Blog #13 4/5/26

Reminiscences of George Verwer and Roy Hession

Having worked with OM for over seven years it is not easy to pick out memorable meetings with George, who is one of four men who decisively influenced my life and ministry, the others being an elder in my home church, Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Watchman Nee.

My first personal encounter with George was at a weekend for prospective participants on the Summer Crusade at Chigwell in May 1963. I vividly remember the closing session on Sunday afternoon. I sat there thinking “Why can’t I go back to my Christian Union (at the LSE) and live an average Christian life like all the others?” but I knew I couldn’t.

Unforgettable was my visit to India in 1973. I landed in Bombay and George arrived overland from the Logos the same day. At his invitation I accompanied him and Benjie via Hyderabad, Quiet Corner near Bangalore, Sunday in church at Jehovah Shamma in Madras (now Chennai), a 36-hour train trip to Calcutta (at Christmas), and finally by bus to Kathmandu, where our ways parted.

I was responsible for the OM work in Germany and wanted to set up an office there, after having travelled to and from Zaventem for three years. George said “We don’t want to set up a huge operation in Germany.” My successor, Fritz Schuler, moved the German office from a villa in Heilbronn to an old mill in Mosbach, which has since, housing also the Ship Office, become “a huge operation”! I was gratified to see that German OMers are one of the largest contingents in OM after USA, UK and S.Africa.

Recently my wife Ingrid and I have spent summer holidays in Alsace. We visited a famous Roman Catholic monastery on a hilltop overlooking the Rhine valley and there in the bookshop I discovered a French edition of George’s Revolution of Love!

My first summer on O.M. in France was a hard grind. On my way home I re-read Roy Hession’s The Calvary Road. I the first chapter he wrote It’s not being broken that makes you miserable, it’s the refusal to be broken. I thought: “That’s my situation!” I submitted to the Lord and there on my way home I felt I was now ready to go on the Crusade! Next summer I was there again!

As secretary of the LSE Christian Union I was responsible for inviting guest speakers. I would liked to have invited Roy Hession for a series on the “I am’s” of John’s Gospel, but in the event he was invited to only one talk. That was the only time I met Roy in person. I’ll never forget his subject: the four lepers in 2 Kings 7.

Later I taught at the Discipleship School of France pour Christ in Alsace. They had had a lot of contact with Roy. The leader, Nicolas Kessely, told me he once introduced Roy in a meeting as “an expert on grace.” Upon which Roy turned to Nicolas and said “And what do you preach about?”

I have twice acted as interpreter at Revival conferences which Roy initiated, one in Alsace and one at the Christian conference centre in Rehe (Germany). This was after Roy had gone to be with the Lord.

~ Mike Ponsford