9.20.2013 BOB PIERCE his personal world vision

pierce was the founder of World Vision mission organization. here he tells how that came about.

..'franklin, he began, the official records show that
World Vision was incorporated in 1950.
but in reality my own world vision form God
was sparked on that first trip..
'it was when i had a three day break before my next speaking engagement among university students.
with some other guys i'd taken off in an old battered army C47 war plane on a bumpy dirt field.
that C47 was one of the lousiest planes ever built,but the most reliable for its size and weight.
we always called it 'pregnant annie'.

..we landed in kunming in a desolate spot.
i got off with my camera and my gear and just stood there,
not a living soul in sight except the guys in the plane,
and they were ready to take off.
there was no activity, nothing but rusting pieces of an
aluminum hanger strewing the weed grown airstrip.
then along bounced and old discarded  army jeep.
the stock driver had a radiant face.
she drove alongside and asked, 'you bob pierce?

yeah, i said.

i'm beth albert. my work is with lepers.
somebody got a wire that you were coming
and i'm the only one who could get away to meet you.
we don't know each other, but it's sure nice to have you.

i hopped in the jeep and she drove me to the china inland mission home.
we talked a little, and i learned that she, too, was from california.
i hadn't been there five minutes when a little chinese kid with a twisted leg
all bent and curved from malnutrition climbed into my lap and i held her,
thinking, poor little girl; where does she fit in here?
beth albert answered my unasked question.
she's mine.

oh so your married?

no, i just bought her two weeks ago.

you bought her! what d'you mean?

well, a mother came here. she had two other children,
and they were all starving;
so she wanted to sell one of them to save her from dying
and she wanted just two dollars for here.
so, to keep her from being sold to some evil man,
i borrowed two dollars and bought her.  i knew then that i had met a very special christian.
it broke my heart to see this child who would have been sold to a sex pervert
if beth had not borrowed the money to save her from that fate.
she was just as committed to her lepers, i found.
the governor of kunming province was a military man
and in order to eliminate leprosy in the city,
he had ordered that his soldiers could shoot on sight
anyone showing the marks of leprosy,
as you would shoot a mad dog.
eight miles or so outside the city
the lepers could sit by the highway and beg,
their only means of survival.
so day after day beth walked that eight miles to a plot of land the authorities had set aside for lepers.
actually it was a graveyard;
the 'scenery' was a stack of coffins.
most of the one hundred twenty there had no shelter.
but resourceful beth scrounged among the debris left by the GI's:
rusting cans, anything she could salvage.
she taught those poor miserable people, many of them without fingers,
to form mud in the cans and then bake it into bricks in the hot sun.
when they had enough, she taught them to make crude little huts
to shelter them from the cold at night and from the hot sun in the daytime.
after a while they had a village of these little shelters
that housed a family or three or four adults.

beth had no help from the outside.
the offbeat mission that had sent her was not keeping faith with her.
until we began to support her, she was dependent on whatever
some kind missionary in the area felt led to give her.
mostly, though, she supported those lepers through sheer hard work and her own ingenuity.
through it all, she maintained the happiest spirits of anyone i ever met.
among those poor victims of the world's worst disease,
she was 'the merry heart that doeth good like a medicine'.
she loved the people and they loved her.

the week beth arrived, the last of the US  officials and the US consul were leaving the city.
the consul's wife was so moved that beth was staying on with her lepers
when all the other americans were leaving that she asked
if there was anything she could do to help.
'could you get some chaulmoogra oil and some hypodermic needles? beth requested
and the lady did so
that day i visited i saw beth give 100 lepers their injection of chaulmoogra
(the traditional medication for leprosy until more effective methods of sulphatone
were discovered some years later).

this was the first time these lepers ever had anybody do anything for them.
they were the most radiant bunch and they all became christians
(not because of any theology.)
they asked beth, 'why are you doing this?
nobody ever did anything like this before.

and she said,
because i love Jesus
and He loves you.
He loves you so much He sent me to help you.
you are precious to God
and God knows you are beautiful.
He knows you are valuable,
He sent His Son to earth to die for you
so that you might be saved and
be in heaven with Him and
be in a wonderful place
and have a wonderful body.
He sent me to show you that He loves you
and i love you. 


beth prayed with each one and taught them all
to sing hymns to her autoharp which she always carried with her.
i realized that no matter what her mission board did or did not do,
God made something out of beth albert
because SHE NEVER BACKED UP OR FLED from the danger
until the day the communists came and shot to death
the head of the china inland mission
and had given an edict that every missionary had until sundown
to get out of the area..
meantime, she had taught some helpers to give the injections;
she had squirrled away vials of the sulphatone  in preparation
against the day she would have to leave her beloved patients,
and she had helped them to beautify their surroundings with flowers
and to grow their own food.

so, franklin, you see the kind of HUNDRED PERCENT MISSIONARY
God used to challenge me to a world vision?..
however, the Lord had other experiences for me!

the next day beth drove me in a borrowed jeep to see some others who were doing an impressive work,
four german sisters caring for 52 little blind kids whose parents,
when they found out their kids were blind,
threw them out to die.
and all through the war years when hitler forbade money
to be sent for missions, they had carried on.
while the GI's were in the country they helped.
somehow they could arrange that some blankets were 'mislaid';
a shipment of food unaccountably missing.
but when they left, these sisters were on their ow.
they had one sewing machine
and with it they made clothes for the coolies,
to eke out some income.
one of them owned a dentist's drill
and dressed in her mission garb,
we would go out on the street and do dental work to get a little money.
they scrubbed and cared for their poor little blind charges.

i prayed with these kids and did my little youth for Christ songs
and though they didn't understand a word of what i sang,
and they could not see what i looked like,
still they were fascinated because i was a kind of new sound to them.
they could neither see nor understand,but something in my voice
must have said to them that somebody else loved them.

you can imagine that after being there about three days and seeing all this,
i'd go to bed at night and say
'God, i am not doing anything for anybody.
here are these little people without any help at all.
they don't have anybody and they don't have anything
and You are helping them and they are doing something and it makes a difference.
these little blind children are being helped and these lonely unlovely lepers.
oh God, here i am JUST MAKING SPEECHES.
i haven't got any money, but they need money.
everybody i've seen here needs money.
beth albert and these others literally burning up their bodies
to take care of these little ones and the suffering ones
and they haven't got anything.
I CAN'T STAND IT.
i can't give them anything and they need everything.
what am i supposed to do, Lord?

and God said to me, 'just shoot your pictures then tell some flok about it.

well, i shot all the film i had.
fortunately, somebody had given andrew gih, my interpreter,
one of the early 16 mm movie cameras,
and he let me use it.

but still, franklin, i couldn't get the picture of these kids and the lepers out of my mind.
beth had nudged me a bit when she asked, 'bob, can you do something for these children?
of course i knew i was powerless to do anything about so many-52 of them!
but why wouldn't the Lord let me have peace?

i went on to my appointment in the city of amoy
where i was booked to speak in their famous university.
and nearby, on an offshore little island,
the dutch reformed church had a school for girls and a hospital.
one of the staff, a homey dutch american missionary from grand rapids,
invited me to speak to their girls,
'we have 400, she explained,
and told me it would take me just 15 minutes in a sampan to get there.
'will you come each morning while you're here? she asked,
and added 'maybe you can lead some of our girls to Jesus.

so for four days, i went out there.
the missionary, tena hoe had heard the simple way in which i taught the university students
and she wanted me to do the same for the children.
in the simplest language i knew i told them who Jesus is and how God loves them;
that there's not many, but just one God.
He took the form of an earthly man, Jesus
and gave His life to bear the punishment for any sins they had ever committed.
i told them of the wonderful place he has gone to prepare for those who love Him.
a place where there will be no tears and
where everything is just and pure and good.
then i gave an invitation to any of them who wanted to know this Jesus and to live for Him.

..well, when i came to the mission school the next morning,
tena met me with a little girl in her arms.
the child's back was bleeding from the caning her father had given here when she went home and announced that she was a christian,
and she was going to live for the one true God.
and tena didn't say as beth had, 'can you do anything for her?
oh, no! she just threw that little girl right into my arms and lashed out at me.
for one thing, she was dutch reformed
and while she was very concerned that her girls hear the gospel,
she wasn't one for open invitations or altar calls.
and worse, i'd gone ahead and done it as if i were home in the states!
and this little kid had not only come forward but she'd gone home and told her father.
who was incensed because that by turning to Christ she had dishonored his ancestors.
tena was breathing fire!

YOU told this poor little girl to do that, she stormed.
now YOU take care of her.
she listened to YOU,  she believed what YOU told her and she obeyed God.
now look at what it's costing her!
she stood there like a general wiping out an ignorant private
who had dared to do something without an order.

and don't you dare think you can walk off this island without doing something for her.
me? i've got six other little kinds already sharing my rice bowl.
now here you've given me one more, bob pierce.
if you think you can preach liked you did and teach your message and
then walk off and leave this little girl
-well, you're wrong.
now, tell me, what ARE you going to do about here?
(not 'can you'; she gave me no option, nor did i want one).

i stood there with that child in my arms.
tears were running down her cheeks.
she was scared to death, so insecure she was shaking in my arms.
he was heavy and my arms were getting tired.
i was shaken to the core.
i had never had such an experience.
nobody had ever challenged the practicality of what i preached!
i had never been held accountable for any CONSEQUENCES  of my message.
now here i was faced with, 'is what i say TRUE?
is there any responsibility involved?
believe me, you do some thinking at a moment like that.

i looked down at the frightened child in my arms
and i saw tena standing there waiting for my answer.
i gulped and said, 'i'm not about to run away.
but you know that i'm here without any money.
all i've got in my pocket is five dollars.
that's fine, she said, you do have your return ticked?
yeah, i have that, but-
never mind the buts. just let me have that five dollars. that'll be fine.
what d'you MEAN, tena, i gasped, by 'just fine'?
she gave me a penetrating look and almost spat out,
'i mean YOU ARE GOING TO TAKE CARE OF THIS CHILD;  that's what i mean.'
okay, okay-but what will a measly five dollars do?

here's what it'll do, she said in a sergeant major voice.
it will buy rice for us all for right now;
it will get cloth so she can have another dress and i can wash that one
-she pointed to the bloodstained dress on the poor little kid,
and it will buy a slate for her for school.
that's just the beginning, bob pierce.
you will send me five dollars every month.
i'll let here sleep in the kitchen like my other six do
and i promise you i'll take care of her,'
and i knew she was the kind of woman who meant every word she said.

i looked tena straight in the eye and said, , 'i will.
then i opened my bible and took out my pen and wrote her name in my bible.
..but there it was, an indelible record that i had made a commitment to God to care for one child.
..'i didn't know it at the time, franklin,
but in the real, practical sense, World Vision WAS BORN THAT DAY.

..it was never in my mind that world vision would be anything other than supportive..
a purely back up relationship between those out on the front
and a means of supplying some of the wherewithal to get the job done.
that and no more was my intent.

the only measurement, franklin, i had in assessing what we should be involved in was
'is this something Jesus would do?
something God would want done?
ultimately it boiled down to something i wrote in my bible on kojedo island:
LET MY HEART BE  BROKEN WITH THE THINGS THAT BREAK THE HEART OF GOD.'

83 'one way to guard against slipping from our God Room moorings, franklin,
i by never, verver accepting aid from the government;
no grants from any government.
'who pays the piper, calls the tune', you know...

84... franklin, you can be prepared to have some well meaning folk ask the question,
'if the most important thing in the wold is getting people saved,
why are you so involved in spending time and money
for food and clothing and  sick people and orphans?
this always brings to my mind lil dickson, that heroic missionary in taiwan.
lil had two answers for that question.
someone would challenge her, 'if your're here as a missionary,
why are you taking care of orphans and giving clothers to these mountain people?
you should be busy GIVING OUT TRACTS.
lil would reply, 'I MUST FIRST MEET THEIR IMMEDIATE NEEDS,
THEN I CAN MEET THEIR GREATEST NEED.'
..that was her first answer.
her second, and maybe it should be our first, was
that JESUS COMMANDS US to feed the hungry, care for the widow and orphan, heal the sick, cleanse the leper,
prepare a portion for whom nothing has been prepared.
there's no honest way around this, franklin.
i don't want someone tellin' me what the greek says
and expecting me to had out tracts to people who can't read yet
or who are too cold and hungry to care about a tract.
it takes both- showing the compassion Jesus showed and giving them the simple gospel.
i've found that before we can hammer home even the heart of the gospel, john 3.16,
the FACT of God's love has to be driven home by a demonstration of love.
here's something i've proven:
almost all heathen cultures absolutely cannot fathom or comprehend
a total nonrealtive doing something for them
-an act that's wholly unselfish and done to meet their need or alleviate their suffering.

from an interview of bob, near the end of his life, by pat robertson
...'why would you think of going to BHUTAN? my doctor asks.
you know it's loaded with infection.
you can't get pure water to drink-
'why am i going? i said,
i'm going because i don't want to go to heaven from some modern hospital.
iwould rather have three active months serving the Lord
than have two years lying someplace wishing i was someplace else.
you say it's a considered risk.
except, as far as i am concerned, there isn't any risk.
the worst that can happen to me is the BEST- I WOULD GO TO HEAVEN.

161 DR. BOB CONTINUED, 'now here was a man who, on the one hand,
wrote the systematic theology for the korean church (a brain among brains)
and on the other hand just coldn't stand by to see a kid with nothing but a twig to write with.
he just had to get these children indoors, persuade pastors to let the kids sit in the church-
even if they did mess it up a it
-and get an education.
do you know what this makes me think of, franklin, he said,
SO MANY OF US DO NOTHING BECAUSE WE CAN'T DO EVERYTHING.
fran kinsler couldn't give all the children in knorea a grammar school education;
so he did what he could do.
and before he knew it, there were 72,000 children being taught....

171..the afghanistan lamb

there's nothing like being in eastern countries for bringing to life the stories Jesus told.
here dr. bob and dr. christy wilson of afghanistan talk over the story of the lambs.
it was 1961 and there was still a protestant church in kabul, the capital...
b-christy, you've just let me listen on your little tape recorder to an afgahan shepherd calling his sheep.
c afghan sheep are not your ordinary flock, bob.
their skin is prized, for they're a special breed;
the fur is expensive because it's taken from newborn lambs.
the skin is small; therefore, it can take 30 to 40 to make a lady's coat. it's called karakul.
b well, i know it's beautiful, but what a shame that it costs the lives of little lambs..
c i know. i've often thought that myself.
in fact, it was because of the story Jesus told that i went in search of a lamb
and was able to record the shepherd calling his flock.

one of my teachers for the little sunday school that meets in our home asked me if i could possibly get a little lamb so that she could have it to illustrate the lesson.
so i started off and 'way up in the mountains i located a shepherd who had a little lamb in his arms.
he had a large flock and that lamb had just been born that very day.
it was pure white and i thought ,
what a wonderful illustration of isaiah 1.18...though your sins be as scarlet, they shall  be a white as snow;
though they be red like crimson, they shall e as wool.
that's the kind of wool the prophet was speaking about.
b sop did you buy this laittle lam , christy?
s when i asked the shepherd, he said, you can't buy the lamb without its mother, so we started bargaining as to the cost.
in the meantime, his main flock had wandered off some three hundred yards.
that's when he made these strange sounds i recorded.
of course, i didn't keep my recorder at the ready so i had to ask him if he'd call his sheep again so i could get the sound on my tape.
he demurred at that.
and he explained, if i call them agin, they'll all crowd around because they were already close from hearing my first call.
it just made the bible live for me, bob;  in this country we constantly observe thingss that look as if they are taken right out of the new testament.
these sheep did know that shepherd's voice-
the special sound he made when calling them to him.
i said to him, what if someone else makes those strange sounds, weill your sheep come?
he laughed and answered, 'oh, NO they won't follow anyone else; only me.
i could tell he was speaking the truth, for theree were other shepherds and sheep around;
none of the other sheep made a move when he called.
b do the other shepherds use similar sounds?
c yes, the sounds are similar, yet the sheep know the particular shepherd's voice
-and they won't respond or follow another shepherd.
they'll only go to their own shephered.
b then the tenth chapter of john in really, literally true.
do you suppose that the occasion for Jesus using the lamb illustration was that there were sheep and lambs around at that time?
c i would't doubt it for a minute.
for instance, when john the baptist proclaimed, 'behold the lamb of God',
it was near passover season
and that time the shepherds would be driving their lambs across the fords of jordan to be sold for a sacrifice.
the 'lamb of god who taketh away the sin of the world' was righ in their midst!
b if i remember rightly, don't the muslims still sacrifice lambssas the did in the temple dayhsL c that's right