A Revolution of Love
Over 70 years ago, a scrappy, young college student named George Verwer (1938 - 2023) decided to sell his possessions to fund a trip to Mexico - convincing his two friends to join him and taking thousands of Spanish-language tracts and Gospel booklets with him. That boot-strapping trip would eventually lead to one of the world’s largest missionary organizations, Operation Mobilization (OM) and four ships that would travel the globe. Many times, I heard him tell this origin story and acknowledge that he didn’t know what he was doing, which was a huge encouragement to me as a scrappy, young missionary who didn’t have a clue what she was doing.
OM currently has 3,000 workers from 134 countries working in 147 countries. In 2010, 150,000 young people had served short or long-term stints with OM. It’s estimated that 300 mission agencies were launched as a result of contact with OM or by former OM missionaries and I suspect there are far more that we don’t know about.
In a data-driven world, it’s important to look at these figures as more than just numbers. They’re important because they represent lives changed by the Gospel. They represent George’s dedication to being a channel whereby people would become lifelong friends of Jesus.
And I’m one of them.
As a little girl, I knew I had been called to ministry. It was a confusing call and a little painful, because, as I was told at the time, girls can’t be ministers. A dental mission trip to Haiti in my third year of university would change that perspective. When I came home, I knew my trajectory was shifting but I didn’t have a clue how significant that shift would be.
After finishing university, my plan was to head to Prairie Bible College to study cross-cultural communications. In fact, I’d already started with some distance courses when everything changed.
An OM ship, the Logos II, came to Nanaimo, BC, and needed volunteers.
A week of volunteering in my hometown led to this scrappy, young Bible College student spending a full year volunteering on that ship alongside 214 incredible people from over 40 nations. And, that one year on a ship in Mexico and Central America led to four more years with OM in the USA.
In those five years with OM, I learned a lot from George. (It didn’t hurt that I helped publish and edit some of his books!). George modeled an unparalleled willingness to take huge risks so that people everywhere would know of God’s love for them. He shared his personal struggles and failures candidly, and credited an unfailingly gracious God for his successes.
More than anything, George blazed a trail for people who would follow in his footsteps, joining him on-mission, living out his “revolution of love” wherever they found themselves.
He said he was not a good missionary, but he was good at sending and mobilizing people. I resonate with that, deeply.
Truthfully, I thought I’d be the one with exciting stories to tell of daring international escapades or street ministry conversions. Instead, almost every single weekend on the ship, I was sent out to speak at a church, sharing my story of how I ended up in missions. (I did get to host the Guatemalan First Lady in an onboard reception though!). And, instead of going to an Indonesian slum as an ESL teacher after that year, I found myself in Waynesboro, Georgia, helping publish missions books for authors like… George Verwer.
Much like its founder, OM was a scrappy, relentlessly dedicated organization and a perfect training ground for an entrepreneurially-minded young person like me. I was put in situations far beyond my own abilities and given opportunities to try things and do things I’d never have thought possible.
After my time with OM, surely God had something really exciting for me, right? Well, that exciting thing was to move from Georgia to Ontario, Canada. To the very exotic wilds of Ontario Mennonite Country to be exact.
This is where God showed me what He was really calling me to.
He was calling me to start a marketing agency of all things that would go on to serve more than 175 non-profit organizations and organizations doing good in our local communities and around the world. He was calling me to champion faith-friendly films coming to Canada and being distributed in theatres from coast to coast. He was calling me to build things I’d never imagined and choose a path that was anything but safe.
He was calling me to learn how to live out hope, generosity and justice wherever I landed. He was calling me to use my gifts and to help equip others to live on-mission. He was calling me to “feed his sheep” right here in Canada. Since 2008, my job has been to strengthen, equip and mobilize organizations to live out hope, generosity and justice.
And, like the founder of OM, as the President and Founder of Graf-Martin Communications, I've learned that, while I’m creative and plucky and gifted, I have a propensity to mess things up and a daily need for a gracious God who picks me up, dusts me off and lets me try again. I’m grateful to follow a leader who taught me that there isn’t just a Plan A or Plan B, but a Plan M - and a long alphabet. Anyone who has heard George speak has heard that!
“We are not only called to evangelize the world, but we are called to build the Kingdom everywhere. This means that your work matters to God.” - George Verwer
My journey with OM came full circle in 2013, when Graf-Martin Communications came alongside OM Canada to build a fresh brand and support some of their marketing and outreach efforts. As I looked at OM websites and received newsletters or magazines from fields around the world, I saw logos and icons and language that I’d written reflected on their pages. It still makes me a bit emotional.
Just last week, I sent George an email, thanking him. I thanked him for choosing faithfulness over comfort. I thanked him for making mentoring and raising up the next generation a way of life. And, if I could talk to him today, I’d thank him for all the sacrifices that he and his family made for the Kingdom and for kids like me. His commitment to living out Matthew 22:36-40 has been a truly revolutionary movement.
What was started by an eighteen-year-old from New Jersey changed my life - a young woman in Nanaimo, BC, longing to be used by God. It wasn’t part of my plan, but God knew it should be.
If you would like to learn more about George’s journey, I encourage you to watch this beautiful tribute video created by Operation Mobilization Canada.
“There is no more biblical teaching than love, and apart from love there is no biblical teaching. You are not orthodox if you are not humble. You are not ‘Bible-believing’ if you do not love.” - George Verwer
