Bill Gothard

29 Jun 2014


Dear Phyllis,


Last week Paul told me news that is as big a shock as I have had in a long time. He said that Bill Gothard had quit his position over charges of a sexual scandal. I couldn't believe that report was true until I looked it up on Google Friday night. Unbelievable!


In the 1960s and 70s, Bill Gothard was the biggest phenomenon in America. At his peak he was credited as having a far greater impact for the Kingdom of God than Billy Graham. I think that was an understatement. Bill Gothard's Basic Youth Conflicts seminars were the biggest news in Christian circles in America. I first heard of them in 1969 when missionaries who had been to a seminar came to Japan raving about them. When Rosemary showed up in Japan in 1970, she said she would marry me only on the condition that I would attend a Basic Youth Conflicts seminar. I had heard so much about them, of course, I wanted to go, and it was no problem to promise that I would attend. That opportunity came in 1972 after Dave was born, and we were able to attend a seminar in Philadelphia. Indeed, I was impressed. It cost five days and $50 dollars to attend, but thousands were lined up trying to get in. The auditorium where our seminar was held had a capacity of 5,000, and it was a phenomenon just to be there. People from every spiritual spectrum in America sat side by side enthusiastically drinking it in. Rank ultra-conservatives and wako charismatics shook hands and totally agreed with what Gothard was presenting. The first session was an evening meeting beginning at 6:00PM. Bill Gothard was as unimpressive a speaker as I had ever heard. There was nothing dramatic in anything he said. He was totally conversational; almost boring. He had only got started and had spoken for a few minutes when he looked at his watch and said, “I guess that is enough for tonight.” I thought what is he doing quitting now? I thought we were going to have a meeting tonight”. I looked at my watch and was stunned to see it was 9:00 o'clock. He had been speaking for three hours and I thought it was only a few minutes. And you really couldn't argue with anything he said. His entire thesis was solidly scriptural, but he held up obvious scriptural truths in such a way that you wondered why you had never heard this before. After listening to him for five days, fundamentally I agreed with nearly all of what he said. It was like fresh air in the room.


Bill Gothards was a gifted, highly committed, young Christian man who had been the youth pastor of a church in Chicago. He had led a number of young people to Christ but noticed that the retention rate was inexplicably low. To solve that problem he did some deep research of current youth problems and the Bible answer. He developed some very eyeopening material. He presented this to a group of Christian business men and got an overwhelming response. From there on his seminars just exploded. He was giving probably 20 seminars a years in major cities all over America. It was such a status symbol that a person felt embarrassed if they hadn't attended a Basic Youth Conflicts seminar. He was reaching millions. The impressive thing was not his popularity but the oblivious life-transforming effect he was having on a huge number of rebellious, defiant, Christian children. I personally know of numerous cases of friends whose sons got straightened out at a Gothard seminar. It was almost assumed that if you went to one your life would be different.


I thought this guy has got to be the holiest man out of heaven. He was a man of tremendous personal discipline who taught, and personally maintained, a very high moral standard. Bill never married, but was unquestionably accepted as a world authority on raising Children and and child discipline. All He said made lot of sense. Basically I followed his teaching in raising our two boys and felt I did a very good job.


If you would summarize his message by one word it probably was authority. His basic thesis was the vertical structure taught in the Bible. He said that God has so constructed society that we were supposed to obey those over us. Children were to obey parents; wives were to obey husbands, employees were to obey employers, citizens were to obey the law,, missionaries were to obey mission boards, etc. He had some terrific testimonies and illustrations to back up every point. As a basically defiant, independent, man most of this went against my nature and practices. If what he said about God's vertical stricture in society was true, then I had to reluctantly agree that his message was correct. When people obey the Bible, wonderful results came out of it. The only thing that I took issue with was his message on how to handle forgiveness. Bill was an artist and drew a lot of pictures. He had an easel on the platform and drew a picture frame on a blank sheet of paper. Then he asked, “Whose picture do you see on that paper? The person you see is the person you need to apologize to.” Then he gave a phrase of words you were supposed to say. It sounded good. But I didn't see anyone. Three months later I was at the Ben Lipper Bible conference in Asheville, NC and saw a lay I knew from Japan. Immediately her picture appeared in my mind. It was awful. I was in agony. The next day I drove 120 miles to apologize to that sister and said what I was supposed to say. We both were embarrassed. She obviously had been to a seminar and knew the line as well as I did. Forty years later I strongly feel what I did was a mistake. Another friend of mine had seriously wounded a girl five years previous;y. After he went to a seminar he went to the girl to apologize and only made the problem considerably worse.


But Bill Gothard was terrific. The only serious criticism I heard about him was that he had an almost cult like group of followers. In many many churches across America there were little groups of Gothardites. There was one in Rosemary's home church, the Burley Bible Church. I liked those folks. They were first-class Christians but they were pretty strong about talking everything Bill Gothard. In one sense you couldn't blame them. Basically I agreed with them but thought it would have been better to leave Bill Gothard out of the picture. He had a terrific impact on Boris Yeltsin who was PM of Russia. Yeltsin invited him to come to Russia and teach Russian officials about character building principles. Over the years he changed the name of his program from Basic Youth Conflicts to the Institute of Basic Life Principles (IBLP). Bill Gothard has been teaching his message for over 50 years and has centers all over the world.


I have heard criticism against him over the years but in most things they seemed to lack scriptural foundation. When Paul told me that he was charged with sexual misconduct I thought, “Great day! He mus be my age”. I was right. He is just a few month solder than me. But when I checked this out on Internet Friday night it was unbelievable. There are at least 34 women who have come forward to tell their stories of being sexual harassed by Gothard. He had to admit these charges were true and wrote a letter of confession and apology, and posted it on his website. The IBLP board of director called it disgusting. They might have used a stronger term. When I read that statement I too thought it was abdominal. It was only half true at best, and self-excusing. I find it hard to believe how a man of Bill Gothard's spiritual stature could write such a disgusting statement.


As stunned as I am over this scandal, it only confirms a principle I have long believed. I have long believed principles will not save you. Only Jesus can save. I heard of a Navigator missionary in Italy who was being harassed by unclean thoughts at night. To stop this, he developed and effective method of going through every room in his heart every night before going to sleep, and give the keys to every room to Jesus. He said by doing this, it stopped those bad thoughts. I thought, “Great, let's do it”. But I didn't find it 100% effective. When I first went to Karuizawa as a missionary I began having problem like I had never experienced in my life. My mind would be perfectly clear, but every night, the moment my head hit the pillow in bed it was just like X rated videos came on. Man, I mean to tell you they were real. I spoke to Joe Carroll about it, and he gave me some excellent advice. He said, “First of all, don't let the devil throw mud at you and them call you dirty.” Then we went on, “You don't have to put up with that. Simply speak to the devil and tell him to get out.” Great!!! The next night I tried it. The instant my head hit the pillow the video cam on. In an audible voice I said, “You filthy thing, in the Name of Jesus I command you to get out of here.” Bamb! The video quit. The next night I did the same thing. Bamb; that turned it off. But then ten minutes later it came back on again. Night after night the battle went on. After a few weeks it was like I had my finger on the Off switch and the devil had his finger on the On switch. One time I saw the sun come up the next morning as I had been fighting with the devil all night.

After many years of trying all sorts of techniques to have victory and maintaining a clean heart, I came to the conviction that there are no spiritual principle that we can apply that will save us. I have found the only actual salvation is by the person of Christ. Bill Gothard has just proven my point. Here is a man who had the tightest personal discipline I have ever heard of in my life. He has spent over 50 years teaching millions the basic principles of life. You do these things and you will have victory have a wonderful blessed life. And yet for many years has been living in a dark closet life of disgusting defeat. His life is a repudiation of his message of living by principles. No mater how discipled a person might be, flesh will always be flesh. Religious flesh is no better than depraved flesh. The fox maybe very good in teaching Bible principles. but the fox is a very poor custodian for the chickens. No one knew the message better than Bil Gothard but his message did not save him from living a closet life of sin.

When I read the tragic story of what happened to him, it makes me bewildered of why he should go down and I have been preserved from plunging to the deaths he fell to. I make no pretense of being totally victorious. I blush over the embarrassing struggles I have had over the years. I know proper principles but I have violated nearly all of them. In my travels around the Orient in the past 16 years I have been in some of the most harrowing situations and been the target of sexual predictors that are blood-chilling. How I could lay in the lap of such temptations and still come out clean is a bewilderment to angels and a disgrace to the devil. The ONLY expatriation of why I have come out marginally clean is JESUS. I certainly have not kept my garment clean by living by principles.


Another possible explanation is that Bill Gothard was a very high profile target. The Lord has told us that there is corresponding responsibility with high position. Teachers will have the greater judgment (Jm.3:1).


Bill Gothard certainly has been a very big man for 50 years. His contribution and impact on the Body of Christ was major. Millions have been greatly helped by him. Tens of thousands owe their salvation to him. His message was outstanding. There certainly is nothing wrong with the message of teaching basic principles of Christian living. There is nothing wrong with teaching someone that they should have devotions every day. There is nothing wrong with the message that we shroud be sensitive about seeking forgiveness and giving forgiveness I thought his instruction on raising Children and finances was excellent. The Body of Christ is greatly indebted to him for his message and teaching.


But teaching right and wrong will do nothing to equip a person to be a more righteous. The world has no other answer and must rely on this theory for improvement. Millions have proven that knowing there is poison in the bottle will keep a person from drinking. The government has spent untold millions on anti-tobacco ads, but people still smoke. Perhaps the greatest message Bill Gothard has given us and his legacy is that he has demonstrated that knowing the principle of Christian living will not save a person from living a hidden life of sin. Only Jesus saves. But I wonder if anyone is listening.


Miraculously still saved by the amazing grace of Jesus,
                                                                                          bill

Love of Samuel Rutherford

22 Jun 2014

Dear Phyllis,

In 1964 I was in a Christian used book store in Tacoma and found a copy of the Letters of Samuel Rutherford. Out of curiosity, I bought the book and was surprised that I had stumbled upon a classic. For years I treasured it, and often felt it was the one book I didn't want to lose. But in 1990 my entire library of excellent Christian books all went bye-bye. Then five years ago, I was in the library of Karl Hoessel in Japan and noticed he had a copy of Rutherford's letters. I don't know if Karl knew what he was doing or not, but he magnanimously reached up, pulled it out, and gave it to me. What a treasure!

Charles Spurgeon said, in his opinion the letters of Rutherford were the closest thing to inspiration that he knew outside of the Bible. I would tend to agree with him. The letters of Rutherford are not something you read, but food you feed on. Rutherford frequently grieved that people held him in high esteem. He frequently wrote, “If people knew the inside of me and saw me as the Lord does, they would not look upon me with respect but with pity.” “Many people, are making my ones to be tens.” It was said that he would have written more except that he heard his letter were so popular that he refrained from wring some. Any true saint of God can sympathize with Rutherford and knows the divergence between what appears on the outside and the reality of the internal. But leaving that behind, I still a marvel that the Lord could take any son of Adam and reveal the glories of Christ to him to the degree of what it produced coming out of his pen.

Like nothing I have ever read his message was simple – JESUS. He had virtually nothing else to say. I marvel that page after page he flows on with the most exalting description of Jesus. He writes, “Let ten thousand of thousands of angels be created and let them all tire themselves wondering at the beauty of Christ. Then let them all begin again.”

When I read Rutherford I blush that I have ever thought of putting into words on paper (or electronically) on any subject I have written. The best things I have ever written are lamentable distracting from the main topic of all creation – the marvel of the Son of God. When Dave was five I took him to an air show at Yokota. They had an F-15 on display there. I was tremendously impressed when I saw this incredible aircraft and looked inside the cockpit. I was trying to explain to Dave what an amazing flying machine this was. At that time a Japanese worker rode by on a bicycle and Dave's attention went entirely to the bicycle. I thought, “This is what I think of Jesus”. He is such a marvel, and yet we are tremendously enchanted by the most ridiculous distractions. Even our most exalted words in praising Him are little more than mud balls thrown at a statue of Lincoln. Paul said an understatement when he wrote, “Now we see through a glass darkly”. It is a marvel that we see anything at all. But what we do see exceeds our ability to describe it or the limitations of human speech. Christ is beyond our thoughts. Oh if we have such blurred vision, should we not crave for better eye sight. When Jesus asked Bartimaeus “What wilt thou that I should do unto you?” he replied, “Lord, that I might receive my sight.” (Mk. 10:51). I wonder if there is any more vital request that we could make of the Lord than this. It is one of the most mind-boggling bewilderments of my life that there should be such a wonderful, accessible, beautiful savior, and there could be such a minimal response to Him. I can accept some of that due to spiritual blindness, but how is it possible that Christians have such a distorted, limited, view of Jesus?

I believe one basic explanation is that there is a vast difference between actually seeing something and reading about it. Looking at the Grand Canyon and reading about it are not the same thing. To look at it takes your breath away, It would seem evident that much of our Christianity and salvation is more academic than real life. As conservatives we look down our noses at liberals who dismiss the Scripture as being the Word of God. But in our conservative camp is there not considerably more instructed salvation than actual participation? It has often been said that the difference between the prophet and the scribe is that the prophet enters in beyond the veil to stand in the very presence of God; and comes out to tell us what he saw. And the scribe enters into his study and comes out to tell us what he read.

The thing that has impressed me so much about Rutherford is that the key note of his life was not for his evangelistic zeal, but the he was a man who was predominantly in love with Jesus. Like no one I have ever read before, he was a man who was in love with God. I don't recommend Rutherford to everyone. I fear very few people could understand what he is talking about. He was not a man who expounded the Song of Solomon but a man that the S. of S. was his life. Some of his language is down right offensive to the natural man, but he talks about the husband-wife relationship as who Jesus was to him. He frequently speaks of the Beloved and the Husband. But isn't this what salvation is supposed to be all about?

The central point in any marriage is the love relationship. The wife is just head over heals in love with her husband. He is all she thinks about all day long. Her greatest desire is to be with him. The driving force of her life is to serve and please him. This is Rutherford. Samuel Rutherford was a successful pastor in Anwoth, Scotland, but he was sent in exile to Aberdeen by the Prelate of the Presbyterian church. There he had nine years of silence. Even the clergy of that town were forbidden to associate with him. But he wrote, “My enemies have thought to send me to my prison, but they didn't know that this is the palace of my Lord Jesus”. He consistently refers to himself as the prisoner of Christ. He frequently complains that his dumb sabbaths weighed like a mountain of iron on his heart. He constantly complains of the sorrow and pain of his heart for his poor flock in Anwoth. But then speaks much of the Lord taking him into His house of wine and dinning with him on unspeakable feasts. He always refers to trails as a cross. But wrote, “For anyone who would fit that crabbed Tree (the cross) upon his back and take it upon his shoulder they would find it such burden as wings on a bird or sails on a ship”. He refers to the white side and the black side of the cross. But says that the Lord has perfumed his cross with the fragrance of Jesus. He had been shackled by golden chains. And remarked, “If the tinkling of my chains can be music of praise for my Lord Jesus then this is the most wonderful music in the world.”

Oh the language is the man! These letters are not the exposition of something he learned in his study, but the essence of a walk and a life with Jesus. It is a breath of such fresh air and the fragrance of such perfume as I have read in no other book. I love Andrew Murray. I love Watchman Nee. I love AW Tozer. But Rutherford is different. He speaks much about the fragrance of the breath of Jesus, the smell of His garments. If someone is not familiar with the S. of S. these expressions are meaningless. But to Rutherford it was real.

In referring to S. of S. 2:3-5 he lamented that he was concerned that he delighted more in Christ's apples than the Tree. He feared that he loved more the love of Christ than the Lover. In several letters he wrote, "If a contrast could be made, I would sell heaven and all my blessings to buy Christ.” He complained bitterly of the littleness of his own love for Jesus, and the smallness of his hands. He said, “To hold the love of God was like a child cupping his hands and trying to hold the ocean.” He complained that his own bucket was so leaky that he could take little water with him even when he was at the well.

Like many of the historical divines he speaks much of desertions. He complained, “His absence is cruel to me.” “I find Christ coming and going seven times a day. His visits are short but frequent.” To a brother he wrote, “Christ has His own gate where He may come in. We stand waiting for Him at one place, but He secretly comes in at another.'” These are thoughts and experiences that are generally frowned upon today, but the mighty men of God in years past found great fluctuations in the presence of Christ. As an explanation for the difference, I wonder if much of what we call the presence of the Lord is little more than imagination. And we are suppose to control our imagination.

It is true that the Lord has promised to always be with us, but I believe any honest Christian must admit the overwhelming sense of His presence fades in and out. Speaking on the positive aspect this, Rutherford said that His absences only increased the intensity of his hunger for Christ. And said it was a good thing to be filled with hunger. Many of the 17^th, 18^th, and 19^th century saints spoke much of His absence. I am particularly fond of the immortal verse that Joseph Swain gave us in his hymn O Thou in Whose Presence.

1	O Thou, in whose presence my soul takes delight,     On whom in affliction I call, My comfort by day and my song in the night,     My hope, my salvation, my all!
2	Where dost Thou, dear Shepherd, resort with Thy sheep,     To feed them in pastures of love; Say, why in the valley of death should I weep,     Or alone in this wilderness rove?
3	Oh, why should I wander, an alien from Thee,     Or cry in the desert for bread? Thy foes will rejoice when my sorrows they see,     And smile at the tears I have shed.

What more can you say? Oh to be filled with that hunger! Oh to have a heart that craves Jesus to the degree that Samuel Rutherford and hundreds of other experienced.

The reason this has become such an issue with me is in reading the letters of this man who lived 400 years ago, I am stunned with the difference of the Christ he spoke of and loved so dearly and the popular Jesus that is presented today. Worse than that, I wonder if my message isn't radically defective. It is easy for me to talk about the depravity of sin, or issues. We talk about Christian principled but do we present Jesus? Christ said if He was lifted up He would draw all men to Himself. I wonder if the reason so few are coming to Christ is because Christ is not lifted up. A year ago I determined to change my message and talk about the loveliness of Christ, and started a 12 point series from S. of S. 5:10-16. I got as far as preaching on six points and quit. I doubt that anyone got anything from those messages. I fear the problem was that I was more like the scribe describing what I read rather than the prophet describing what I saw.

And I am not impressed with the testimonies of self-proclaimed prophets the likes of Todd Bentley and others who claim they have been in heaven on various occasions talking with Jesus. Compared with the testimony of Samuel Rutherford those accounts seem utterly ridiculous.

No, I do not recommend reading Samuel to everyone. I fear most Christians wouldn't have the faintest idea what he was talking about. But to me His Jesus burns in my heart.

Dear Lord Jesus, take wide strides and haste Thy coming,

                                                                                                     bill

Story of New Life League

15 June 2014

Dear Phyllis,

New Life League has got to be one of the most amazing organizations to appear in Japan in Japanese post-war history. As best as I can recall, NLL was started by Fred Jarvis in 1956. Fred was a flamboyant, well known figure in the 1950s. He was a gun-ho evangelist and into everything you could think of. One time he asked me to fly him in a small plane over the island of Oshima so he could throw tracts out the window to evangelize that island. (I didn't do it.) He was into everything. He was selling missionary food, insurance, a radio ministry, and a printing ministry. But famous for low quality. We could get tracts for free from NLL, but you had to be careful passing them out as the ink would smear on your fingers. Neil Verwey told me that NLL tracts were such low quality his staff refused to pass them out to prisoners in jail. We all liked Fred, but wise people kept their distance.

There was a dear Norwegian brother who had come to Japan as a missionary, but blew out in five years. Arfin Andos was on his way back to Norway when Fred recruited him to work with NLL. Then about a year, later Fred left Japan to go to the states for a furlough, and never came back; leaving Arnfin with the candy store. We all felt sorry for him. But Brother Andos was a good man and hung in there. Under Brother Andos the quality of NLL printing improved somewhat, but it was famous for being a very nickel-dime operation. Cliff Rimer was more or less his assistant, and Cliff was worlds leading pack rat. Cliff always looked like he had just crawled out from under a truck with grease all over his face, hands, and clothes, and the junk he collected was astronomic. Roald told me, one time, when his children were small, they were riding in their car and the children fell asleep. Some time later they woke up just as they were passing by a junk yard, and the children cried, “Oh goodie. We are home!”.

In 1970, a twenty year old young man came out from Norway to sweep the floor in the printing shop and drive trucks. But then in 1980, brother Andos left japan to return to Norway, and left the candy store with this innocent young man who was now 30. We felt sorry for this poor fellow, but we had no idea who was in our midst. I had known Roald since he was 20 but had virtually no dealings with him until 1981 when we had a big hassle with Sigrid Ridal.

In 1978 I had a most unusual invitation by the town hall in Tateshina to come there to live and evangelize. I couldn't go at the time, but I spoke to brother Andos about it. Sigrid Ridal was with NLL, and was available to fill that invitation. Sigrid was one of a kind. She had the finest heart and love for souls in Japan, and the dumbest head in the world for anything practical. In 1981 she was in bad shape emotionally and had to be sent home to Germany for recuperation. Obviously, she could not be left alone in Tateshina, but getting her out of Japan was like trying to get sin out of the old-man. At Christmas time she caused such a fuss at NLL that I feared she would close down their entire printing ministry. Roald and Inga came up to Tateshina to help get Sigrid out of that town. Any normal mission leader would have just called for the wagon and the men in white jackets to come take her away, but I was blown away with the patience Roald Lidal showed in dealing with this needy German lady. I had never seen such patience and loving care in my life. That was my first serious dealing with Roald.

After Roald took the reigns of NLL, we began to see a startling transformation. This outfit that was famous for a cheapo printing began to turn out some amazingly high quality products. I was stunned by the radical change. After my own life collapsed in 1990, Roald invited me to join NLL. By that time my attitude had changed from looking down on NLL to holding them in high regard. I told Roald, “Out of respect for you and your mission I wouldn't even pray about joining you. You are such a high quality outfit you don't need a troubled man like me.”

But then in 1995 I came to a pivotal moment of life. I had just returned from the states, after being in Russia for two brief terms; and went back to Nara. I was very much at the end of the road with nothing to do. My plans were to go to Kobe to build houses in that city that had collapsed with a historic earthquake the year before. To my surprise, I couldn't find a job, and had nowhere to go. One morning, in a phone call from Neil Verwey, he suggested, “Why don't you contact Roald Lidal, and see if they need help on their new plant they are building in Saitama”. I called Roald and got a very enthusiastic response. In August of 1995 I drove up from Nara with my truck load of tools to join NLL as a carpenter. That was one of the most significant moments of my life.

I was just blown away with this incredible Christian organization. I had been involved in missions for 35 years, and came to the point that I thought if I could just keep from being cynical I would be an overcomer. Everything I had seen in missions was just maddening. Now I was a member of a group that was just like being in heaven. I said this is the closest thing to the visible Kingdom of God that I had ever seen, and well beyond anything I thought was possible on this planet. I had never seen such love and unity. You never heard a critical word. It was praise the Lord in every room all day long. I have never met a person with whom I was more totally one heart than I was with Roald Lidal. On every major issue we were identical. My admiration for him was boundless. I would place him in the top five Christian statesmen that I knew world wide.

NLL had always been a small operation, but when Russia opened up in 1990 they had an order for a large number of Bibles. Then China caught fire. The needs in China were astronomic. Roald had his choice to stay put where they were or rebuild to meet the needs of China. It is to his credit that he stuck his neck out a long ways. It was impossible to build any larger where they were, so he sold the property in Tokyo, and bought a large piece of land in Saitama. He took out a $12, 000, 000 loan from a bank to built a huge new plant, largely to meet the needs in China. Along with four other presses they had, Roald bought a new state-of-the-art printing press that could print full Chinese Bibles at the rate of one every 2.2 seconds. I never got over the awe of watching that press run 24 hours a day endlessly printing millions of Chinese Bibles. I felt at their peak NLL was the most significant organization in the world, having a greater impact for the Kingdom of God than any other Christian organization. As the primary source of Bibles for the underground church in China, eternity alone will reveal what an impact NLL had for the Kingdom of God. The testimonies coming out of China were apostolic and NLL was a major source of the fuel for that fire. In commenting on their annual production, one time Roald told how long the line of trucks it would be of 42 foot containers lined up to ship Bibles out of Yokohama. One time their primary partner, TBL (The Bible League), who were funding most of this printing, warned that their funds were low, and asked Roald if he would reduce an order of 100,000 Bibles to 50,000. Roald courageously replied, “No we won't! The need is so great we will print those Bibles whether the money is there or not.” What a man of God! Just being in that plant was like being in heaven. The love, the cooperation between departments, and the mutual respect that everyone had for each other was something I had never see in any place or any country. Everyone was on the same team pulling together for God.

But then things started going south. Joe Carroll used to say that the devil will always get you on your strong point. Roald's strong point is perfectionism. Everything he touches is perfect. Repair men told me that they had been in hundreds of printing plants all overt the Tokyo area and there wasn't another place like NLL. But in his quest to up-grade, he began to pair down the staff. At first it was just a few old timers that they didn't need and let go. Then a low time in finances hit where they had to release a significant number of key employees.

One was Soma san. Soma had been with NLL for over 15 years. He had been the head of the plate department and then in charge new project that didn't pan out. They offered him a menial job in the printing section which was totally unsuitable for him. It was a heart-rending service that we had at morning devotions when Soma gave his farewell testimony. I was sitting next to Roald. When Soma finished his talk, I turned to Roald and said, “If I was God I would close this place down”.' Roald was stunned. Later that afternoon he came to my room to have a heated discussion. He demanded, “Do you think you are smarter than we are, and know more about how to run this place than we do?” I replied, “No, I am not as smart as you, but even a moron can feel pain.” The problem was that NLL had been a family and you don't treat family members like that. Secular Japanese companies are dead serious about business, but their company-employee relationship is like a marriage. When they hit a down-time they don't lay off, but everybody takes a cut in pay until they get back up. NLL could have done that but Roald was into upgrading staff. Another problem was after they released old time employees, shortly thereafter they would hire new ones to come in at a lower salary. That is not the way to build stability within the family.

I sincerely hope I am wrong, but, in my opinion, Roald offend the Holy Spirit by the way he treated children of God. As a natural father, I would be tremendously offended if anyone treated my children treated like that. If Roald got cross-wired with the Holy Spirit he could have a very serious problem in heaven.

I am in a very difficult position to comment as I have been away for NLL for 14 years, but I understand that there are very few of the old family members left. I do know that there had been a rash of firings, and nearly all the top spiritual men are gone. In his search for a successor, Roald was interested in getting the most qualified man. In his search it seems obvious that Roald largely ignored the spiritual aspect of a candidate and looked more to his natural qualifications. He did find a man who had a background in printing and was a high voltage Japanese business man. He was the kind of man who worked 14-15 hours a day and expected the rest of the staff to do likewise. He certainly runs NLL like a tight ship. The last time I was there I was greatly impressed how radically the atmosphere had changed. The intense sense of the Spirit of Christ was gone. It seemed very much like a secular company with people doing what they were supposed to do to get their pay check. I hope I am wrong but I fear my concern was prophetic that Roald offended the Holy Spirit by his treatment of the Children of God. As a result the Lord blinded his eyes in his pursuit for a successor, and he brought in a man who has change that place into a secular printing house. It is not my position to judge whether or not the present director is a saved man or not – I have seen very little to indicate that he is – but it is safe to say he is no man of God. It appears that NLL is now no longer a functioning Christian organization.

Many Christian organizations start out well but wind up going off the rails spiritually. This would appear to be the case with NLL. I have never lost my respect and admiration for Roald Lidal. He is still a giant of a Christian statesman, but I feel he made a fatal error that has caused the Christian end of NLL.

None of us are exempt. There are myriads of ways of getting in trouble in heaven. It is a solemn warning to stay close to Jesus and put spiritual things first. It is a difficult issue to balance of the natural and the spiritual. To ignore either side is to invite disaster, but it would seem to me to be wiser to place more emphasis on the glory of God.

May God give us all wisdom to honor Christ in all that we do.

Y'all be good,

                                     bill

Baptizing Singha.

8 June 2014

Dear Phyllis,

Today was a banner day. I had the privilege of baptizing my dear brother Singha. Two years ago, when we had Annie, Pammy had to go shopping to find a good school for her. She came back saying she found a very good place, but it was a little expensive. But after she explained it, I agreed that Nettrahong was easily our best choice. After Annie was enrolled there, Singha and his wife Lek asked me to come to speak to the children teaching them English. Through that we developed a very deep bond with Singha and Lek.

They were amazing in their obvious quest for spiritual truth. Pammy used to go over there every day teaching them Bible for an hour or more. Seldom – if ever – have I seen anyone reach out for truth like that. Pammy's hour a day didn't seem adequate so we invited them to come to our house every Saturday night for Bible study. One night we got to the place of dealing with John 1:12 – “but as many as received Him to them gave He power to become sons of God” – I asked Pammy to lead the horse. Rather than having me lead the Bible study she is better at personal work than I am, and I wanted her to deal with the issue of accepting Jesus. It was a night of real spiritual reality but we hit a stone wall. Singha clearly wanted to get saved, but the school was under Thai law that it had to teach Buddhism. Singha honestly said he couldn't go both ways at the same time. I asked him, “Do you want to follow Jesus?” “Absolutely!” Then I advised, “I have no idea how to get out of your mess, but if you will ask Jesus to lead you I am sure He has some solution for that problem.”

Everything went dead for six months. Then Singha came back on line by starting to come to church. One morning I preached on the invitation to attend the King's Son's wedding (Mt. 22-1-14) and said there were five response. The 4^th response was “Oh thank you very much”, but he didn't have the wedding garment, and got thrown out. The 5^th response was the guy that was clothed with Christ. During the meal after the service Singha said to me. “I am half way between 4 an 5”. I told him, “Hang 4! Get on to 5!” I honestly don't know the details but it was obvious soon after that that Singha was clearly born of the Spirit of God. He has a friend who is the pastor of a church in Chiang Mai and started attending that church, Fine. And every day when I go to school he loves to talk about the Bible.

The other day he spoke to me about baptism. His English is quite limited so I asked him to come to the house so Pammy could interpret. I explained to him that there are two views of baptism – the vertical and the horizontal. The vertical aspect of baptism is a man's relationship with God. And the horizontal one is a persons relationship with the church that they are joined to. I strongly recommended that he get baptized at the Chiang Mai church. He told me that there was pressure from there to be baptized but he told them that he preferred to have me do it. I couldn't refuse that.

There is another interesting related incident in this picture. Paul happened to show up the same time when Singha came to speak to me about being baptized. We have a dear friend, Pascal, who is the leader of our Wednesday morning men's prayer meeting. Kent had led Pascal to the Lord about seven years ago but he had never got deeply identified with a church and had never been baptized.

Pascal is an interesting phenomenon. He is a highly phlegmatic, quiet spoken, brother from Holland. I have known him for probably seven years and had very little involvement with him other than at the Wednesday morning meeting. I have no explanation for what has happened but after he got the responsibility for the Wednesday morning meeting – or about then – a strange change started to happen to him. He starred to change from being a wall flower to a serious man of God. You would almost wonder if he was saved before, but now the Holy Spirit is highly visible in him. Paul was concerned that Pascal had never been baptized and when Singha was at the house talking about baptism. Paul brought up the subject of Pascal. We said, “If Pascal is interested lets baptize them at the same time. Surprisingly, the Lord had already spoken to Pascal about following the Lord in baptism and was readily agreeable. The first discussion was for me to baptize him but Pascal was going back to Holland for a few weeks the day that Singha wanted to get baptized so we would have to do it separately. And then Pascal suggested, because he was the closest to Paul, would it be alright for Paul to do it instead of me? No problem.

Man howdy did we have a good time! Four of us went to a lovely lake Wednesday morning for that important event. Usually we think of baptisms as being more ceremonial and a large group of attendees. But in the Bible it seems that most baptisms were more private. There was no large crowd for Jesus (Mk. 1:9), the Ethiopian eunuch

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I finished this letter concerning Pascal and Singha's testimonies and baptism. I was going back over the letter with a spell check. I have no idea what happened but somehow half of the letter got deleted. If Jesus dislikes this letter that much I won't rewrite it. I will just send the part that didn't get deleted.

Zan nen (too bad) bill

Bibles for the Hmongs

1 June 2014

Dear Phyllis,

The movement of God among the Hmong minority people is a classic in world missions. SEA (South East Asia) is a kaleidescope of dozens – perhaps hundreds – of various minority groups. These are like small countries within a country with their own language, culture, and ethnic integrity. Among these minority groups the Hmong are somewhat unique with their defiant spirit. Many groups distinguish themselves by where they live, and the Hmong are unusual as they live on top of mountains. Others prefer to live at lower levels where they have more access to water and grow rice. But the Hmongs are tough people living more by hunting than by what they can grow. They also are somewhat unusual in that they build their houses on the ground rather than on stilts which is very common elsewhere.

Because of their tough fighting nature, they were exploited by the CIA to fight the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam war. Some of that was justified, as the CIA helped them protect their own land which the Vietnamese were attempting to take, but the CIA went beyond that to recruit them to fight for things other than a defensive struggle. Tragically, at the end of the war, when the US pulled out of SEA, they abandoned the Hmong to be victims of terrible communist oppression. It has been commonly reported that the communists simple had the Russians come in with helicopters to fly over Hmong villages and spray them with poison gas. As a result hundreds of thousands of Hmongs fled across the Mekong River to Thailand and 400,000 live in America today. The Thais also had large refugee camps, but most of these have been closed, and the refugees sent back to Laos.

Among the refugees from Laos was a Christian brother, John Lee. Once in America, he had a burden to reach his own people in Vietnam and Laos, and began preaching the Gospel over Trans World Radio from a studio in Pasadena. It is to his credit that he preached to a silent audience for 12 years with zero response. But God gave him a harvest such as few men have ever received. In 1987 a Hmong man in Son La, Vietnam, heard the Gospel in his own language, and sold his farm to buy a radio. He started doing what John Lee was talking about over the radio, and miracles happened. What happened after that is an amazing chapter in the history of world missions. Being exceptionally tough people the Hmongs are famous for being proud and hard to reach with the Gospel. Missionaries had been working among them for many years with very little success. But as the Hmongs trapped in Vietnam and Laos heard John Lee over the radio, the power of prayer became evident; demons came out, the sick were healed, and tens of thousands became Christian. These were people who had never seen a missionary, heard a pastor or seen a church. There was nothing of religious tapestry among them. But there was a serious problem in that Bibles were also non-existent. Apart from John Lee, who was reading the Bible at dictation speed over the radio, there was utterly no way that they could have access to the Word of God.

About that time the Lord was raising up a small army of donkeys (Bible couriers) who were smuggling Bibles into communist countries. Since the days of Brother Andrew in 1958, there had been an increasing number of courageous young men and women who were engaged in carrying Bibles into communist countries in suit cases. To meet this desperate need among the Hmong, some were taking in Hmong Bibles. It was one of the great privileges of my life that the Lord allowed me to get in line to be one of those donkeys in this historic supply route.

In 1997 I heard of a place on Vietnam where there was only one Bible for five churches. To meet this need, in 1998, I got on a plane in Tokyo to go, what I thought was a one way trip, to Vietnam. I have told you that story several times. And though the most miraculous means I met Mark in Chiang Mai, and started working with him. In '99 Mark came to Japan, and I took him down to Nara to see Rusty White and the New Beginning Church. Mark was a huge hit there, and a number of people wanted to sign up to carry Bibles into Vietnam. A few months later we got together a team of eight of us to make a run.

Apart from me, it was their first time to be in Thailand, and certainly it was their first time to be in Vietnam. We boarded a plane in Osaka and flew to Bangkok. That night a brother came to the guest house where we were staying, bringing us a load of Hmong Bibles. We stuffed our backpacks full of Bibles, taking only the bare necessities of a change of clothes and a tooth brush. The name-of-the-game is to take as many Bibles as possible. In Bible smuggling there are two times when your hands get a little sweaty and your mouth gets dry – going through customs and the transfer for delivery. Fortunately, security was low in Hanoi, and we had no difficulty in getting our Bibles into Vietnam.

The first three hours proved to be one of the most exciting of the trip. Our backpacks were so heavy and bulky that it took three taxis to take us into town to our guest house. We gave all three taxi drivers business cards of the guest house where we wanted to go. Two of our taxis got us successfully to our desired destination, but after waiting a considerable time we realized that one driver had taken two of our team members to a different guest house. Panic time! On trips like that it is vital that you have plan A. B, C and D in case something goes wrong. Fortunately the boys had the phone number of our guest house and were able to contact us that they were at some Golden Dragon Guest House. We couldn't figure out where that was so I got a motor bile and started touring a city of over 6, 000, 000 looking for the Golden Dragon Guest House and our missing team members. Two hours later I gave up the search to return back to our guest house. It was a tremendous relief that when I got there to discovered that the lost team members had somehow got anther taxi that ultimately took them to the right location. Praise God crisis number one was behind us.

The next day we took a night train up to Lao Cai on the China border. A tour guide had been saved six months before then, and another missionary had set it up for him to take us around. Phong met us at the train station with a Russian jeep and a Russian motor cycle. We couldn't all get in the jeep so two of us had to ride the motor bike up to the tourist town of Sapa. Sapa is one of the major tourist stops in northern Vietnam, located at 2,000 meters, and is the coldest place in Vietnam in the winter. But it is located in the midst of a heavy Hmong population.

The drop (delivery) is easily the most dangerous time of any run and you usually don't have time to unload your backpack one Bible at a time. To facilitate the delivery, we transfered half our load into large rice sacks that could be easily handed over. The next day Phong took us over the mountain about 40 km to a Hmong village for our first delivery. It was illegal for us to visit a village like that, so he stopped his jeep about one km before the village, and he and I went ahead on the motor bile. We parked it along side the road and crossed a small suspension bridge to trek half a kilo up the mountain to the village. We met the pastor there, and told him that we had brought Bibles for him. While in his house, he showed me his radio that he listened to John Lee on. He said that the village was 100% Christian, but the Vietnamese government kept a policeman staying there to monitor activity which made it impossible to have open Sunday services. In lieu of that, the pastor told me that they worshiped God from house to house every night of the week.. When we returned back to our jeep, I told the team that it would probably be about half an hour before someone showed up to take our Bibles. But about ten minutes later several young men came running over the mountain on a short cut. Phong exploded. I hollered at our team, “Get those sacks out of that jeep.” I grabbed one 30 kilo sack and started taking it down the steep bank where we were parked. I was looking at my feet for a place to put my foot when someone shot past me like a goat grabbing my bag, and I never saw their face. I scrambled back up the bank to grab another sack, but it was all over. The transfer was made in less than 60 seconds.

The road we were on was dirt, but it was the main east-west artery in northern Vietnam. If someone came along during the transfer, that would have been extremely dangerous. Phong was frantically making a U turn to get out of there, while we all were still scrambling trying to get our seats. As he began to accelerate to leave, I saw the pastor crumpled up on the ground. His face was twisted up in what looked like agony, and tears pouring down his cheeks. He looked like he had been gut-shot or seriously injured. I said to Phong, “Look there is the pastor! Is he injured?” Phong smiled and replied, “Those are tears of joy.” I never saw a face like that in my life. He couldn't stand. He just lay there on the ground weeping, because God had sent him Bibles.

The next day we took the remaining half of our load to a different location a considerable distance in the opposite direction. The delivery that day was not as dramatic, but the Hmongs were tremendously grateful that we had brought them so many copies of the Word of God.

All the things that happened on that trip would make a wonderful book or an excellent movie. But one of the main pluses that came out of it was the least expected. Isami was a dear man who was a member of the New Beginning Church, but he had the problem of being saddled with a very strong willed zealous Christian wife. In the previous year, when I had been there building that church, Isami would frequently come to help and bare his heart to me. Church was a terrible drag, and he had no interest in Christianity, but he was a poor man being dragged around by his nose by his strong willed Christian wife. He was like a prisoner being oppressed by forced religion. Why he wanted to go on that Vietnam trip I never figured out; but during the trip his room mate was an excellent spiritual brother. Whether it was the fellowship with Takei san or seeing the response of the Hmongs I never knew. But on that trip Isami caught a terrific fever for Jesus. He came back on fire. He was so fired up over Jesus that he made his wife, Miwa, look back-slid. She was startled, but grateful, to see the radical transformation in her husband.

That trip was expensive. Sam Benedict later figured, with all the cost of our plane fare to Vietnam and back, and the sum of our travel expenses, that trip cost us close to $100 a Bible for what we were able to deliver. But, oh my goodness, what an investment for heaven. Eternity alone will reveal the result of what came from those Bibles in that desperate land. Visibly, it was like giving cool water to a man dying of thirst. And Isami – bless the Lord – he wound up being a pastor. That was perhaps the greatest blessing. Certainly Miwa was pleased. Years later when I would see him, he never lost his fire, and told me what a joy it was to preach Christ.

In 1960 when I read God's Smuggler I thought if I could do that one time, that would be the greatest privilege of my life. Little did I suspect what God had in store. I have had the privilege of doing extensive evangelism in Russia twice, but my life in SEA is easily the most rewarding period of my life. For the next 14 years it was my great privilege to lead many teams on Bible run into all the countries in SEA. I have had a lot of interesting experiences, but that run to Sapa stands out as one of the high lights of my life. Oh what thanks can we render to God for His goodness to us.

Have a good week with Jesus,

                                                         bill