.

To make sure our teams are as well cared for as possible, we have team leaders whose responsibility is to oversee and encourage their fellow team members. Our China team, for example, is so large that we have several teams and team leaders, as well as a support link outside the mainland to help them—Pioneers missionary Elizabeth Stockton (not her real name). Elizabeth lives elsewhere in East Asia and regularly travels inside China to encourage and help her teammates. Outside China, she serves them by coordinating plane tickets, making doctor and dental appointments, receiving and passing on mail, making airport pickups, acting as communications liaison between China and the world (including our headquarters), and more. Many outsiders have told Elizabeth that they’re blessed by our team relationships and concern for one another.

For teams working in countries such as China, team unity can speak volumes. A few years ago, some of our team members invited 15 Chinese friends to spend the night before Easter in their home. The group stayed up late, talking until the early hours of the morning. They listened to a tape about a Chinese intellectual who was searching for God, followed by a discussion that kept the workers on their toes. At 3:00 in the morning, everyone headed to the Great Wall for a sunrise service and celebration. One of the unbelievers said, “I am like a child who has only known the color red, and now, for the first time, I am discovering there are other colors out there.”

One out of every five people on our planet today is Chinese. What will we do to reach them? There are hundreds of people groups in China, and most still know “only the color red.” There is a high and great wall around them, but the love of Christ as modeled by our team members is slowly causing that wall to crumble. Psalm 18:29 promises, “With my God I can scale a wall” (niv). We continue to believe that no country is too closed—and no wall too impenetrable—for the Lord.

Indonesia: Islands of Unreached

A number of years ago, a young woman I’ll call Melissa read an article by a Pioneers missionary describing one of Indonesia’s unreached groups, the Nabea (not their real name). The 70,000 Nabeas are Muslim and live on a small island that has more than 300 mosques. The island where the Nabeas live is called the Isle of Women because many of the men leave their homes to work in Singapore and elsewhere, returning to the island only to die. There has been no gospel witness among this people group, partly because anyone who opposes Islam or converts to Christianity will be killed.

As Melissa prayed for the Nabea people, the Lord said to her, “You’re asking Me to save these people. Will you be My instrument to accomplish it?”

Melissa responded to the call and joined one of our teams. She visited the island, built relationships, learned the language and shared her faith. Today there is at least one Nabea Christian. Another family has joined Melissa, and we now have a team working to plant a church among this group.

But what of the other 130 unreached people groups in this country, representing tens of millions of people, living on hundreds of scattered islands? Many of them are Muslim (Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim country); others are Hindu (the island of Bali alone has 46,000 temples) or animist. They are all disillusioned and desperate—no wonder, in the face of terrible social, religious, political and economic crises of recent years.

Back in the 1980s, Craig and Elaine Stevenson (not their real names) began praying for one of these unreached groups—the 33 million Konahare Muslims (name changed for security reasons). In the past, missionaries had made scattered attempts to proclaim the gospel among the Konahare but without much success. Today most Konahare have still never heard the gospel. To them, to be a Konahare is to be Muslim.

As Craig and Elaine, along with friends at their Bible college, asked God to open a door for the Konahare to hear the Good News, they decided to become the answer to their own prayers. They formed a Pioneers team to take the Good News to them. When they arrived in Indonesia, they immersed themselves in densely populated urban communities, and in time learned both the national language and the Konahare language. They studied the history and linked with local Christians who were also burdened to reach the Konahare, praying for a strategy to reach the people.

Team members Tom and Nancy O’Hara (not their real names) developed a ministry strategy they called “Lampstand,” based on Matthew 5:15-16: “Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (NIV).

The team’s goal was to take the gospel out of “hiding” so that 33 million Konahare would hear and understand it. They focused on two levels of ministry: sharing the gospel with Muslim neighbors and friends and launching strategic ministries that would ultimately strengthen the growing Konahare Christian community.

Today, our team has helped to plant about ten churches, published the Bible in the Konahare language, trained national evangelists, started a church-planting coordination center, and launched a number of creative community development programs and English schools. They have also produced gospel tracts, discipleship materials, radio programs, teaching recordings and the first and only Christian publication in the Konahare language, an evangelistic magazine with a circulation of 10,000.

This team, which includes members from many countries (including Indonesia), works closely with national churches and other agencies, and also partners with their sending churches, who play an important role in what God is doing in Indonesia—churches such as Grace Fellowship in Baltimore, Church of the Saviour in Wayne, Pennsylvania and Cherrydale Baptist in Arlington, Virginia.

Through this partnership, the lives of many Konahare are being changed. Mahmud, for example, was a milk delivery boy when he first accepted Christ. He has now been to Bible school and is pastoring a growing Konahare congregation. He and other believers published a Konahare hymnal and taught people to worship using traditional instruments.

All these tools are helping to shine the light of the gospel to even more Konahare. In fact, at a recent gathering of 640 Konahare believers, 16 guests placed their faith in Christ. The next day, irate Muslims threw stones at the meeting place, so the growing Konahare Christian community has not gone unnoticed.

The Konahare is one of the largest and least reached people groups in the world, and just one example of what the Lord is doing in Indonesia. Using “creative access” approaches, Pioneers members serve as teachers, consultants, students and business people—all with the goal of establishing strong, reproducing churches.

As Isaiah prophesied, “The islands will look to me and wait in hope for my arm” (Isaiah 51:5 NIV).

North Korea: Of Rice and Rifles

God first stirred my heart for the nations 50 years ago when I served with the Marine Corps on the Korean peninsula. There, I gave my life to the Lord. I was free to do so, but today millions of North Koreans would face death for making the same decision. The communist dictatorship of North Korea is perhaps the tightest in the world. The totalitarian government demands blind allegiance and even worship of former leader Kim Il Sung, who bankrupted the country before he died in the late 1990s. His legacy lives on through his grandson, Kim Jong Un, and their pictures hang in every home and over every heart—while the people eat whatever they can to survive.

Experts believe that 100,000 Christians are among the millions of prisoners in the country’s labor camps, where they face starvation, torture and murder. A government dictionary defines a church as “an organization that spreads poisonous anti-government ideas to take people’s rights away, disguised as religious activity.”⁶ What a contrast to the early 20th century when the capital, Pyongyang, had so many churches that it was known as the “Jerusalem of the East.”

In 1994, our North Korea team, located elsewhere in East Asia, began praying and preparing for the day when the door opens to this repressed country. They have been learning the language and waiting for visa opportunities to gain permanent residency. Meanwhile, they do what they can to serve North Koreans who risk their lives to escape across the border into neighboring countries. The home church of one team member donated funds to buy rice. Team members distributed the food to starving refugees, and also shared the gospel with them—and many have come to know Christ.

Despite extreme oppression by the communist regime, the Christian church has grown inside North Korea, slowly and silently. Could God be preparing a great spiritual harvest there as He has in China and other restricted countries?

North Korea, Indonesia, China—we continue to believe that a country cannot be “closed” to the Lord. Around the world, Pioneers teams pray and prepare for the day when God will open the doors to the countries that He has laid on their hearts.