Paul Orjala : The Man, the Mission [1 ed.] 9780834133273, 9780834124615

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Copyright 2009 by R. Franklin Cook and Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City © 2014 eISBN 978-0-8341-3327-3 Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the publisher. If you have received this publication from any source other than an online bookstore, you've received a pirated copy. Please contact us at the Nazarene Publishing House and notify us of the situation.

Cover Design: Kevin Williamson Interior Design: Sharon Page All Scripture quotations not otherwise designated are from the Holy Bible, New International Version® (niv®). Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Permission to quote from the following additional copyrighted version of the Bible is acknowledged with appreciation: The New American Standard Bible® (nasb®), © copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cook, R. Franklin, 1934Paul Orjala : the man, the mission / R. Franklin Cook.   p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-8341-2461-5 (pbk.) 1. Orjala, Paul R. (Paul Richard), 1925-  2. Missionaries—Haiti—Biography.  3. Church of the Nazarene—Missions.  I. Title. BV2848.H4075 2009 266'.799092—dc22  [B] 2009008153

 

CONTENT S Foreword Preface Acknowledgments   1.  Shells and Salt Air   2.  In the Cradle of Calling  3. Discovery Without End   4.  The Dividing Line   5.  Setting the Course   6.  What Does It Take?  7. Overcoming Challenges  8. New Voices  9. Moving On 10.  A Broader Platform 11.  Enduring Principles in Mission 12.  As Seen by Colleagues 13.  The World Is My Parish 14.  Ivory to Eiffel Conclusion Appendixes Sources Used

FOREWOR D MY TRI B UT E T O PAU L R . ORJAL A From time to time God raises up special people to bring about His plan of fulfilling the Great Commission. Paul Orjala was such a person. God raised him from the time he was a boy to become a giant. He was one of the most versatile men I have ever met, multi-talented in so many areas. He had a vision for reaching people for God by multiplication and movements. He had a vision for trusting local people and equipping them for the work of ministry. For the Church of the Nazarene, he ushered in modern missions. Having gone to Haiti with a multiplication mentality, he practiced missions in the Book of Acts mind-set. By so doing, he paved the way for the Church of the Nazarene to adopt these old—but for us, new— biblical principles. When he was brought back from Haiti after a Book of Acts success, he began to teach these principles. Over and over, it was God’s work, the multiplication of believers, and the training of leaders that marked his teaching. He influenced thousands of students. I had studied missions at Trevecca Nazarene University and had been on a Student Mission Corps, but Dr. Orjala took those experiences and shaped me in modern mission philosophy, just as he did with so many others. Little by little we began to reshape the field, using the principles and philosophy we had learned. The movement we have in missions today traces back to this giant of a man in missions. We owe him a great debt of gratitude for his leading the charge for missions that we know today. Louie E. Bustle World Mission Director Church of the Nazarene

PR EFAC E It was a warm, muggy day in September 1961 when I first saw Paul Orjala. The Kansas City District owned a campground just off Antioch Road in the Kansas City area, and because it was close and inexpensive, World Mission Director George Coulter had decided to have the first missionary workshop at this location. The camp had a central building, including a dining hall that we turned into a classroom. Small wooden frame houses that spread across the camp were turned into dormitories. Everyone pitched in with brooms, rags, dusters, and perspiration. Nothing was air-conditioned. Paul and Mary Orjala pitched right in, too, in spite of his invitation to be one of the lecturers. There was nothing unique or unusual in this—the Orjalas had already been in Haiti for 11 years and engaging in manual labor was part of their missionary experience. I noted how youthful Paul looked, with bright eyes and dark hair parted right down the middle. It was a hairstyle very individual to him that he kept for years. But what struck me the most was his energy. He took steps two and three at a time. The broom in his hands moved at twice the speed of anyone else’s. I knew he was a noted pianist, but it did not occur to me to warn him to watch his hands while he was sweeping, scrubbing, and dusting. After all, this event was a first, a pioneer effort. The next day furloughing missionaries gathered in from all over the world, and the actual workshop commenced. I continued to watch this whirlwind of energy called Paul Richard Orjala. He was everywhere, at one moment in the kitchen chatting with the cooks, the next at a piano working on a Haitian indigenous melody he thought might make a point. Before long, he was at the blackboard writing something in Creole at such high speed the white chalk nearly crum-

bled in his fingers. And in between everything else, I noticed that he would sit with missionaries and engage in animated conversation. This book is built on the life and philosophy of this remarkable man. But it’s more than simply a biography; it’s a book on a philosophy—a philosophy of ministry, mission, and lifestyle. For Paul embodied and influenced the mission of the Church of the Nazarene more than any one other person in the post-World War II era up to the mid-1980s, when he left his Nazarene Theological Seminary professorship to return to the field. The post-World War II era was noted as a time of incredible expansion in the Church of the Nazarene. The restrictive economics of the Great Depression, which had virtually shut down Nazarene missions, had merged into the horrors of a war when there was no significant travel, when missionaries were “stuck” at their places of service, when little more than survival could be the norm. When the war ended, mission work emerged from its cocoon to begin rapidly deploying missionaries again, sometimes to new fields. But what would be the guiding philosophy? No one had much time to think about it or articulate it—until Paul came along. With his inquisitive mind and energetic spirit, built on his Haiti experience, he studied, wrote, and lectured about it in a systematic way that gave form and substance to a philosophy. This book is therefore about a mission philosophy. A philosophy is something like railroad tracks, which keep the train going to where it needs to go—starting someplace and going somewhere with a purpose, a vision, and an engine full of energy. The world is the landscape. Shifting times are the environment. Many are involved in the day-to-day grind on the field. But Paul becomes the foremost articulator of what’s happening and what should happen. Louie Bustle, World Mission director for the Church of the Nazarene, has commissioned two books, the purpose of which is to explain to the Church of the Nazarene the driving forces that have brought us as a denomination to where we are today. This did not happen without purpose and direction. It happened because of people who have

served as the driving force behind the movement. This is a movement with God at the epicenter, of course, but with persons as the eyes, arms, and feet of the real activity. We will have two books in this missiological series. This first book centers on Paul Orjala: his life, his calling, and his ministry. The second book will be a compendium of articles reflecting thoughts of key leaders designed to bring this philosophy up to the moment and to take a peek behind the curtain of the future. We celebrate a life. We acknowledge a philosophy. We think about what drives us. We are grateful for all that has happened under God.

AC KNOW L E DGM E N T S I express my thanks to the Orjala family for their help in this project. Two extensive interviews with Mary Orjala in late 2007 were most enlightening. Lorie Orjala Beckum spent many hours pulling together files, correspondence, photographs, documents, and notations from diaries. These were an invaluable resource. Randy Beckum shared reflections and showed me thick notebooks of class notes from Paul Orjala, along with his superb shell collection. A number of students sent e-mails with their own reflections. Michael McCarty, long-time missionary and leader in Indonesia and southeast Asia and currently pastor in Michigan, reflected on his year as Paul’s student assistant. Mike filled in teaching for Paul at the seminary with class notes Orjala gave him. Brent Cobb, pastor, missionary to Korea, and former regional director of the vast Asia-Pacific Region, shared his memories of basic principles taught by Paul Orjala, ones that he was able to use in his ministry as a missionary and director. Terry Read, who followed Paul Orjala as a missionary to Haiti, gave anecdotal information about the later developments in that nation and Paul’s continuing influence there. Read served later as a district superintendent in Canada and a professor of missions at Nazarene Theological Seminary. Harry and Marion Rich, who served in Haiti with the Orjalas, shared their passion for the work and gave many examples of highenergy activity in Haiti. John Seaman, currently district superintendent in Michigan but for many years missionary and leader in Martinique and West Africa, offered a tribute as a former student in the NTS Connection winter 2006 issue.

Louie E. Bustle, current World Mission director for the Church of the Nazarene, not only commissioned this book but did so as a former student who attributes a great deal of his missionary philosophy to Paul Orjala and Mildred Wyncoop. Three colleagues of special note who wrote extensive essays regarding the Orjala philosophy of mission were Donald Owens, Charles Gailey, and Chester Galloway. Donald Owens served with Paul as a colleague teacher at the seminary and was later elected president of MidAmerica Nazarene University and elected for eight years of service as a General Superintendent in the Church of the Nazarene. He was the founding Nazarene missionary in Korea, served as regional director of the AsiaPacific Region, and was founding president of Asia-Pacific Nazarene Theological Seminary. His ability to analyze the missiological insights of Paul Orjala is profound. Charles Gailey, who joined the seminary faculty in 1981 as a colleague of Paul Orjala, was a missionary to Swaziland and principal of a major school. He has lectured and spoken widely across the world and was the one who picked up leadership in the mission program at the seminary after the Orjalas left for France. His essay on Orjala offers both personal and professional insight. Chester Galloway, who team-taught many courses with Paul Orjala as professor of Christian education and served as dean of the seminary for a number of years, reflects on trips made, discussions held, and conclusions reached in the missiology of Paul Orjala. These are extremely helpful in understanding this great man’s mind and heart.

ONE

S H ELLS A N D SA LT A I R Anyone looking at the beautiful beaches of San Diego in the early 1930s might have seen a boy running as close to the water as he could get. The person would have noted that the boy would stop from time to time to pick up a seashell, turning it over and over as he pondered what it was, where it came from, and how it got there. In time, Paul began to give serious study to the collected shells. There were many from the Gasteropoda family, Hydatinidae and Trividae and Bursidae and Fissurellidae, and on and on, running into first hundreds and then into the thousands of varieties. As Paul collected and cleaned his new shells, he began to classify and categorize them. The inquisitive mind of this boy was always asking why. Why these shells? What was their form and composition and origin?

San Diego is the home of the world-famous Scripps Institution of Oceanography. In the area are a number of noted museums and research institutions devoted to the sea. As the young Paul gained notoriety as an expert in shells, he was mentioned in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History: “As an example of what even youngsters can accomplish, Paul Orjala, a Junior Member, brought us a shell found at Mission Beach, which was not in the Museum’s great collection. It is called sphemia pholadidea.” Paul would make detailed graphs of visits to the beach, including the tides, the time, and the temperature, accompanied by detailed descriptions and drawings of discovered shells. Part of the attraction of the shells was the salt air. As he walked along Tourmaline Beach, he noticed that the smell of that air was purifying. Little could Paul know that years later he would be trudging the beaches of Haiti, still feeling the sand, smelling the salt air of the Caribbean, and collecting shells. By now he had built wooden boxoes with his own hands where each shell classification was segregated. For each he wrote a hurried description with editorial comments on the shape, color, and known facts about the history of the shell. The shells became a metaphor for Paul’s life. In these formative years in San Diego, experiences such as those on the sandy beaches became part of what shaped and formed the life and thinking of Paul R. Orjala. Orjala is a Finnish name. Paul’s father, Alfred Andrus Orjala, emigrated from Finland in 1898 at the age of 18, landing in New York and slowly migrating west through Finn and Swedish communities until he reached Astoria, Oregon, six years later. It was here that Alfred met Gertrude, an enthusiastic 18-year-old who was in charge of the Astoria Peniel Mission along with another lady. Alfred was a quiet man who worked with his hands. He was a good provider for the family through the difficult war years and the Great Depression. Gertrude was the nurturing and outgoing driving force in the family whose love of missions, music, and life would so implant itself in Paul’s life. There was always a poignant connection to the roots of the family in

Finland. Many years later, Paul wondered if his missionary calling might lead him to plant the Church of the Nazarene in Finland, but it was not to be. His path would lead him to a warmer climate where God had prepared the way for a unique marriage of opportunity and skill. People who knew the Orjala family often commented on his unusually high level of energy; his speed of walking, running, and talking; and his bright, inquisitive mind. He also had an older sister, Elsie, who would figure prominently in his musical development. Few could have predicted the influence of church, missions, music, science, and other influences that would mold and shape this future missiologist—a term few knew and one which Paul would help define in the Church of the Nazarene. In essence, it’s the science of missions, including theology, method, practice, and other elements.

TWO

IN THE CR A DL E O F CA LLING In the late 19th century a network of outreach missions, given the name Peniel, sprang up on the West Coast. T. P. Ferguson founded one in Los Angeles in 1886. In 1894 Phineas Franklin Bresee left the Methodist Episcopal Church to work at the Los Angeles Peniel Mission for a year before leaving in 1895 to found what became the first organized Church of the Nazarene. In 1897 a mission was founded in Oakland, California. In San Diego another Peniel mission was founded one year later, in 1898. It was this one that became critical in the development of Paul’s concept of mission.

The Peniel Mission in Astoria, Oregon, located at 62 Bond Street, was the place where Haldor Lillenas was converted. A Norwegian immigrant, he became a noted writer of hymns and songs, and is the one for whom Lillenas Publishing Company is named. As noted in the last chapter, the Astoria mission is also where 18-year-old Gertrude met her future husband, Alfred. An early photograph shows her at the mission playing a guitar and leading the service. Gertrude became deeply involved in the work of the San Diego Peniel Mission when the Orjala family moved there. Paul was always at her side. Paul took piano lessons and soon began playing in the services, and it was here that he preached his first sermon at the age of 12. The work of the Peniel missions extended to Mexico and even as far away as Egypt, so it was only natural that Paul, from the earliest days, would hear about missions. It was as natural to him as life itself. Paul writes, “I do not remember a time when I did not feel called to be a missionary and did not plan to be one. My mother was passionately interested in missions. . . . My first recollection of missionaries was when I was three when some missionary friends of my mother’s were on furlough from China and stayed for some time in our home.” The single most powerful earthly influence in Paul’s calling was his mother. Knowing this, Gertrude worried that Paul’s calling be his own, not hers, and she constantly reminded him that missions as a calling must come from and be affirmed by God himself. She was naturally gratified when he “solemnly announced one day in a matter-of-fact way that, of course, [he] was going to be a missionary.” It had been Gertrude who led Paul to personal faith in Christ at the age of six. From that time onward, Paul’s schooling, talents, and academic pursuits were consciously and specifically directed toward the mission field. On one occasion when he was about two years of age, Paul severely burned his hands on a very hot stove. The attending doctor declared that he would never have full use of his hands again. Gertrude pled, “Doctor, is there anything I can do to help him?”

“Well, you can try massaging his hands every day for long periods of time with olive oil,” the doctor suggested. “It might help his hands to regain some usefulness.” Gertrude did exactly that, and over a long period of time Paul not only regained use of his hands but also was able to begin taking the piano lessons that his mother so eagerly wished him to take. Paul always wanted to play piano, but his first teacher was very strict and had the theory that children should not use a real keyboard until they have mastered the song on a marked piece of cardboard, which looked like a keyboard but with no sound. Paul rebelled. He wanted to hear what he was playing. One day Gertrude said to him, “Paul, if you don’t start practicing, you won’t be able to take piano lessons any longer.” Ah, thought Paul. Here’s my way out. He stopped practicing. However, at the same time he begged his talented sister Elsie to teach him piano. At first she refused, but finally, one day brother and sister struck a bargain at the dining room table. If Paul would practice, this time on a real piano, Elsie would teach. And that was how it worked from that time forward. As the years passed, this musical talent was expressed in many ways. With Mary, his wife, Paul would combine piano and violin for weekend music and preaching events in local churches. In college, he tried different combinations of musical ensembles. In Haiti, musicology became part of missiology for Paul. It’s impossible to have a truly indigenous church without a truly indigenous hymnology, he felt. It was in Haiti that Paul adapted to another keyboard, the accordion, purely for the sake of transportable convenience. How much easier it was to haul an accordion to the brush arbor mountain churches of Haiti! What do we learn from these early days about the philosophy being inculcated into Paul Orjala? • It was rooted in a strong family upbringing, which provided stability, love, consistency, and acceptance. • It flowered in an atmosphere of mission, which permeated almost every conversation and activity.

• The intellectual pursuits went in many directions, from music to theology to anthropology to science. There were no boundaries to the learning process. • The calling was always there, with no detours. • Life meant expending every ounce of energy, which popped out with unending activity. • God was ever present in every detail of life. Tomorrow will have fulfillment in today, which was given understanding by the events of yesterday.

THREE

D IS C OVE RY WIT H O UT E N D For some people, learning is an interest, a requirement, a necessity. And for others, it’s cool to call learning boring. Then there are the select few for whom learning is a passion. It’s a fire that drives their every waking thought and action. These are the people who take notes during a lecture or a sermon, who are constantly into a book, sometimes several at a time. These are those who are always looking up words, researching new ideas, exploring what’s not yet known to them. Paul fell into this category.

From his early days, Paul Orjala was learning. In school, in church, at the piano, at home, he was surrounded with an atmosphere of nurture and encouragement. He breezed through elementary and high school in San Diego. A shortage of money caused Paul to attend one year at San Diego State University before transferring to Pasadena College, where he knew he must go to prepare for ministry and missions. During those years his older brother, Al, sent $10 per month to help with tuition costs. Work at a local bakery and in a cannery doing manual labor also helped with costs. In time Paul entered Pasadena College (now Point Loma Nazarene University). Reuben Welch, former professor and chaplain at the school, writes, “We met at Pasadena College in 1944 and came to know each other in a New Testament Greek class, a language which he readily absorbed by his own special process of intellectual osmosis. We learned together, memorized Navigator verses together, shared our common faith and heritage, and became brothers.” The president of the college during Paul’s year of study was H. Orton Wiley, whose magnum opus was a three-volume systematic theology and who was considered by many to be the premiere theologian of the formative years of the Church of the Nazarene. There could be no better teacher and guide in Paul’s theological quest and deepened learning of theology. It was in college that a young lady by the name of Mary Bowerman came into Paul’s life. Mary had settled a calling to missionary service at college and her friends knew that any interest in marriage was possible only if the call was a predicate. On one memorable day Mary’s telephone rang, and another student answered. It was Paul calling. The student announced loudly, “Mary, the phone is for you—and he said he’s planning to be a missionary.” The rest is history. Even in high school Paul analyzed three distinct problems he needed to solve that would have later consequences in his life. The first was what field God might be calling him to. In those days, missionaries typically testified to being called to a specific country or area. It troubled Paul that God did not seem

to be directing him in a specific way. In high school someone gave him a copy of the journal of Fenton Hall, who had left a promising career in England to become a missionary and eventually a martyr in the Amazon Basin of Brazil. Paul wrote to the Brazilian Embassy in Washington for maps and booklets and read every book he could find on Brazil. In fact, he had even written a 32-page research paper in high school for a class in international relations on Brazil. But the Brazil door never opened to Paul. He then directed his thinking toward Latin America and began a serious study of Spanish. He acquainted himself with the Latin American nations, reading all he could and waiting for God to give him clear direction. The second problem for Paul was what field of specialized learning to concentrate on. At one point he decided on a pre-med course of study on the premise that medical missionaries were needed and that medical training would qualify him for service in a wide variety of places. Later, in a remarkable act of self-discovery, he began to realize that a medical career might indicate for him the choice of a career of respectability rather than one of being, in his words, “a simple missionary.” He also knew that if he never made it to the mission field, medicine would be a good backup for a profession. He certainly had the skills and the background to become a doctor—but having a backup plan was not good enough for Paul. In his first year at San Diego State Paul had pursued the pre-med course. But he had become more and more uncomfortable with this and in time lost interest in a medical career. At the same time, to quote Orjala, “I soon knew that there was no other plan for me than to start my theological and linguistical preparation at summer school in Pasadena.” And so at Pasadena College he began to prepare with the idea of going to Nazarene Theological Seminary, pursuing a major in philosophy, a near-minor in New Testament Greek, and a heavy dose of linguistics with the idea of perhaps doing Bible translation. This idea was reinforced by his acquaintance with some Wycliffe translators

and William Sedat, a distinguished linguist and missionary to Guatemala who was teaching at Pasadena College at the time. The third problem was what to do with his music. Many counseled Paul to give up missions and devote himself to music. This was not an option, he felt. But on the other hand, he knew that music had an important place on the mission field. Paul testifies, “I never regretted for one minute that I consecrated my music to God.” Mary, a violinist, and Paul discovered that music fit God’s plan perfectly. While in Haiti Paul wrote, “We have needed every bit of our musical education to cope with the musical problems here in Haiti.” Their musical background and training were used to start choirs, write choruses, understand indigenous music, transcribe spontaneous Haitian “spirituals” for church services, and open doors of ministry. Paul and Mary were married after his last year at the seminary in Kansas City and immediately went to the Wycliffe Summer Institute of Linguistics in Oklahoma, where they spent part of their honeymoon. Paul’s lifelong learning pattern continued through graduate work in the seminary, the summer linguistics study, and eventually a doctoral program at the Hartford (Connecticut) Seminary Foundation, a program that helped him become a foremost authority on Haitian Creole. Learning was indeed a passion, which Paul took for himself, his family, his students, and every missionary he taught and influenced in the coming years.

FOUR

T HE D IVIDING L IN E As Paul dealt with young missionaries, he would often reflect back to the day of the three-hour flight he and Mary first made to Port-auPrince, Haiti, as the dividing line of his life. Everything before that day was what came before. All the walks on the San Diego beach, all the years of formal education, all the classes in biblical literature at the seminary, all the events leading up to his marriage to Mary—everything that preceded that day was “before.”

And everything that followed that day was what came after. The 14 years of grinding and shaping work in Haiti, the travel and speaking and lecturing and preaching, the years of professorship and of mentoring the young—everything that followed that day was what came after. Those three hours of travel from Miami to Haiti were the dividing line. The journey began in California. It was a long train ride to Shreveport, Louisiana, where they stopped over to hold five services in local churches. The World Mission Department had advanced $250 for the trip. The couple had spent $241.52 of that money by the time they arrived in Haiti. A few extra dollars from the Shreveport churches helped provide a modest cushion. The train journey continued on to Miami, where the Orjalas were to embark on a three-hour flight to Port-au-Prince. Finally, on October 3, 1950, the big day had arrived. The flight was on a DC-4, at the time the flagship of Pan American Airways. It left Miami in mid-morning and arrived in muggy Port-auPrince in early afternoon. Due to some confusion as to the couple’s arrival date, no one was at the airport to meet Paul and Mary. They had no local currency, no reservations, and no place to go. Paul’s prowess swung into almost immediate action. Seeing no one there to greet and assist them, Paul negotiated with a taxi driver for a trip to the United States Embassy, which seemed like a logical place for stranded Americans to head. At the embassy they were able to secure some help, including a recommendation of a modest hotel nearby and the names of some other local registered Americans, including Conservative Baptist missionaries Wally and Eleanor Turnbull. The first order of business was to get to the Mon Reve (“My Dream”) Hotel. In reality, the hotel was not much like a dream at all, but to this weary couple it looked like something akin to paradise. The owners of the hotel were a British man, who told of being injured while in the Royal Air Force of England during World War II, and his wife, an American. Mary remembers today that an unusual, if not odd, assemblage of visitors was staying at the hotel in those days.

Paul wrote in a letter to his mother, “Our hotel is nothing grand or large, but adequate. Food is good but very different. We can hardly get ourselves to drink Haitian coffee. The variety of dishes has been excellent. We have especially enjoyed the avocados. We have had mangos, papayas, and pineapple locally grown. Last night we had delicious steaks.” The hotel was across the street from the Presidential Palace, so the fireworks, literal and figurative, of the national elections, held six days after their arrival, were visible. Anyone who knows the turbulence of Haitian politics understands that election times were tense. It was hot and humid, and everywhere was an unending invasion of mosquitoes made worse by a painful absence of window screens. Air conditioning was unknown. It was not difficult to pine for the cool breezes of San Diego. Houses were almost impossible to find. So the hotel stay dragged on and on for a much longer time than either of them had anticipated. But the rental costs at the hotel were virtually nothing by today’s standards. Some weeks later, when they did find a house to rent, they began paying a monthly rent of $60 for two bedrooms. Unfortunately, the house did not include a kitchen. In all of these experiences, Paul’s mission philosophy was being refined. Some early lessons he learned included: • Flexibility. No one at the airport? One becomes innovative in determining what steps to take. No place to stay? One gets the best advice available. • Determination. No one can underestimate the adjustment of a young couple in a new place, dealing with virtually no contacts, no equipment, no transportation, oppressive humidity, and mosquitoes to boot. Under these circumstances comes the temptation to question, even to quit. Paul and Mary gave no evidence of giving in then or later. • Glamour to grind. If there was ever any vestige of glamour and romance attached to a mission call and service, it soon turned into the grind of daily life. Paul spent days, weeks, and months in government offices dealing with reluctant bureaucrats over

necessary items such as a residence visa (necessary to stay but with mixed messages on procurement), the need to get their shipped goods through customs and into the country, and permission to import a Jeep. • Priorities. It was immediately necessary to fix their priorities. The Orjalas established these as (1) getting settled, (2) starting their language studies, and (3) assessing the state of the church. Effective missionary work always means keeping priorities straight. As we examine the Orjalas’ Haiti years, it becomes obvious that those early priorities became a guiding beacon. For years to come, Paul’s illustrations, points, references, and conclusions in mission philosophy found their root in Haiti and especially in those early difficult days. This is true of all who have served as missionaries. The experience is so dramatic that it colors and shades everything else. And this was certainly true for Paul and Mary Orjala.

FIVE

S E TTING T HE C O UR S E Paul Orjala was not one to keep extensive or reflective journals. He was in too much of a hurry, doing too many things for that. What he did was make hurried notes of essential items. He also wrote letters, often to his mother, which gave some insight into the adjustments the young couple was making to Haiti in 1950. Since the little house the Orjalas finally found had no kitchen, they had to hire Oxane, a young Haitian lady, to help them cope with the markets for vegetables and the charcoal burner outside on the ground for cooking.

Paul offered some glimpses into the house. The living room was completely bare. “We don’t use it anyway,” wrote Paul, “probably because it has no furniture.” The bedroom included the clothes closet, which Paul built out of a crate in which springs and mattress had been imported. The bedroom had three shelves, a rug measuring 6 x 10 feet, a couple of throw rugs, and a bed counter made up of four foot lockers stacked two deep and covered with old drapes Paul had brought from his years at Pasadena College. The dining room had a table purchased for $10, four chairs purchased for 60¢ each, a rug, and Mary’s sewing machine. One of the rooms was eventually converted into a kitchen, with a small refrigerator, a cabinet for a few dishes, a table, and a two-burner hot plate. Early adjustments had to be made to the hot and humid climate, frequent bouts with dysentery and other illnesses brought on by the food and water, challenging economics, transportation that was irregular at best before their Jeep arrived, language barriers, the everpresent mosquitoes, and the tiny house itself. This was pioneering. This was work. This was difficult. Paul may not have thought about it at the time, but each of these experiences was building a base for the later teaching of young missionaries about the joys and sorrows of pioneer work in countries with different standards of living. Learning the language was an obsession. Creole came first—it was the language of the street, the people, and the church. French would come second, necessary for discourse, writing, government, and dealing with the intelligentsia. Paul and Mary became fanatical in their belief that any missionary had to learn the native language and learn it deeply. After all, language is the pathway to the heart and the mind. One cannot understand the culture and not understand its language. Quotes from one of Paul’s small day-by-day books provides insight into an early visit to an area known as Gonaives, which had several churches. The trip to Gonaives was made in a “camion,” or bus, which was actually little more than a flatbed truck with benches and a roof. The benches were brightly painted, and fancy lettering gave

the name of the camion, the destination, and any slogans of interest to the driver or owner. Paul once described the roads as “mule trails with accessories.” The motorized vehicles had to withstand severe punishment, and the passengers even worse. To survive on this trip as well as thousands later, Paul took chocolate bars and some dysentery pills, drank only bottled pop or coconut milk, and took a shot of paregoric (which became an abiding companion) before each meal. The following notes from that December 1950 trip hint at many things: December 16-18 Dinner Sat. night—potato, fish, fried bananas, bread, water Slept on Haitian bed, slept in church Morning coffee Inspected garden, took pix Breakfast—eggs, fried bananas, potato, snail on plate, bread, tea Exam of baptismal candidates in school shed—16 baptized Began exam of baptism candidates at 8:30—church out at 12:10 Spoke on 1 Pet. 3:21 SS simultaneously in church Church decorated in pastel crepe paper Hike to baptism thru fields of maize, mille (millet), bananas, pois congo trees, mangoes, papayas, cacti, pigs, goats, burrows, horses. Singing—baptism. Place, spectators, return singing Service at church, singing (3 songs—sitting, 1—standing), 1 on knees, concert prayer, song on knees to stop prayer, Lord’s prayer Paul’s welcome and reception of members Choir number with clapping accompaniment Over 100 present, announcements, 1 song seated Sermon on Communion by Paul. Communion Consecration of elements separately, during singing of Mon Coeur 1 Cor. 11:25-29 read first, bread, “wine,” passed out remaining bread and “wine” to eat up

Additional notes on this trip tell about giving a birth certificate, the lack of giving tithes, a suggestion that people tithe even the produce of their gardens, the need for a zinc roof on the church, and an explanation of how a budget works, including the General Budget (known today as the World Evangelism Fund). In terms of laying the foundation, several things are worthy of note: • Paul was with the people, eating what they ate, worshiping in their style of worship. • Music was of critical importance throughout the weekend. • The elements for Communion were the local elements. After Communion, any leftover elements were distributed to the people for food. • The services were long. No one had a watch but the missionary. So really, who cared about time? • Lots of things were done: baptisms, presentation of birth certificates, Communion, preaching, praise and worship, teaching on tithing, and discussion of practical issues such a roof. Paul kept meticulous financial records of the trip. He believed in accountability. The bus ride cost $2.80. Two taxi rides cost a total of 50¢. A saddle repair was $7.00. Rental of a donkey was 20¢. An offering of 11¢ was given. (Paul learned early about offerings commensurate with the economics of the people, not the economics of himself as a foreigner.) Theology was of increasing concern to Paul. In his early notes from Haiti (1951) he comments, “Continuous progression in the gospel is the condition of security from man’s standpoint. Can interpret this in both the Calvinist and Arminian contexts. Important thing is not if a person ever was saved, but is he saved NOW and will he be saved ETERNALLY.” He found in the churches that existed before the arrival of the Orjalas a “wild mix” of beliefs, some Calvinist, some not, and in a few cases a mixture of Haitian voodoo influence. His efforts to establish a Church of the Nazarene that was theologically sound took years of effort, teaching, preachers’ meetings, workshops, and the formal establishment of a Bible school and development of literature.

SIX

WHAT D O E S IT TA K E ? One of Paul Orjala’s absolutes, a belief beyond negotiation, was that pastors must be trained. In his way of thinking, that meant not just in their own language and with indigenous teaching forms but also with material that was substantial. He believed the most rural of pastors should have a solid biblical and theological base. Training cannot be separated from literature. And in the case of a nation like Haiti in the early 1950s, this often meant a marriage of literature with literacy. In February 1951, just five months after arrival in Haiti, there is the first notation of translation into Creole: “We are getting so we can understand more Creole now. French will take longer.”

The first translations were Sunday School lessons for February 4 and 11. Paul translated from Greek (he had studied Greek at Nazarene Theological Seminary) but consulted French in order to include as many cognate words and phrases as possible. “We hope to hectograph about 30 copies for use in Sunday School,” he wrote. Hectograph was a primitive (by today’s standards) form of duplication that used a gelatin surface softened by a glycerin substance and special aniline ink. This reference reveals the strong desire of Paul to master the local language, translate for teaching into the language, and to do so from original sources (Greek) and in conformity with the best standards (French). This was an exemplary, textbook procedure in laying foundations for the future by this young missionary. Along with the serious business of foundation-laying was the issue of daily living. On one occasion Paul noted a very good “market day.” Oxane got 12 eggs at 2¢ each, 2 bunches of radishes for 4¢, 1 pineapple for 12¢, 4 oranges for a total of 2¢, 3 tiny bundles of pitch wood for starting charcoal fires for 1¢, and 2 cucumbers at 4¢ each. Having a Haitian bargain for these prices was the only way to secure fresh food at affordable prices. On October 2, 1951, the first formal Bible school classes started. A year had passed since the Orjalas’ arrival. Seven students enrolled in classes. No materials were available, and the students did not know how to take notes. Mary did most of the “hectographing” so that these early enrollees could work through the material. It’s important to understand the context. There were no Nazarene resources whatsoever. The only part of the Bible translated into Creole at that time was the Book of Luke. There were no books, no commentaries, no library, no supplemental reading, and no budget. None of this was a deterrent to Paul. It was only an inconvenience to overcome. Paul became the de facto faculty of one. He decided to develop his own curriculum, translating and writing his own texts based solely on the Scriptures. One can only imagine the time and effort this took. In between incessant visits to local churches, late-night hours were

spent getting ready and then executing a successful Bible school program. Today there are volumes of notebooks, all typed in French, organized with the precision of a shell collection, that contain this material. Much of it has become the core Bible material being taught by Nazarenes today across the French-speaking world. Following is a listing of the courses, each replete with extensive notes amounting to hundreds of pages, and all in French: Introduction to the Bible Bible geography Pentateuch and historic figures Historic figures Joshua and Esther Poetic literature Major prophets Minor prophets Bible doctrine The life of Jesus Romans Pauline epistles (1 and 2 Corinthians) Pauline epistles (Galatians—Titus) Hebrews General epistles Apologetics Systematic Theology I The Bible, God, Jesus, Holy Spirit Systematic Theology II The Church, eschatology Systematic Theology III Salvation, ethics Systematic Theology IV Anthropology, sin Systematic Theology V Atonement Calvinism vs. Arminianism

To consider the scope and depth of this curriculum is breathtaking. Paul taught it all in the early days, in addition to translating, typing, preparing, and presenting the material. Obviously these notebooks of material began to form the basis of a literature program. By 1953 Paul had a literature committee organized, including three missionaries from other denominations. (Another of Paul’s precepts was “Work with other denominations and groups.”) By 1953 the work in Haiti was beginning to take shape and form. Being a scholar and thinker, Paul was constantly probing better ways to do things and analyzing issues and challenges. Mary was busy cataloging the English library, making a song file and card index, and numbering manuscripts. Paul was using a looseleaf notebook for Creole sermons and translating the special rules from the Nazarene Manual. He was involved deeply in visitations, baptisms, harvest festivals, preachers’ meetings, translation, and administrative and legal work. He provided vision and oversight, taught at the Bible school, and welcomed and oriented new missionaries. One day he made a list of what he observed among the Christians when he and Mary arrived on the field: • Singing, clapping, swaying, and singing in French without understanding the words • Earsplitting prayer on all occasions and always kneeling (“every knee shall bow”) and saying the Lord’s Prayer several times in the service • Hats for women and coats for men preaching were an absolute requirement • The pastor did everything—helped convert, prayed, laid on hands, burned voodoo stuff, “slapped on the head three times with the Bible” to symbolize conversion or healing The question was—how much of this should be put into the “Nazarene DNA,” and how much was extraneous to what the Haitian Nazarene Church should become? On another occasion Paul made a list of “Problems We Face”: • Polygamy—we’re against it, BUT which wife should he marry (or which husband)?

• Baptism and the presentation of babies born out of wedlock • Languages—French and Creole. When to use which? Pastors tend to want to “show off” by using French when parishioners speak Creole • Preachers falling into sin • Hunger (and the larger issue of the role of compassionate ministries) Paul also kept extensive notes on standards for the Bible school, including notes on absences from class. On one occasion Paul wrote a note about Creole phonetics: “Check on the final ‘d’—how frequent? Should it be doubled? Check system of Larrousse [a French language reference manual].” This note is a precursor to what was his intense interest in and study of linguistics—and his doctoral dissertation in a dialectical study of Haitian Creole, a work that’s still the standard in the field. The adjustments continued. The foundations were laid. Now there were other issues.

SEVEN

O VERC OM IN G C H A L L E N G E S The challenges of beginning church work in any location are great. In Haiti in the early 1950s the obstacles seemed greater than most. By the time the Orjalas had been in Haiti for two years, it was possible to analyze these obstacles more clearly. First was the challenge of adjustment to a new culture, climate, and people. This included finding a place to live, chairs to sit on, and discovering the “Haitian way” of doing things. Then was the challenge of resources. Money was in short supply, although one lesson learned was that God’s provisions were always just enough. Too often a flood of money will take the mission off course and divert attention from its real purpose—evangelism and church development—to projects of less importance. The financial shortages helped keep the focus clear.

Also was the challenge of pre-existing churches. The Orjalas had come to Haiti to work with an organization that already existed, headed by a man who proved both useful and difficult. In time, it was necessary to separate the Church of the Nazarene from this organization and its leader and to, in effect, start all over. This was a painful experience for all. The lesson was that in any part of the world, it never works to take over or to amalgamate pre-existing work. As General Superintendent J. B. Chapman said, “You have to grow your own.” The Orjalas discovered this was true. Then came the challenge of poor practice in the churches. On one occasion Paul made a list of these and labeled them as characteristic of “degenerate churches”: • Nationalistic spirit • Lack of scruples with preachers proselytizing • False doctrine • Hitting a person three times with the Bible to symbolize conversion or healing • Putting a candle on the convert’s head • Lapse in morals • The belief that the end justifies the means • Polygamy permitted and even practiced by the preacher • Fighting and lying against other churches and missions • The principle of fragmentation Once the new church start had been made, these were the principles Paul followed to create a positive climate for growth. These notes were jotted down in early 1953: • Friendliness • Leadership training • Music • Year-planning Under these four broad categories were such tasks as welcoming visitors, doing follow-up visits, making visitor’s cards, starting classes to develop Sunday School and youth leaders, starting choirs and small musical groups, organizing special evenings of music and festivals, planning sermon series in advance, conducting revival ser-

vices and Bible conferences, and laying out an advance plan for a local church. The challenge of staying mentally alert and spiritually alive was present. This was never very difficult for Paul and Mary, but there are records of their deliberately taking time (though rarely) for an evening at home with classical music on the phonograph and a book to read. Paul discovered he could order books from France more cheaply than from the United States, and he began to assemble a large French library. His reading ranged from history and anthropology to current events and theology. He maintained his interest in science as well as in seashells. It was an advantage, of course, in those days not to have television. Radio was available via shortwave from a number of stations such as the British Broadcasting Corporation, and in longwave from the Dominican Republic (in Spanish) and elsewhere. Paul was a strong advocate of keeping up with current events and subscribed to the international version of Time magazine. One lesson the Orjalas learned was that one could be “eaten alive” by the pressure of work. This could destroy one’s inner spiritual life, and throughout his life Paul found ways of keeping spiritually alive and vibrant. On Easter weekend in 1953 Paul wrote these thoughts in his notes: Easter morning I awoke to thoughts of “Christ the Lord is risen today” and “Hallelujah.” No music like that in Haiti. I had my own sunrise service. Clouds over the mountains, finally the sun breaks through on mountainsides, lighting up the garden, ruins of a colonial Frenchman’s house—like the gospel breaking through here and there. People come in small family groups, shivering in cold and wind, waiting for the sun to break through—the Son of Righteousness to bring His healing warmth to their souls. He is coming; the clouds are blowing out to sea. Even the depths of the valleys shall see His light, and darkness will be driven out before Him. The warmth of His presence shall thaw out the shivering fear of voodoo’s mystery, and it will dawn to the hearts of thousands in Haiti.

The challenge of expanding boundaries was present as well. Paul Orjala believed in sustaining relationships with many organizations. For years he was involved with the American Bible Society, linguistic study groups, other denominational efforts and missionaries, and parachurch groups. He developed personal relationships with such legends in global mission as Eugene Nida (American Bible Society, linguist, and translator), William Smalley (prolific writer, expert in southeast Asia, and missiologist), Donald McGavran (father of the church growth movement), and many others. These expanding boundaries not only increased Paul’s landscape but also gave others the benefit of his own brilliance. In 1955, during furlough deputation, he met with Paul Burrows to discuss the Dead Sea scrolls. He also began his doctoral studies at the Hartford Seminary Foundation and met with Claude DeMaestral, secretary of the International Council for Christian Literature in Africa. These are just a few examples of his ever-increasing range of contacts and associations. It’s important to remember that Paul never lost sight of the main goal. All the contacts, graduate work, and extracurricular activities were subservient to what he considered the main thing—evangelism and building the church in Haiti. The challenge was to keep it all in perspective. The notes Paul made reflect an unrelenting schedule “with the people.” These notes mention visits with pastors, securing building materials, monthly preachers’ meetings, weddings, baptisms, youth rallies, children’s choir rehearsals, dispensary committee meetings, teaching music lessons, prayer time with missionaries, producing a film for promotion purposes, making linguistic appointments, recordings in Creole, interdenominational literature meetings—and on and on. This tornado of energy seemed to be everyplace at one time. It was who Paul Orjala was.

EIGHT

NEW VOIC E S It was inevitable that as time marched on in Haiti, the church would develop, the Bible school and literature program would be functioning, and new missionaries would arrive. This brought a new set of problems. All newly arrived missionaries brought with them their own baggage, including preconceived notions and/or cultural biases. They also brought impressive skills and specialties, all of which needed to be integrated into the mission and purpose of the church. Along with this, new missionaries needed to adjust to a new lifestyle and, of course, to learn the native languages. Paul insisted on certain priorities, and he always did so with high energy.

Harry and Marion Rich arrived in October 1957. With hardly any time for the couple to catch their breath, Paul asked Harry to go with him on their first Sunday for a service at Cabaret. The people had asked for Communion to be served—but they had prepared no elements. Paul asked for bread and was given a hard loaf. There was no knife, so Harry lent him his pocketknife. In front of the congregation, Paul cut up the loaf. Then he asked for grape soda. But there was no opener, so one of the members asked for the bottle and hooked the cap on his eyetooth and popped the lid. Paul then proceeded to pour the pop into whiskey shot glasses and placed the glasses on a Heineken beer tray. (The people had no idea what the tray said.) Harry had just experienced his first Communion in Haiti—and his first lessons in adaptability and cultural sensitivity. That same evening Harry and Paul were at Laserre under a brush arbor with a Coleman lantern overhead. When the Communion service began, Paul kept talking and talking, holding the cup in his hand. A miller flew into Paul’s cup, and then another flew into Harry’s cup. Both were able to fish the millers out with their fingers before partaking of the element. This was Harry’s second lesson in cultural adaptability. The next week Harry went with Paul on a mountain trip. He thought he was in good shape, but he struggled on the two-hour climb to keep up with Paul, “who walked up that mountain like a goat,” according to Harry. After the service was a meal. Paul said, “The food is hot. You can eat as much or as little as you like, but I’m hungry.” And in he dove with his fork. So did Harry, and the missionary orientation continued. Every newly arrived missionary received the full Orjala treatment. It was at high speed, and it was with the people. It was reinforced with laughter, fellowship, and lots of conversation. Harry writes that immediately he and Marion were set up in the American Institute for French on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Paul was the Creole instructor on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Paul claimed many missionaries quit language study after one year. Paul never quit, and neither did Harry, who became Paul’s assistant in his

doctoral dissertation on the dialectical differences of Haitian Creole. As they traveled, Paul would note these differences and make notes, and Harry would learn. Paul could not tolerate a missionary who did not want to go out and meet the people, so he integrated this idea into his teaching and practice. It became the norm for Haitian leaders as well. One of them said, “If you’re going to be a Nazarene, you’ll have to put your foot in the water and mud and go.” The “new missionary orientation”—Orjala style—also included constant recommendation of new books to read on mission theory, history, linguistics, and any number of other topics. Harry Rich recalls a strong dose of mission theory when Paul told him to read books on the “three-self principles” used in Korea. Almost any discussion at any time of the day or night would drift back to mission theory and practice. Harry summarizes Orjala’s mission principles as follows: • Identification with the people and culture • Concern for nationals around him (the most illiterate mountain man was important to him) • Energy—Paul felt a missionary was called to do anything and everything; shirking was a cardinal sin to him • The missionary experience was to be a continuous learning experience; new ideas were given a fair trial • A constant emphasis on evangelism—Great Commission consciousness was promoted in every pastor and local church • The passionate belief that Nazarene doctrine would fit in any culture: when a newly translated book by theologian W. T. Purkiser came out, Paul was thrilled and proclaimed, “Now every denomination will know just where we stand on holiness” Michael McCarty, long-time director of Nazarene missions in Indonesia and Thailand, served as Paul’s assistant at Nazarene Theological Seminary. In 1973 he made a trip to the Bahamas and Haiti with Paul and was asked to preach at one of the local churches in Haiti. Paul was to translate and asked Mike what his text would be. “I have a sermon out of Philippians 4,” Michael replied.

“Oh, good,” Paul responded. “I have an excellent sermon from Philippians 3. I’ll use that—you won’t know the difference.” Ten years after the Orjalas had left Haiti for his teaching assignment at the seminary in Kansas City, Paul was asked to return to Haiti to work with the leaders and missionaries to assist the church in reaching self-sufficiency and maturity. There still existed a sense of dependency on foreign resources, and this had proved to be a difficulty. By now it had been a quarter of a century since the work had begun. It was time to do a major check-up and question bad habits that may have crept in to the work. Terry Read, who by now was in Haiti as a successor to Orjala and Rich, recalls, “We had to make a move away from paternalism—and quickly.” Paul began talking about “neo-indigenization.” He questioned the strategy of some groups in Haiti and elsewhere in the world of not visiting churches at all—allowing them to sink or swim—in the name of indigenization. Read writes, “He showed us, told us, modeled it for us. You have to be out there. Churches and pastors need to be encouraged. You need to preach in the churches, counsel pastors and their wives, and talk to young people whom God is calling into the ministry.” One time on a trip to northern Haiti with Terry for a Sunday night service, Paul shared with him that “somewhere along the way our missionaries have ceased being trainers and have become performers.” For Paul, “without successors there is no success.” Shining through these statements one can clearly see the Orjala philosophy for the church and for missionaries. It was uncompromising in its focus. It was unrelenting in its energy. And it left its legacy not only in Haiti but also to an increasingly large number of church leaders around the world.

NINE

MOVING O N As the 1950s were closing and the 1960s were beginning, the world was sliding out of one era and beginning another. The post-World War II era was drawing to a close. The world was on the brink of a new era with new challenges. These included the growing conflict in Vietnam, the increasing Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union, a new generation of leadership, breakthroughs in technology, and increasing ease and speed in international travel. For example, the first commercial jet flight over the Atlantic began for Pan American Airways in 1958. The globe was shrinking. People were traveling in ways that were previously unimagined. The church in Haiti was continuing to develop. At the same time, Paul found more and more demands on his time outside Haiti.

In 1961 Paul became the core builder of curriculum and a teacher at summer institutes and workshops for the entire Nazarene missionary program, for both veteran and newly appointed missionaries. Over the next several years he put his stamp—his philosophy—inside the missionary corps. In 1964, 1966, and 1969 he became one of the coordinators of teams of college/university/seminary students for what was known as Nazarene Evangelistic Ambassadors. These teams traveled through Latin America and eventually to Europe. Out of this seed came the Student Mission Corps and eventually Youth in Mission projects. These were important, because for the first time nonprofessional volunteers of college age were encouraged to be part of the global mission of the denomination. Academic pursuits continued unabated. In the summer of 1961 Paul spent three months at the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Oklahoma studying Cheyenne phonology, phonemic statement, and grammar. Cheyenne is one of the Native American languages, and Paul was interested in its construction and proper tonal patterns. The institute was under the direction of William Smalley, a distinguished linguist, who became a good friend and whom the Orjalas later hosted on a trip to Haiti. In the autumn of 1961 Paul began his doctoral program at the Kennedy School of Missions in Hartford, Connecticut. The Kennedy School was the most highly regarded graduate school of missiology at that time, instituted in 1913 as a response to the great missionary conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1910, which called for specialized training of missionaries. It was endowed by Emma Baker Kennedy in memory of her husband, John Stewart Kennedy, and was renamed the Kennedy School of Missions, and is part of Hartford Seminary. As this was happening, Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City was considering an expansion of its programs to include the training of missionaries. This awareness came from the rapid expansion of the missionary corps, the opening of new countries, the increase in travel and global awareness, and the embodiment of visionary leaders.

Back in Haiti, the mission philosophy of Paul Orjala was being refined and perfected in such a manner as could be sustained by academic credibility and practical experience. Terry Read, who followed the Orjalas by 10 years in Haiti and whose early mission career was molded by Haiti (and thus by Orjala), summarized this philosophy in the following way: • Raise up leaders. Spend your time with the leaders. Let them know the Church of the Nazarene. • Promote leaders to real positions. Leadership takes place not in seminars but in the field. Roles such as district superintendency, membership on boards and councils, opportunities to take on special projects—these are all leadership development. • Use indigenous evangelism tools. Don’t import what can’t be supported locally. • Work toward being self-funded. Reducing dependency on outside funding should always be an important goal. • Celebrate, teach, preach, and model the Holiness message. One area Paul believed in passionately was the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Time and time again he would tell new missionaries, “The color of skin or size of bank account has nothing to do with the ability of God to guide His people.” This one principle alone, if truly believed and followed, changes the entire way a mission program is operated. With his specialization in linguistics and language, Paul could talk for hours in one session about communication. This included not only the ability of people to communicate with each other but also the ability of God to communicate on any and all levels, and in all places. A concept in which Paul invested his life was that of “infinitely reproducible patterns.” Ask any colleague in Haiti or any student in any place where Paul taught, and he or she can repeat the IRP (infinitely reproducible patterns) principle. Danny Gales, who was for many years a district superintendent in Canada and former student of Orjala, says, “Throughout my ministry, I was conscious of IRP and endeavored to ensure I was ministering accordingly. This became especially important as our North American culture moved through the modern age into the post-modern and X generations.”

By 1964 there were increasing demands on Paul’s time. The Orjala children, Jeannie, Lorie, and Jon, were growing. The church was well established with programs in the Bible school. Elementary schools were found at almost every local church through the hills of the countryside. A corps of strong Haitian leaders, a strong missionary staff, a functioning printing press and literature program, and the principles of evangelism and mission were well established by now. What a contrast to those early days at the Mon Reve Hotel, to that first house with no kitchen, to the struggles with visas and permits and import licenses in the government offices of Port-au-Prince! What a change from those first churches, when there was no Nazarene pattern or way of doing things! It seemed time for the Orjalas’ Haiti years to draw to a close.

TEN

A BROADE R PL AT FO R M In the summer of 1964 the Orjala family was in the middle of a hectic transition in their ministry. President L. T. Corlett of Nazarene Theological Seminary had offered Paul a full-time teaching position. This, of course, meant leaving Haiti. There were some among the denominational leadership who were very reluctant to see Paul give up the Haiti assignment, but in retrospect it’s easy to see that God had brought all the pieces together in such a way that this move was logical and timely. Missionaries were in place in Haiti. The church was developing well and growing rapidly. The Bible college, rural schools, feeding programs, and literature development efforts were all in place. Over his 14 years in Haiti, Paul had managed to instill in the Haitian church values and priorities that would not only sustain them but also guide them into the future.

It’s important to put this move into historical context. After the great disruptions of the financial depression of the 1930s, followed by World War II, churches were ready to again move forward in their global mission and vision. This included the Church of the Nazarene, which began to aggressively deploy new missionaries to new fields. By the 1950s, travel, technology, and shifting alliances in world politics had changed the world scene. By the end of the 1950s and the move into the 1960s, a new generation of leadership and a new openness to ideas were seen. George Coulter, World Mission Director from 1960 to 1964, wanted to create new systems of training and deployment for missionaries. He also began to grasp and emphasize the importance of developing an indigenous church wherever Nazarenes had a church. Paul Orjala was part of creating this shift in thinking. So in the summer of 1964 the Orjalas moved to Kansas City. That same summer Paul coordinated one of the Nazarene Evangelistic Ambassador teams to Latin America. Terry Read, who was a member of Paul’s team two years later, comments, “The schedule was packed, and there were times along the way when we fell sick at times, exhausted by the schedule, strange meals, extreme heat, and sometimes numerous services in one day. I learned that this was vintage Orjala. . . . You set a pattern of working that established a model for others . . . and the communication of the gospel message was far too important to be done in a haphazard way.” In his diary notes, Paul brushes over the logistics of the actual move. Rather, he writes about a most incredible schedule of travel, speaking on weekends, keeping appointments, as well as beginning teaching—all of which would have killed a lesser man. In the fall of 1964 alone, he preached revivals in a number of churches across the country, spoke at two Nazarene colleges in chapel services and banquets, had meetings with mission students at the Orjala house, attended a theological association meeting, conducted a wedding, served on the denominational book advisory committee, and began to construct a new curriculum in missions at the seminary. One presumes there was time to teach as well.

Terry Read comments that in his classes Orjala often reflected on the thinking of many colleagues who had influenced his philosophy of missions. One was R. Pierce Beaver, a missionary to China who taught later at the University of Chicago and set up a research center. Another was Melvin Hodges, mission director of the Assemblies of God, whom Paul appreciated not only for his organizational skills but also for his ability to keep evangelism and church planting at the heart of all the activity of the church. Hodges constantly emphasized the indigenous church, insisting that only a truly indigenous church was authentic in various cultures as the Body of Christ. In Haiti—a nation that was 85-percent illiterate when the Orjalas worked there—Paul established the pattern of starting schools within each church. In many of those churches were special teachers trained in literacy, who would gather adults in the evening to help them learn how to read and write. This not only proved of great benefit to the persons but also gave credibility to the church itself in the eyes of the government. Chet Galloway, long-time colleague and former dean of Nazarene Theological Seminary, writes, “His call to NTS as professor of missions was a natural progression. It gave him the world of Nazarene missions to impact and a new generation of youth to prepare for mission. It also gave him avenues to deepen, broaden, and enrich his own understanding of doctoral work, missiology, linguistics, geopolitics, structures, administration, educational methodology. All enriched his skills, and working with a faculty that demanded accountability and offered teamwork changed the frame of missions for the Church of the Nazarene that was epochal and transcending.” And so the seminary years of Paul Orjala began.

ELEVEN

END URIN G PR INC IPL E S IN MIS SIO N Time is an incubator of ideas and principles. As Paul began his directed teaching career and interacted with hundreds of students, his principles, learned over time and dating back to the Peniel Mission in San Diego, became more refined and more specific. Many of his students went on to have influential careers in leadership in many parts of the world. Paul, taking ideas and adding experience, was like a pebble thrown into a pond. The ripple effect increased, creating waves on a hundred shores.

Brent Cobb was a pastor, missionary to Korea, and eventually regional director of the vast Asia-Pacific region. He was one of Paul Orjala’s students at the mid-point of the Orjala seminary years. He took the principles he learned and applied them in his ministry across Asia. The “three-self principles” had been refined and known by John Nevius, a Presbyterian missionary to China. When his ideas were in large measure rejected by his colleagues in China, he brought them to Korea, where they took root and resulted in an explosion of church growth. Nevius taught that planting and developing local churches must be done in a way that would not create dependency on outside funding or resources. In Korea it became known as the “Nevius plan.” The three principles were: • Self-support by the local congregations and clusters of congregations • Self-government by the local congregations and clusters of congregations • Self-propagation of the gospel by the local Christians, congregations, and national church Paul insisted on teaching “storehouse tithing.” He said that one should never think of a local congregation, regardless of setting, as poor. Everyone is given the privilege to know God’s blessings by tithing and being part of the work of the kingdom of God. This could be in currency or chickens. Cobb and all the others had this principle in mind as they served and led. Most of his students comment on his prayer and his passion. Danny Gales remarks, “I still recall seeing his nose turn red and eyes fill with tears as he shared his experiences and principles. Talk about inspiration!” He was captivated by Christ and “desirous to share Christ with everyone, even to students in his class.” One student called him a true “prayer warrior.” It was not uncommon for Paul to take a student aside, wherever it might be, and have prayer. This passion and prayer life were learned long ago in the home and from his mother. But it was given exercise daily in the Haiti years and carried into the remainder of his life.

Michael McCarty, his student assistant, had reason for a closer association with Paul Orjala than most. He comments that Paul, the linguist that he was, would always teach that language was not the end in itself but a means to an end. That is, one should penetrate the language and understand the culture, but at the end of the day the purpose of language was to communicate. This meant not only understanding the technical aspects of language with its grammar and syntax but also understanding the language of the people, of the heart, of life on the streets. One of his students writes, “Paul Orjala believed that an individual could rise to the task that was given to him or her.” Even though he was capable in so many fields of endeavor, he had the ability to give an assignment and allow a student, a pastor, a leader, to rise to the challenge. This was leadership training at its best. But knowing the natural tendency of missionaries to “take hold and hang on,” Paul also preached the message of “letting go.” Maybe things would not be done as well or as quickly, but they would be done—and done in a way that was more permanent and, most important of all, indigenous. John Seaman, a long-time mission leader in West Africa and now a district superintendent in Michigan, was yet another of the Orjala disciples. He comments on Orjala as being “Mr. Missionary” and the “model missionary.” Writes Seaman, “His credentials were so impressive; missiological expertise and insight, expert knowledge in a vast number of areas beyond missiology, incredible musical ability. . . . Most of all, though, was his heart for God and missions.” Another principle Orjala taught and lived was that of moving outside the circle, beyond comfort zones. He always encouraged innovation but only if based on solid biblical principles and only if they promoted evangelism and church growth and planting. This was in part expressed through music. Paul moved in circles outside the denomination through his music and in other ways as well. In Haiti, music translation was an interdenominational affair. When back in the United States, he was part of a number of musical conferences sponsored by Lillenas Publishing Company.

New missionaries were encouraged to find out what others were doing in their fields of service. What was working? What was not? What could be done together? What could not? He was constantly pushing those he taught to explore the boundaries while keeping in mind the core, the center. Between 1964 and 1984, Paul taught thousands in his classes. Many of these students went into pastoral or other ministries with basic principles in their minds. Others became missionaries who attempted to integrate the Orjala-taught principles into the fiber of the church. Without question, his influence was felt in many places and in multiple ways. The analogy of the pebble in the pond is appropriate. It was a long way from the sandy sea shore of San Diego and the collection of seashells. But maybe it was not so far after all.

T W E LV E

AS S EEN BY C O L L E A G U E S Valuable insights into the missiology of Paul Orjala come from reflections of three of his teaching colleagues mentioned earlier: Donald Owens, Charles Gailey, and Chet Galloway. They all had a very close association with Paul as professors, often team teaching and sometimes taking field trips together. Their viewpoint reveals an even deeper look at the impact of Paul Orjala on the missiology of the post-World War II Church of the Nazarene. Charles Gailey states, “He was a key person—perhaps the key person who moved missionary policy from a paternalistic perspective to contextualization and internationalization.”

The notion of an indigenous church had been part of missionary theory from the early days of the missionary movement. This was true of the Church of the Nazarene. In 1897 a very brief policy was written for the first missionaries leaving for India. By 1914, in a section titled “The Self-Supporting and Self-Governing Churches,” the policy stated: When a Mission Church reaches a place where it can become entirely self-supporting it shall be organized by the District Missionary Superintendent into a self-governing body according to the Manual of the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene adapted to the needs peculiar to the country, and shall be granted a pastor whose duties and privileges shall conform to the Manual; and at this time all missionary control shall be relinquished except such superintendency as provided for in the Manual. In 1919 the phrase “all missionary control shall be relinquished” was excised. By 1922, although the indigenous church was still stated as a goal, a “council of missionaries” had substituted for the District Assembly. In other words, missionaries would “run things” until such time as the church was considered ready to take over. Dr. Gailey, long-time missionary to Swaziland, noted that as late as 1955 missionaries did most of the preaching at the large Manzini church, although the Swazi pastor was “allowed” to preach once a month. A missionary served as treasurer of the mother church in Swaziland as late as 1959. Other examples of missionary control could be cited from many other places around the world. Gailey attributes this to a resulting flattened growth rate from the 1930s until the 1960s. A notable exception was Haiti, where the Orjalas served. There the church began to proliferate rapidly as Haitian leadership was developed and pastors were expected to take responsibility for their parishes. Gailey says that he and Dr. Orjala would often discuss the chasm between stated indigenous goals and practical experience on the field. Slowly this bridge was built through influence on leadership in world mission (such as by George Coulter and his successor, E. S. Phillips), through workshops with veteran missionaries who were

part of the “old system,” through institutes with new missionaries going out under a “new system,” and through influence at Nazarene Theological Seminary and elsewhere. Gailey remembers Louie Bustle telling of the profound and lifechanging impact Orjala’s illustration of a strawberry plant had on him. Orjala’s concept was that church planting should follow the pattern of a strawberry plant, putting down roots and extending tentacles of planting as far as they could reach. It changed Bustle’s concept of missions, one that he implemented in the rapid growth of the Dominican Republic and later across South America as a regional director. Donald Owens joined the faculty of the seminary in 1974 as the second associate professor of missions. The careers of Owens and Orjala had some specific parallels. Both went to the field in the early 1950s, Orjala to Haiti and Owens to Korea. Both had to deal with pre-existing work and to, in essence, start over. Both had strong principles of evangelism, church growth, and indigenization with which they worked. Both had academic inclinations, and both earned Ph.D. degrees in their respective fields. Owens comments, “Paul had the gift of encouragement. As a superlative missions educator, he was a father image to many budding missionaries, many of whom still regard him as a sort of godfather in missions.” In one anecdotal comment, Owens says he was always flattered when Paul would sit in team-taught classes while Owens taught, taking notes as diligently as a student, even though he knew the material as well as Owens did. It also tells the story of Paul as a life-long learner, always seeking new information and new insight. Paul Orjala accepted the Bible as the inspired Word of God. He felt the Bible was to be understood as propositional truth. For him, the Scriptures contained in content and proposition the person, work, and Lordship of Jesus Christ. Owens says, “He took Romans 10:5-17 and 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 very seriously as crucial motivation for mission.” While he entered into dialogue with those of other faiths, he maintained his core belief that “individual salvation depends on explicit personal faith in Jesus Christ.” Paul often wept over the lostness of humanity without Christ. His

colleagues with whom he debated theories and philosophies never doubted the passion of his heart. There was pressure, from time to time, to consider syncretism as legitimate. Paul strongly rejected this. He did not agree that the world is filled with “religious ambiguity.” He did not agree that religious options were just a smorgasbord of choices leading to salvation. He believed salvation to come from a specific decision to have faith in Jesus Christ, and he argued that Rom. 16:25-27 is a strong justification for evangelism. Chet Galloway, whose specialty was Christian education, teamtaught many courses with Paul Orjala. He also sponsored several field trips to Haiti and elsewhere with teams of Orjala’s students. They became close friends as well as colleagues. Galloway says that Paul started with “edu-care,” that is, to rear, form, grow, learn, and teach. He was an avid learner in a huge variety of fields. “He wanted to explore, survey the boundaries and picture the topography. He then wanted integrate that knowledge to see how God’s creation cohered and how each element impacted and integrated with each other.” Perhaps all of this could have been predicted by those observing the small boy kicking sand and collecting shells in California. Along with this, Galloway observes that Paul had an ability to study family and social structures and to identify natural leaders. Thus, he was able to establish a leader-learner relationship with many and thus discover who the emergent leaders were. This was the secret to success not only on the field but also in the classroom. Paul had taught the Haitians agriculture and animal care to slow the erosion of land. He was always interested in the science of agriculture and applied it well in the mountains of Haiti. But what Galloway observed most was the Haitian church honoring Paul as a “favored son and patron,” which was the view that he was first and foremost one of them. Pastor Simone, one of the prominent Haitian leaders, would often say of Paul, “He is white, but his heart is black.” What better thing can be said of a “simple missionary”? .

THIRTEEN

T HE WOR L D IS M Y PA R I S H On June 11, 1739, John Wesley wrote in his journal, “I look on all the world as my parish.” In the annals of Christian history very few can write, or say, that their influence has literally covered the entire world. Paul Orjala was another who could legitimately claim that his influence covered the world. There’s no record that he ever said, wrote, or thought this. But one who had demonstrated success on the field, success in the world of academics, and success in teaching tens of thousands who go into “all the world” can surely lay such claim.

Charles Gailey recalls that Paul was one of about 15 professors who founded the American Society of Missiology, an organization that today has grown to hundreds of professors and missionaries. Some of the most innovative thinking in global mission for the Christian Church comes out of this organization. For example, at a meeting held at the Mennonite Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana, Andrew Walls, then of the University of Aberdeen (Scotland), lectured on the shift of Christianity to the South, as the West became the greatest mission field. This thesis was picked up by Philip Jenkins years later in his book The Next Christendom. Paul Orjala had taken “Chuck” Gailey to this historic meeting in September of 1985, long before Jenkins came out with his popular book. As noted earlier, Paul was not given to writing detailed personal notes on his activities and travels. One has the impression that he was moving at too fast a pace to do that. An analysis of his brief schedule notes during the seminary years reveals some interesting things. First, his schedule was brutal and incessant. He was on the road virtually every weekend of the year. His daily schedule was sprinkled with appointments and lunch and dinner meetings. The scope of his travel was breathtaking. Second, he was constantly lecturing at Nazarene colleges. He must have given every endowed lectureship available in these years. It is obvious that during these visits he was counseling with hundreds of prospective missionary candidates. Third, the schedule reveals that he was involved with a wide range of contacts outside of the Church of the Nazarene. These included professional meetings and associations, lectures at Methodist, Baptist, Wesleyan, and other seminaries. There was participation in Bene Jehudah Conferences on Judaism, involvement in “spiritual deepening weeks,” and hosting world-renowned lecturers and preachers at the seminary. Fourth, interspersed in the schedule are constant references to music—a concert here, a combined concert and lecture on ethnomusicology there. He participated in music conventions and conferences as not only a performing artist and lecturer but also as a

composer. One of the delights of his life was playing in an ensemble with his family. Mary, a violinist, along with the three children, all of whom played, became known as the “Orjala String Ensemble.” They gave concerts in churches and played for weddings and banquets. From time to time they were joined by other noted musicians. Fifth, the schedule makes obvious that as time went on, Paul’s influence was constantly broadening. He was in perpetual motion in Latin America and the Caribbean, but by 1968 he was lecturing in Europe, meeting a colleague for a conference in Madrid, and preparing the field in Europe for the Nazarene Evangelistic Ambassador projects, which covered Europe in the summer of 1969. Sixth, his interest in the work of literature and literacy never abated. In November 1969 he met with Frank Laubach, legendary figure in the field of literacy and a former Presbyterian missionary in the Philippines. Laubach is the only American missionary ever to be honored with a United States postage stamp. He was a prolific writer, and many considered him a deeply mystical Christian thinker. His “each one teach one” method in literacy was used across the world. Paul sustained his participation in the Bible translation efforts worldwide, maintaining his friendship and association with Eugene Nida and others. It was part of his burning passion to see the Scriptures and other material for discipleship and teaching made available in every language. It was his sense that this effort could best be accomplished together with other organizations rather than apart from them. Seventh, in 1969 there is a reference in his diary that reads “doctoral exams at Hartford.” He was continuing the long and arduous process of securing his Ph.D. while at the same time serving on the advisory committee for the Nazarene hymnal and on a Missionary Study Commission. The references to the doctoral process extend on to 1970 and to completion of his degree. Eighth, the missionary spirit that called the Orjalas to Haiti continued without hesitation in whatever community they lived. In his diary are references almost every weekend to “evangelism efforts out to our neighborhood.” There is reference to an “invasion of Ruskin Heights.” The passion for evangelism never left and never grew dry.

The Orjala family revisited Haiti in 1971, spending a good part of the summer there. This was followed immediately by a sabbatical in Europe. The whirlwind of activity continued in Europe. One notation on December 12, 1971, says “wedding in Hanau—write music to play string ensemble cantata in Hanau.” This was followed the next day by a trip to Paris. There are some points that can be lifted from this activity that are relevant to a philosophy of missions. To accomplish this much, a person had to be highly motivated and supercharged with energy. This trait had been part of the Orjala genetic makeup from birth. It could be seen during the California years, when an inquiring mind was ceaseless in its thirst for new knowledge. It could be seen in Haiti, where Paul had little patience for attitudes of indolence or indulgence or inactivity. His idea was that a missionary call meant going at full speed all the time. It was obvious that the fundamental tenets of his philosophy never changed. He knew the foundation, in Scripture and in experience, on which his life was built. He was comfortable in his own skin. Therefore, people were not a threat to him. There is no known element of paranoia in Paul Orjala. He dealt with difficult personalities with aplomb and sensitivity. Social interaction was important to Paul. His diary and comments from others indicate the importance of a meal, of an evening in a home, of a cup of coffee, of intense conversation at a table or in a corner during a conference, of complete empathy with a listening audience. Paul believed all these characteristics were important for effective missionary service. Paul kept his focus clear. He did not allow himself to be diverted into what he regarded as ancillary activity, as important as it was. He took seriously Donald McGavran’s observation that “there are many good things for missionaries to do. The question is, what is the best thing that accomplishes the goal?” And for Paul, the goal was never in question. It was always to bring nonbelievers to a knowledge of Christ and a point of faith, to disciple them into the Word, and to establish churches that were fully indigenous in character.

Many were constantly encouraging Paul to write more—more books and articles. He did, but always while on the run. What we do have today are a few important books, some articles, reams of class notes, a sketchy diary, a few sermons, a doctoral dissertation, some letters, and a few “position papers” on specific topics. But his lasting legacy carries on in the thousands, perhaps expanded to hundreds of thousands, of people who carry forward his philosophy, some of whom never met him and may not even know his name. For in these days of rapid growth in many places, the principles of Paul Orjala are a valuable guiding light.

FOURTEEN

IVORY TO E IFFE L Sometime in 1985, during a team-taught course with Charles Gailey, Paul confided in him his thoughts about returning to the field. “It should not have come as a surprise,” says Gailey, “but this was nevertheless quite a shock to me.” Gailey had, after all, observed Paul time and time again weeping as he lectured on the lost of humanity and on the mandate to “go.” Gailey tried to dissuade Paul. The president of the seminary at the time, Jack Sanders, joined Gailey in the effort to dissuade him. After all, they were just about to create the School of World Mission and Evangelism. The Gaileys had been at the seminary only four years. Sanders, who had served earlier in Ireland and knew something of the European landscape, kept reminding Paul that “France would not be like Haiti.”

For France was the focus. This great nation in Europe was newly touched by the Church of the Nazarene. It was long felt by denominational leaders that a major effort should be made in France. And who better than Paul Orjala to join a team of young missionaries who were just in the early stages of planting the work in France? Everyone acknowledged that it would be difficult and that firm principles of known success would need to be employed. Dr. Gailey recalls the struggle this way: So strong were our arguments against going that it resulted in one of the most unusual experiences of my life. One day Paul was sitting in my office at NTS, agonizing again as to whether the Lord wanted him and Mary to go to France. He was weeping, and as we prayed together, an amazing thing happened. As we were praying, it was almost as though I heard an audible voice saying to me, Take your hands off this. At that very moment I relinquished all attempts to persuade Paul to stay. And so, in 1986, Paul and Mary Orjala were recommissioned as missionaries in the Church of the Nazarene, this time to France. This was 12 years after Paul had completed a feasibility report, based on studies done during the summer of 1974, regarding France. During this study Orjala “visited French churches, Bible schools, seminaries, talked with French pastors and laymen, sat in on the strategy planning sessions of the French pastors at the evangelism conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, carefully studied the Paris area, and visited contacts in every part of France except the southeast.” Paul concluded that “We are needed and we are wanted.” He made a note that missionaries “would need to wholeheartedly identify themselves with the French culture and language.” In his suggested strategy, he wanted to make a maximum and simultaneous effort, starting in Paris but without neglecting other centers of population. The first missionaries should be “radiant, contagious Christians.” They would be “models of the French church.” Not until a decade had passed was the strategy attempted. And in 1986 the Orjalas themselves were commissioned to lead the effort. The feasibility study reflects throughout Paul’s mission philosophy

and his personal sense of commitment and image of the Christian message. About this same time, Paul had published a book titled God’s Mission Is My Mission, which gives a summary of Paul’s passion for mission and his view of a philosophy of mission. (Nazarene Publishing House published the book in 1985.) In the three parts of the book one can sense the philosophy of Paul Orjala. Part One is “Mission as Sending.” Part Two is titled “Mission as Incarnation.” Part Three is “Mission as Growth.” These themes described for Paul not only the past but also the guiding principles that should continue as time raced toward the 21st century. In this book Paul discusses the issue of evangelism versus social responsibility, including those areas of endeavor that we call “compassionate ministry.” This includes not only institutional hospitals founded and sponsored by the denomination but also the clinics, schools, feeding programs, literacy efforts, agricultural training, and an entire range of activities with which Paul was intimately acquainted in Haiti. So the question was—what takes priority? For Paul there was never any question. He quoted Leighton Ford as saying that evangelism and social responsibility were neither to be equated nor separated since both are part of Christian duty. However, for Paul, evangelism was clearly “the first among equals,” and he believed that nothing should deter the church from its church-planting and evangelism tasks. These issues were often debated but the end result never questioned. Paul believed that the priority of evangelism was rooted in the Scriptures. He wrote, “This is not an exclusive priority; neither is it a temporal priority. It is a value priority.” By this he meant that temporal sequence in ministry is a matter of strategy and urgency. In one of the most salient quotes from Paul Orjala that I could find on this topic, he writes, “We may not tell a lost man how to find Christ before we feed or clothe him to meet his immediate need, but if we know he is lost, we must not fail to find the strategic moment for trying to lead him to Christ. Neither must we fail to meet his immediate needs, if it is in our ability.”

The French ministry was tragically cut short after just over two years in the field. Health concerns and crisis required a return to the United States. Chester Crill, Paul’s friend for many years and a professor at Point Loma Nazarene University, suggested to President Jim Bond that the institution hire Paul as part of the teaching staff. This is what happened. For several subsequent years, Paul was near his roots, not just by his looking over the beautiful San Diego beaches from campus classrooms, beaches he had combed for shells so long ago, but also by his teaching beginning Old and New Testament courses, teaching introduction to mission courses, and dealing with undergraduate students from an entirely different generation with a widely different worldview. But he did so with grace, with energy, and with the “Orjala flair.” Paul’s health continued to decline, however, as a series of strokes began to sap his energy. Finally, he had to fully retire from his teaching role. Paul Orjala was like a shining city on a hill. His ideas, his calling, his philosophy, his energy, were like a burst of light that gave form and substance to the Church of the Nazarene and that always led forward. To Paul’s dying day in 1995, the seashell collection organized so long ago and over so many years was kept organized, current, and shining for all to see. But the legacy was not seashells; it was thousands of converts in many lands to whom Paul gave every ounce of his energy. They can be counted as sand on a shore.

CONC LUSIO N In a letter dated April 1, 1964, written to colleagues, friends, and the church in Haiti, Paul and Mary Orjala wrote, “‘The time of our departure is at hand’ [2 Tim. 4:6, adapted]. When we think of all the Lord has done in Haiti in the past 14 years, all we can say is ‘How great thou art!’” In the summer of 1985, as reported by The Seminary Tower, Paul was asked about the appointment to France after so many years of teaching. He replied, “We are happy and at peace about our decision. We feel that this is the next obvious step in the Lord’s will for us.” After all, so many years ago when Paul gave up his pre-med plans, he had stated he just “wanted to be a simple missionary.” Of course, there was nothing simple about Paul. He was a complex, brilliant missiologist, linguist, teacher, motivator, and visionary. If anyone ever met the description of multi-talented, he did. Paul’s humility was in evidence when an interviewer queried him in 1993, “You have been regarded as the Church of the Nazarene’s first missiologist. In the 22 years you spent teaching at NTS, was there a particular principle of missiology that was foremost in your teaching?” Paul’s answer was so typically Paul. “Let me first say that many pioneer missionaries were excellent practicing missiologists, such as Harmon Schmelzenbach in Africa and L. S. Tracy in India, among others. They really understood what they were doing.” He then goes on to give full credit to his teaching colleagues and to the thousands of his students. When asked what advice he would offer to missionaries of the future, his answer unmasked the man. “Make sure that you are not only saved but also sanctified—cleansed and filled with the Holy Spirit. Get the best education and experience you can. Commit all to Jesus and His mission to reach the lost, and go for it! Mary and I just wish we could do it again.”

This book is intended to give an insight into Paul Orjala, the man and the mission. But it is also to give an overview of the mission theory and practice driving the Church of the Nazarene in the 40 years between the conclusion of World War II and 1985. However the world changes, certain immutable principles of missions and evangelism remain the same. These are best articulated by Paul Orjala and have been summarized by his son-in-law, Randy Beckum. The mission goal is developing a spontaneous growth movement. The underlying points are: • Be a pioneer—never do anything someone else can do. • Use “infinitely reproducible patterns.” • Have the expectation of universal witness. • Seek conversion with minimal cultural displacement. • Concentrate on winning the responsive and cultivating the resistant. • Multiply your ministry by replicating it in others. • Build an indigenous church movement. These are principles taken from biblical sources that apply in any culture and at any time in history. Church workers who forget or do not learn and practice these principles are doomed to failure. Those who practice them will see success in building the kingdom of God. It has been a long journey from the beaches of San Diego—but a journey well worth the effort.

AP P END IX E S Appendix A: Photo Gallery Appendix B: Abridgement of God’s Mission Is My Mission

Appendix A Photo Gallery

1.  Mary and Paul R. Orjala, pioneer missionaries to Haiti. Photo taken during their journey to La Gonave island for church services (circa 1960).

2.  Paul R. Orjala (circa 1948).

3.  The Orjala family (left to right): Jeanne, Paul, Jon, Mary, and Lorie (circa 1960).

4.  Paul R. Orjala with Nazarene Evangelistic Ambassadors Joe Demas and Jerry Applebee (1965).

5.  Paul R. Orjala. Photo taken in San Diego while teaching at Point Loma Nazarene University (circa 1990).

6.  Paul R. and Mary Orjala. Photo taken during their term as missionaries in France (1986-89).

Appendix B Abridgement of God’s Mission Is My Mission by Paul R. Orjala (Abridgement by Lorie Orjala Beckum)

What Are Missions All About? “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God,” exclaimed William Carey as he was preaching from Isa. 54:2-3 in 1792. And he launched the modern missionary movement and gave it its motto. The international world missionary enterprise has planted the Church on every continent. What do you do about missions when you reach the point of being an international church? Have we arrived at a post-missionary era in our history? And what are missions all about anyway? Every generation needs to face this question and rediscover the biblical answer for itself in the midst of its own continuing history. This is an attempt to express the biblical doctrine of mission from an international viewpoint and from the viewpoint of people in local churches in all parts of the world. Without a biblical and theological foundation for our mission in the world, we can easily be led astray by pragmatic decisions, as others have been. We can say joyfully and conscientiously, “God’s mission is my mission!” Then the God of mission will be able to use us to fulfill His mission of seeking the lost from “every nation, tribe, people and language” (Rev. 7:9). In order to gather together all that the Bible says about mission and organize it systematically, we need to discover that there are three key themes of mission found throughout both the Old Testament and the New Testament: (1) mission as sending, (2) mission as incarnation, and (3) mission as growth of the kingdom of God.

Part One Mission as Sending When God wants to send a message, He wraps it up in a person and sends that person. This is what He did with His Son, Jesus, and this is what He still does with His disciples today. Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21). Mission as sending focuses on the Source of mission—we are sent by God himself into the world to extend His kingdom into people’s hearts and to plant His Church in their societies. He is the Source of both the message (salvation by grace) and messengers (God’s missionary people). God’s sending begins back in Old Testament times, with Abraham and his descendants, the people of Israel, who were meant to be God’s channel of blessing, “a light to the nations” (Isa. 42:6, nasb). Individual prophets like Isaiah were sent with God’s message (Isa. 6:8-9). The ultimate sending took place “when the time had fully come” (Gal. 4:4), when God sent His Son. Even Jesus’ mission was not His own, but He was empowered by the Spirit to do the will of His Father in the world. Just as His authority came from the One who sent Him, so it is with us.

God’s Sending Requires Our Going Sending often involves geographical displacement (Acts 1:8) as His witnesses, going where the need is, even if it is across the street rather than across the world. But far more significant is the social displacement of identifying redemptively with people who are not like us for the sake of bringing them to God, as Jesus did when they accused Him of being “a friend of tax collectors and ‘sinners’” (Luke 7:34). This kind of witness also often involves cultural displacement, adjusting to the culture of another people so we can give them the gospel, even learning another language if necessary. The real problem of missions is a distribution problem—those who have the gospel must get it to those who haven’t, or the gospel can’t do them any good. Paul wrote about this dilemma to the Romans in Rom. 10:13-15.

Sending Others Where We Cannot Go We are called not only to be sent by God but also to be like the sending God in being senders ourselves as a part of our mission. We are to be His witnesses where we are and to send others where we cannot go. We must release our own loved ones to go, and we must support those who are being sent. Ultimately we are not sent to carry out the mission—it is God’s mission—but to carry on the mission, to be caught up in something much bigger than ourselves. God has originated the mission. Christ brought it to full reality and possibility. Others before us have been faithful. We must fulfill God’s plans for us so that others can continue their witness because we were faithful. We are sent to give our faith away to the next generation, to all peoples in the world.

All Mission Starts with God Mission is not something that we invented because we thought it was a good idea. God has taken the initiative—the God who is not willing that any should perish but wants all to come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9). His grace has invaded our sin-blighted world. He is the One who has started the movement of mission, flowing out of His heart of love, to infiltrate and penetrate our infected lives and beings, to reclaim them for His own glory through Jesus, “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). David Livingstone, the famous missionary explorer of Africa, said that God had only one Son—and He was a missionary! When the gospel story was told to the headhunting Sawi people of Irian Jaya (on the same island as Papua New Guinea), they identified Judas as a hero, since they highly valued the ability to be a clever traitor. In this light, Jesus was a defeated anti-hero to them. It was only when missionary Don Richardson stumbled upon their concept of the “peace child” that he found a cultural analogy to help the Wasi people understand who Jesus really was. When two clans were at war with each other and they wanted to establish peace between them, the chief of each group would send his own child to the chief of the other clan to guarantee the peace as long as the child lived. Don Richardson helped them understand that Jesus was God’s Peace Child sent

to guarantee us peace with God by joining our human race, and they turned to the Lord and received Christ as their Savior. The classical Latin term missio Dei (the mission of God) sums this all up. Our mission begins with God’s mission and is a part of it because we are sent by Him, just as Jesus was. The mission of God is due to the joint action of God as Creator and God as Redeemer. Through redemption He is bringing the intention of creation back to fulfillment in spite of man’s fall and rebellion. He is bringing back His “scattered children” (John 11:52). It is the story of the prodigal son all over again in each person, like a parent with a lost child who must become reconciled to the child to fulfill the purpose of parenting. God wants to know every human being as Savior and Redeemer. The purpose of the whole Godhead focuses on this redemption. How valuable, how important God must consider this! God has not spared anything—not even His Son—to effect our salvation. The whole universe is groaning and awaiting man’s redemption (Rom. 8:19-21). What does this say about the centrality of mission and evangelism? The beginning point of the mission of God for us is His self-disclosure. He reveals himself to us through the Spirit and through the Word. He is none other than a missionary God, coming to us as we are to save us. He has not ignored or avoided us, but He has expressed His love to us. The whole Trinity models mission: The Father sends the Son, and Father and Son send the Spirit. For what purpose? To redeem us and bring us back into fellowship.

God’s Mission Is My Mission God has chosen the Body of Christ—His Church—as His primary agency of mission and the members of that Body—you and me—as His primary agents of mission. But like Christ, we must accept our mission and joyfully be caught up in the mission of God to see a lost world of alienated people becoming reconciled to Him and to each other. We must be ready to be sent, and ready also to send others. How can we become the people God can use in mission? Our personal relationship to God must go beyond rescue from sin and the world and mere maintenance of a respectable Christian life. In addition to the unrelenting requirement of a holy life, we must know God’s sanctifying grace in such a way that we have an overflow of the

life of God in us to flow out through us to those in the world about us. There can be no mission without the overflow of God’s holiness and power within us. His grace in our lives must be infectious as we touch the lives of others in mission. The second spiritual trait necessary to mission is the spirit of servanthood, which characterized Jesus: “I am among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:27), which was evidently said in the setting of the washing of the disciples’ feet (John 13:5-17). It is only in servanthood that God’s love finds an occasion to be manifest in and through our lives. In the words of an ancient prayer, we must “let our hearts be broken by the things that break the heart of God,” and then let God minister to others through us. This is mission.

Part Two Mission as Incarnation: God Redeems Through Indwelling His People Why Did Jesus Do It? Why did Jesus leave the glory of heaven and enter our history, giving His life for us on the Cross? Why did the divine Savior become a man like us? Why didn’t He save us from heaven—at a distance? Why did He become Emmanuel, God with us? Salvation not only involves God’s provision for rescuing us from our sin and rebellion. It also requires our trusting Him, opening up to let Him heal us and liberate us. This is why Jesus came to where we are and demonstrated God’s intention in word and deed, in ways that we could understand His love and believe it. In Phil. 2:5-11, the famous kenosis passage (Greek for “emptying”) describes the way Christ gave up His divine privileges and rights to join our human race and redeem us. We call this the Incarnation— God coming in the flesh for our salvation. Yet while this passage is given to help us understand this great mystery concerning Jesus (1 Tim. 3:16), Paul gives us also another reason: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5). The incarnational mission of Jesus is to be the model of our mission. Incarnation is necessary because of God’s sending. It was so in the case of Jesus’ mission, and it is also true of our mission. God sends

us out of our world to penetrate the world of other people, entering their world with the gospel so that they may be reconciled to Him. In mission as sending we have seen that God’s mission is the source of our mission. We shall now see how in mission as incarnation Jesus demonstrates the mode of our mission. That is the way in which our mission is to be fulfilled.

The Incarnational Principle God works in man’s world, not in some ethereal heaven. The purpose of incarnation is that God himself may come into redemptive contact with human life. God has made himself visible, credible, and available in Jesus. He has expressed himself in our language and culture—how else could we understand Him? God’s grace is designed not only to save us eternally but also to transform our present bodily existence in this world, to respond to our human need and despair. He wants to bring healing, holiness, and hope—here and now! Just as God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself during His earthly existence, so now Christ is in us continuing His mission to real people all around us (2 Cor. 5:19-20). Our incarnational mission, as God indwells us, is to be used by Him to make His grace available to every person, in every different time-bound, space-bound, culture-bound, and language-bound segment of the human race in terms of his or her own frame of reference. That is why Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). And heaven starts here on earth, or it doesn’t start. However, we ourselves “have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us (2 Cor. 4:7). We have a supernatural, supracultural revelation—but we can know it and express it only in particular culture and language forms. God wants to use us to communicate it adequately so that people can grasp the issues of the gospel in their own language and culture and respond in repentance and faith to receive His salvation through Christ. This involves re-expressing the gospel, verbally and nonverbally, in cultural and linguistic forms that communicate a message equivalent to the original in content and intent. Now this is an impossible undertaking for us by ourselves, but God’s enabling is the essential aspect of the incarnational principle.

Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing (John 15:5), while Paul declares, “It is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose” (Phil. 2:13). When true incarnational mission is taking place, then it can be said that what we are doing God is doing, as it was said of the Early Church (Acts 13:3-4; 15:28). From this point on we shall call this mode of mission “incarnation.”

Incarnation Is Personal The God of revelation is the God who comes, the God who speaks, and the God who acts. But He can become known only in human terms. When God sends, He sends in order that He may come through the one that He sends. He sent Christ, and He came in Jesus. When He sends us, He wants to come to others in us and through us. Mission involves not only the message but especially the messenger. Marshall McLuhan has taught us that the medium is the message, which in one sense is like the proverb that says actions speak louder than words. When the code of our behavior interferes with the code of our gospel message, then the communication is likely to be distorted and rejected by those we are seeking to win. That is why Jesus prayed for His disciples and for us in John 17 that we might be sanctified or made holy in connection with His sending us into the world (vv. 15-20). The gospel involves not mere belief—its intended result is indwelling. Where does God live? We are God’s dwelling place (Eph. 2:22; 1 Cor. 6:19-20). Jesus said, “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me” (John 17:22-23). That glory for us is Christlikeness, God’s holiness within. When Peter quoted from the Old Testament, “Be holy, because I am Holy” (1 Pet. 1:16,), he was expressing not only a command but a promise, that we might “participate in the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4) and “share in his holiness” (Heb. 12:10). If we want to be used in mission, we must keep cleansed so that we may be “an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work” (2 Tim. 2:21). We are called in mission not only to identify with others who need Jesus, but to do something for Jesus that He could not do for himself: to be His witnesses, as Dennis Kinlaw has said. According to Jewish

custom, a person could not be a witness for himself—he needed others as his witnesses. Jesus needs people to be His witnesses today— He needs you and me. Because He knew we could not do it in our own strength, He provided for us to receive power through His Spirit to be witnesses where He sends us (Acts 1:8). He will even give us the words when we do not know what to say (Luke 21:13-15). One somber thought is that a witness does not have the right to remain silent when he knows something that can affect the verdict. Thus, we see that our incarnational role in mission is bi-directional. It is identification with the world and also identification with Christ. The world needs us, and we cannot draw back. Jesus needs us, and we gladly say, “Here am I. Send me!” (Isa. 6:8). But above all, we need Jesus, or we cannot fulfill our mission. Jesus is available. He is Emmanuel—God with us—modeling mission and making mission possible.

Incarnation Is Holistic: Incarnational Servanthood God not only needs a voice and a face—God needs a body, in order to actually accomplish redemption in the lives of people here on earth. The incarnation of Jesus was necessary because it was through His physical body that He offered up himself as a sacrifice for our redemption (Heb. 10:5–10). The missional significance of Christ’s offering His body for us is that it was His supreme act of servanthood— fulfilling His Father’s will (Matt. 26:39, 42) and meeting our need. He “gave himself for us to redeem us” (Titus 2:14). In calling His disciples to servanthood, Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:27-28). Paul mirrors this commitment: “Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible” (1 Cor. 9:19). There is no fulfillment of mission without servanthood. But back to the idea of body. Some early Christians were influenced by Greek philosophy and could not believe in the Incarnation, that God had come in the flesh in Christ, because they believed that the body and all matter were evil. These Gnostics held that God’s salvation for man could be only spiritual and was not related to man’s bodily existence.

How foreign this is to God’s stated purpose that our bodies are to be the temples of the Holy Spirit and that we are to honor God with our bodies (1 Cor. 6:19-20)! God does need a body today—your body, my body—through which He can fulfill His mission. Paul says, “Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God” (Rom. 12:1). Of course, this means that we must offer ourselves totally to God, not just our bodies. We couldn’t do that. What this verse is calling for is a complete consecration of ourselves to God to do His will. Our servanthood is first of all service to God out of love for Him, and then we serve others because it is God in us serving them. This understanding transforms what could be purely humanitarian response to human need into true incarnational mission: God himself ministering through us.

Holistic Mission God does want us to be concerned about helping to meet people’s bodily, temporal needs, to the extent of our ability. God is not concerned just with preparing people for eternity—He is concerned with the quality of their life here and now, and so must we be. “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has not pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?” (1 John 3:17; see also James 2:14-17). To those who ministered to the needy and neglected, Jesus said, the King will say, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matt. 25:40). But those who did nothing “will go away to eternal punishment” (v. 46). Jesus has told us how one can love his neighbor as himself by the illustration of the good Samaritan who helped the man who fell into the hands of robbers (Luke 10:25-37). In a very positive way, at Nazareth Jesus defined His own holistic mission when He read from Isa. 61:1-2: The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he as anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year f the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18-19). It is easy for us to spiritualize these words, but in the light of Jesus’ ministry as recorded in the Gospels, we have no right to do this.

Jesus’ compassion extended to all forms of human need, and so did His ministry. The term “holistic” relates to “comprehensive mission” or “mission to the whole man.” Christian doctors and nurses, teachers, agricultural specialists, social workers, and others with secular specialties (at home or abroad) have this unique advantage in their profession of being capable of true holistic service, combining human resources with God’s resources to apply to human need.

Evangelism and Social Responsibility Evangelicals and non-Evangelicals (as in mainline denominations) continue to be divided as to what they consider the proper relationship to be between evangelism and social responsibility. A few Evangelicals have been frightened into an extreme position of withdrawing from most areas of social responsibility so that they may give evangelism their first priority. Other Evangelicals who are committed to social action have held an almost equally extreme view that social involvement is an essential element of evangelism itself. They would hold that seeking the conversion of the lost cannot have a priority over social responsibility, since both are equally demanded of us by Scripture. How are we to understand the priority of evangelism and at the same time hold to a necessary involvement in social responsibility? The priority of evangelism is rooted in the biblical priority of things of eternal value over things of temporal value (2 Cor. 4:16-18; Mark 8:36-37; Matt. 6:25-34; 10:28; 1 John 2-17). This is not an exclusive priority, neither is it a temporal priority. It is a value priority. Temporal sequence in ministry is a matter of strategy and urgency. We may or may not tell a lost man how to find Christ before we feed or clothe him to meet his immediate need, but if we know he is lost, we must not fail to find the strategic moment for trying to lead him to Christ. Neither must we fail to meet his immediate needs, if it is in our ability. As we evangelize people, whether in our own society or in crosscultural ministry, part of our Christian heritage that we must transmit to them is a commitment to holistic ministry following the example of Christ. Involvement in social concern or social action is not a monopoly of ours but a privilege and responsibility for every new Christian

and for the church in every new society or location. I can never forget my excitement and joy in the early days of our ministry in Haiti at discovering how the churches were spontaneously caring for widows and orphans, through a system of regular offerings and planned visitation. It had the additional advantage of not being institutionalized, but person-centered and community-based. It increased the evangelism potential of the local church. If we pattern on the incarnational ministry of Jesus, we will not take an either/or approach in mission but a both/and approach, in which Christ will send us to help meet people’s temporal needs and bring them to the knowledge of His salvation.

Part Three Mission as Growth: God Wants to Multiply His People The Growth Principle God wants to multiply His people. Ever since man revolted against God in the garden, God has wanted to gather His lost children back to himself—all who would let Him. He created us with the power of selfdetermination, and He will not ignore or overpower our autonomy— not even to save us. But He is doing everything He can to draw us back to himself, back into His family where He is our Father and Jesus is our Brother. This is the essential meaning of prevenient grace. God has always wanted to multiply His people so they could serve Him. Biblically this principle starts with God’s mandate to Adam and Eve: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth” (Gen. 1:28). The same command was given to Noah after the Flood (9:1). It is with Abraham, however, that the first broad outlines of salvation history begin to be evident. There are two parts to God’s promise to Abraham. The first is “I will make you into a great nation” (Gen. 12:2), which will be multiplied until they are as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore (22:17). These are the people God wanted to use to fulfill His mission if they would accept the assignment. The second part of the promise speaks of God’s universal intention to reach out through them in salvation to all the human family: “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (12:3).

Further on in the Old Testament we read how Israel, as Abraham’s descendants, failed to become the people that God could use to reach the nations. They acted as if they had a monopoly on God and His salvation; and if someone wanted to know God, he had to come to them and join them. Not many did. But God still wanted to multiply His people, and He had to do a new thing. He formed a new Israel, the Church, in which membership was not limited to ethnic identity but was open to all through faith in Christ. And the Church began its explosive growth as it responded to Christ’s Great Commission to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19). How does God want to multiply His people today? First of all, children of believers must become Christians by choice. But the largest potential for growth lies in reaching out into the world to win the lost, the rebellious, the sinners, the self-righteous, the careless, the unbelieving, the forgotten, the prodigals—all who have not yet come back to the Father through His Son, Jesus. Through us, God wants those who are “not my people” to become “my people” (Hos. 1:10; 2:1).

The Church and God’s Kingdom In speaking of the biblical theme of mission as growth, we must first define it as growth of God’s kingdom, for that includes God’s people in Old Testament times as well as the Church which was born at Pentecost. There is a continuity of God’s people in all times and all places; for they have all, always and only, been saved by grace through faith. Technically the Church and the Kingdom are not the same thing. The Kingdom includes the Church, and much that is said about the Kingdom can be said about the Church and vice versa. But the Kingdom also relates to Christ’s dominion over man’s culture and society, over Satan and his kingdom, and over all creation. “The kingdom of God does not come visibly” (Luke 17:20), but the Church is more visible. The Kingdom is not visible because “the kingdom of God is within you” (v. 21), interior and personal, while the Church is somewhat outside of us and has a social dimension. The Kingdom is coming into the world—it is already here, but it is hidden. We are between the “already” and the “not yet” when it will be revealed.

Meanwhile, the Church is the firstfruits of the Kingdom, the first crocuses of spring, to reveal what the Kingdom is like. How does the Kingdom come? As God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:10). Where Jesus reigns, there is the Kingdom. How does the Kingdom grow? By spreading Christ’s dominion. We enter the Kingdom by being born again (John 3:5), and at the same time we become members of the Church (Acts 2:47). Thus the true growth of the Church is also growth of the Kingdom. We need a renewal of the Kingdom theme in mission. It is found in many of the great missionary hymns, and we still sing about it today, as in “We’ve a Story to Tell to the Nations”: For the darkness shall turn to dawning,    And the dawning to noonday bright, And Christ’s great kingdom shall come to earth—    The kingdom of love and light. When each of us can say, “God’s mission is my mission,” then God is free to move us out of our lives into the lives of others to accomplish His mission and build his Kingdom through us.

S OURC ES USE D A number of sources in writing were consulted. These included God’s Mission Is My Mission, a book published by Nazarene Publishing House, written by Paul Orjala, which gives the best of his thinking on this matter of mission. A paper titled “Missionary Call,” which Paul Orjala wrote sometime during the Haiti years, reflects on his call and the way in which he tried to analyze it during and after the California years. The paper is undated, and I could not discover if it had been published. A paper titled “France Feasibility Report,” which was written in 1974 or 1975 and presented a proposed strategy for entering the nation of France. In this unpublished paper are missiological insights that are fascinating to read. His doctoral dissertation on a dialectical study of Creole, while beyond my ability to understand, offers an insight into the academic depth of Paul Orjala. This dissertation, including footnotes and a bibliography, is almost 300 pages long. Haiti Diary, written from letters of Paul Orjala and organized by Kathleen Spell, was published in 1953 and gives personal reflections, mostly by means of letters to Paul’s mother, into the first two years of the Orjalas’ life in Haiti. This was a Beacon Hill Press publication, and it is interesting to note that it sold so well that it went into a second printing in August 1953. The Magic Circle of the Caribbean, also published in 1953 by Nazarene Publishing House and written by Carol Gish, gives some paragraphs about the early days of Nazarene work in Haiti. In addition to the above, I was able to speak informally with others— pastors, missionaries, and other church leaders—who worked with Paul Orjala.

The Seminary Tower and World Mission magazines provided resources in the 1985 and 1993 issues, respectively. Of course, I include myself as a resource, since for over two decades I had the pleasure of working with Paul and Mary in a variety of ways, including two years of teaching his classes at Nazarene Theological Seminary while he was on sabbatical or on assignment. Those are memories I cherish.