Safe so far. Then —
When we accepted, I had thought, “With Margie and our little one along, it will be OK.” But it was the toughest year of our lives.
We spent that year staying in spartan bed-and-breakfast establishments or in the more restful missionary guest houses, the three of us usually confined to a single room. And in those eleven months, I preached 576 times.
Our lives were put at risk on many occasions. In one Middle Eastern country, Margie was menaced by a rude, perverted gesture by a hotel employee. It shook her terribly, and I was very upset by it but didn’t know what to do. Our host missionary immediately went with me to the hotel manager, and when we reported it, the man was instantly fired. If he had tried it with a Middle Eastern woman, he could have lost his hands over it.
The situation became only more nerve-racking after the man’s firing. He phoned me in our room to ask me to retract the story. I refused, and we had to be moved to a different hotel for our safety. That night, even in another hotel, we received threatening phone calls — a few words spoken in Arabic before the caller hung up. Around midnight that same night, two-year-old Sarah woke us up with a bloodcurdling scream from a bad dream. Margie and I realized that Sarah had absorbed the tension of the day, sensing that things were not right.
We had another unnerving experience in Thailand. We were dropped off at the wrong bus stop, miles from where we were supposed to be — in the middle of nowhere, on the side of a deserted highway. We spent an hour in a torrential rain with only a tree to shelter us. Little Sarah ran a temperature of 105 degrees, and there was no help to be found. Finally, after walking to seek assistance, I was able to bring back two rickshaw drivers, who took us to our destination — but only after we circled in the rain for at least another hour as they looked for the address we’d been given. Little did we know that the buildings in that city were numbered not by their geographic order but by the chronological order in which they were built.
Sarah developed a serious ear infection during that chaotic episode, and years later would require very serious surgery that threatened facial paralysis. Although she would lose hearing in that one ear, through the hands of a skilled surgeon her face would remain undamaged. I am so grateful to the Lord today for the healthy, lovely lady Sarah has grown up to become.
There were many other difficulties and severities over the course of that year, and our young family incurred the cost of them. At the same time, thousands of people came to Christ. In Hong Kong, at the end of the trip, I spoke in open-air meetings, in halfway houses, and in prisons where people sat on death row for selling drugs. On our final day, as we packed for home, I knew the trip had changed me as nothing ever had. I thought, as John Wesley once had, “The world has become my parish.”
After that very tough year, we went back home and settled into a wonderful domestic life in Niagara Falls, about seventy-five miles from Toronto. Margie and I enjoyed those years immensely, and in 1978 we welcomed our second little one, Naomi. I loved what I did as an itinerant preacher, because whenever I got home from a trip, I was home. I could be with the children and with Margie and enjoy our family. I did all my studying at home, and if I needed a change from sitting at my desk, I simply took my books to the next bedroom and studied there. I took breaks for lunch with my family, and later in the afternoon I would take a short nap — only thirty minutes, but necessary for the demands of a full study day. Then I had tea and worked until dinner in the evening.
It was in the midst of this idyllic family setting that I received a call from the Christian and Missionary Alliance headquarters in Nyack, New York, the evening before I was to leave for a speaking engagement in New York City. Dr. King wanted to meet with me after that event.
Given the price my young family had paid on our previous assignment, I have to say I was wary of what the C&MA president might want to talk to me about. Midway through that dinner with Dr. King in New York, he brought up the subject that was on his mind. “We’ve got people graduating from seminary who don’t know how to lead people to Christ,” he said.
Safe so far. Then —
“I’m looking for an evangelist to teach in our seminary,” he continued. “I want your impact here, Ravi, with our ministerial students. I want the passion and conviction of evangelism in their training.”
As he spoke, I thought about my young family back in Ontario. Moving them away from the life we were enjoying was the last thing I wanted.
“Dr. King,” I answered, “I’d like a little time to pray. I need to seek the mind of the Lord on this.”
I will never forget the response he gave me — and Dr. King could be quite imposing.
“Young man,” he said, “the call of the church is the call of the Lord. And we as a church are calling you.”
If ever there was a decision in which my will had to be forced to the task, it was that one.
Margie’s concern went beyond our family’s welfare. She was worried that I would lose my primary calling — to preach — and she desperately did not want to see that happen. Yet, a year later, we were in Nyack, New York — just up the Hudson River from New York City — and, sure enough, even after just a short time span, I already sounded more like a professor when I preached than an evangelist. That was only the beginning of our struggles during that period.
Living in the suburbs of New York City was very expensive, even back in the 1970s and ’80s. I had my salary from the seminary, but it wasn’t sufficient to support a family — and thankfully the administration understood that. You had to find other means of supporting yourself, or else have both spouses working, and I didn’t want Margie to go through that, especially with our growing family. So we decided I would continue my itinerant work, speaking almost every weekend, as well as chairing the Department of Evangelism and Contemporary Thought at the seminary and carrying a full teaching load. Also, once a month, I took a weeklong engagement anywhere around the globe. I might be in Australia, Malaysia, or Singapore for five days, then come right back to a full teaching slate of three to five classes, covering a broad range of subjects: the early history of evangelism, world religions, evangelistic preaching, history and theology of worship, Christian apologetics — everything I could bring to the task of the chair I held.
Meanwhile, Margie carried the major responsibility for our home in my regular absences, alongside that of being a mom to our three children, as Nathan, our youngest, had now arrived.
To complicate matters, the seminary grew to five times its size during my time there. The student-to-teacher ratio ballooned so dramatically that my responsibilities became a difficult task to manage. Sometimes when I spoke from the lectern or pulpit, my head would be spinning from sheer exhaustion. I would be in conversation with faculty or friends and completely lose my train of thought in midsentence.
At home, as I ate dinner, I would wonder if the arm I lifted to feed myself was actually my limb, or just some appendage independent of me that was moving of its own accord. Or I would come home, lie down on the floor to rest for a few minutes, and be sound asleep immediately, which was very atypical of my personality. Also, my voice had always been naturally husky, but now it became raspy — an affliction I still have. I wasn’t used to lecturing for three hours at a stretch, and I developed a vocal ulcer that caused my throat to be in constant pain. That ulcer is with me to this day.
I had become worn to the core and wondered, “How can I keep this up?”
The truth was, teaching wasn’t my calling, and carrying two full-time loads was taking me on a collision course with my ebbing health and strength. Margie knew I was struggling, and neither of us was at peace. It was a very tough time for our marriage.
During this stressful time at Nyack, I received an urgent letter from Overseas Missionary Fellowship. When I opened it, I saw the black border around the page — and I almost dropped it.
Koos had been killed, martyred for his faith.
I was stunned. One of my closest friends, with a wife and several children — a brother in whom I had seen Christ — now dead.
Throughout all the years, I had remembered our pact. And then I remembered afresh his last request for prayer.
It had all been for this moment, I realized. The Lord had been faithful to prepare my friend. And now he had called Koos home.
Of all the experiences I had at Nyack, it was the students’ faces that come into sharpest relief now. Margie and I had found some companions for our journey there — Bill Crockett, the professor of New Testament; his wife, Karen; my boss Wendell Price, who was a true Christian gentleman; and Roy Johnston, who worked at the Christian and Missionary Alliance headquarters and had first interviewed me for work with the Alliance, and his wife, Carol, who were truly sent by the Lord to minister to us. But for me, my closest friends became my students, because I saw something in them and envisioned what they could be.
Three young guys in particular — Rick Pease, Steve Goodwin, and Kerry Bowman — all were passionate for Christ. They were sharp students and deeply committed, and I worked personally with each of them. I pointed them to role models and put them in the hands of other mentors. Then, when they were ready, I raised money for them to go to Europe on a mission trip, an event that defined the pattern for each of their lives.
These young men were special, and we all have stayed in touch over the years. Steve Goodwin, a brilliant guy, went on to serve many mission terms in Hungary and Germany. Kerry Bowman became the pastor of a large church in Indianapolis. And Rick Pease became CEO of a Japanese corporation in the U.S. named Enkei. He is now also on my board of directors. From time to time, Rick reminds me, “The greatest gift you ever gave us was to trust us enough to send us to Europe. It changed our lives.”
My reward in all this was seeing their lives shaped to the calling Christ had given them. Yet now, recognition began to come to me from unexpected places. My first honorary doctorate was from Houghton College, a school in upstate New York, and it came as quite a shock to me. The president, Dan Chamberlain, wrote in his letter offering the degree, “In recognition of your pioneering impact in international evangelism.” The honor was mostly for introducing apologetics into many countries in the two-thirds world.
Two other honorary doctorates came to me after that — one from Asbury College and the other from Tyndale College and Seminary (my alma mater, formerly Ontario Bible College) in Toronto. But the one from Houghton was particularly special, because for that ceremony my father bought me my colors to wear in the commencement exercises. It was a proud day not just for me but I’m sure for him too — a man who stood, as I now stood also, in the long shadows of those who had preceded us.
While in Canada, my father had begun to experience some heart problems, having already suffered a heart attack while in his fifties. Now, at his doctor’s advice, he was scheduled for bypass surgery. Margie and I were still living in Niagara Falls at the time, and so when he phoned and said he had elected to have heart surgery, I asked if he would like me to take him to the hospital. He was most appreciative. I arrived on the morning of the admission, and we spent the day talking very intimately about life and danger and eternity. It was a very precious time for me with my dad, and it ended up being significant as the most meaningful time I ever had with him.
Dad had been nervous all that day, with an unsettled feeling about the operation. As he was being wheeled in for the surgery, he reached out and grabbed my arm, asking, “Son, would you pray for me?”
I did. It was a parable all its own. I spoke of our family’s love for him and our gratitude for him, and that, no matter what, he was the dad who would always live in our hearts. There was a nervousness in him, because he was not in the best of weight or health, and heart surgery was still relatively new. As I left, he said, “Please give my love to little Sarah.”
The next time I saw my father, he was on a respirator. He had emerged from the surgery unconscious and remained in that state for four days, a machine moving his chest up and down. He had been a heavy smoker earlier in life, and the surgeons who operated on him hadn’t known the extent of the damage to his lungs.
On the fifth morning, Ajit came to be with him. I was getting ready to drive the seventy-five miles to come as well, as we were taking turns at his bedside. But before I left our house, the doctors came to Dad’s room. That’s when they turned off the respirator, and our father stopped breathing. Ajit looked at the nurse and asked, “Is that it?”
“I’m sorry, sir. That’s it.”
Dad was sixty-seven when he died; he survived my mother by just five years. Ajit phoned to give me the news. It was particularly hard on him, being so close to our dad.
My father had changed greatly in those few years after his late-in-life conversion. At his funeral, the vice president of the company where he worked, a Jewish man, commented, “In the death of Oscar Zacharias, we have lost not just our employment manager; we have lost the conscience of our company.”
It was a moving tribute, and fitting of my dad’s principles. Yet it paled next to the traits we children had come to see in the recent years of his life. As overbearing as he had been during his heyday of power in Delhi, he had become gentle and conciliatory during his latter years in Toronto. He lost all his pomposity and became very soft-spoken. We were only sorry that my mom didn’t get to enjoy those years.
There were wonderful things about my dad that had seemed buried throughout his life, things that appeared clearer in retrospect. He had set aside everything he had built up in India — his position, his influence, his reputation — in a single moment to provide his children with better opportunities. To me, apart from his decision for Christ, that was the most telling fact of his ending years. To go to a strange land, to suddenly plan your life around your children’s lives — it told me that this was part of his innermost desire for us all along.
I thank the Lord that Dad’s death did not come before he had a chance to see what Christ had done in all of our lives. I’m convinced the changes my father saw in his children led directly to what the Lord did in his life — that it was a part of what ultimately led him to find peace on his journey.
Still, there was a coming event that he didn’t live to see, which I wish he had. I was teaching at Nyack in 1983 when I received a phone call I never could have expected.
“Mr. Zacharias, my name is Leighton Ford, and on behalf of Billy Graham — ”
That stopped me in my tracks.
“ — on behalf of Billy Graham, I would like to invite you to speak at an historic conference for evangelists this year in Amsterdam.”
I was awestruck by the offer. Later in the conversation, I had to ask, “Mr. Ford, could you tell me, how does Dr. Graham know about my preaching?” I didn’t realize that Billy Graham even knew I existed.
Evidently, Dr. Graham had become aware of me and was following my ministry through some tapes he was given by Leighton (who is Dr. Graham’s brother-in-law), an evangelist himself with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Now, at the encouragement of Leighton, Dr. Graham wanted me to speak to a gathering of four thousand other itinerant evangelists, “the cream of the world’s evangelists.” It was an unbelievable opportunity, and a humbling one.
The topic I was asked to address was “The Lostness of Man.” I had always spoken from an outline, and the message I put together was based on Romans 1. But Dr. Graham insisted that everyone who preached write out their sermons beforehand in their entirety, so they could be interpreted simultaneously into several languages.
I was very tired when Margie and I landed in Amsterdam, but I had to be whisked directly from the airport to meet with the team of interpreters, who were speaking languages from all over the world. It was such an extraordinary setting; all around me, I saw religious leaders connected in an intricate network — Bill Bright, Luis Palau, Michael Green, John R. W. Stott. Many political leaders also graced the occasion. Finally, as I was having a bite of lunch, Billy Graham walked up to my table and extended his hand.
“You’ve got a powerful sermon, Ravi,” he said, “one of the finest I’ve ever read.” You can imagine the thrill that rippled through Margie and me over this man’s comments about my sermon. I later learned that, in his kindness, Dr. Graham says this to everyone. But that’s the kind of man he is — he wants to encourage. Whatever the other person has done, it is “the best I have heard.”
The only way to describe my preaching experience at Amsterdam was sheer exhilaration. Seated before me were fellow evangelists from over one hundred nations. It was sobering to look out at the faces of four thousand others who were doing what I was doing. Yet I had shaped my message for them, around the theme we all had in common: without Christ, we are all lost.
The Lord anointed that day. As I finished, I stepped from the podium, grateful, first of all, that I hadn’t blundered. And I was touched by the affirmations that came from some of the finest people whom I admired — Dr. Graham, Leighton Ford, and Cliff Barrows. In fact, Billy Graham was to follow me in the program, and as I finished preaching, he leaned over to Cliff and said: “This is what it’s all about. I don’t have to preach my sermon now.” That is the humility of the man. But it was he that everyone had come to hear, and he preached in his own unique and powerful way. As I sat on the platform, listening, I knew it was an historic moment for me and for the thousands of others present.
Before I left Amsterdam on that occasion, something very curious struck me about the event. I pondered that there were so few people who were operating in the arena of apologetics. Most of the preaching in evangelism was geared to the “unhappy pagan.” “What about the ‘happy pagan,’ ” I thought, “the one who has no qualms about his life?” Life was about to change for me in my heartfelt desire to preach to the skeptic.
I would be invited back to preach at Amsterdam in 1986, this time to a gathering of ten thousand evangelists, an event that would go down as the largest gathering of nations in history. My first impression upon returning was the impact that had been made the first time I preached there. Total strangers grabbed my hand and said, “I was here in 1983 when you preached on the ‘The Lostness of Man.’ It changed my life as an evangelist.” Many of these men were ministering in tough settings around the world and had received a fresh sense of their own calling through my message.
That was so reinforcing to me, especially because all I remembered from 1983 was being thankful for not humiliating myself. Chesterton’s words had never been truer — that our confidence lies in our message and not in ourselves.
This time, Dr. Graham assigned the subject “Preaching across Cultural and Religious Barriers.” I titled my message “Communicating in Babel” — and what an honor it was to speak to ten thousand of the world’s evangelists. I believe these two conferences are among the greatest legacy Billy Graham has left. He reached out to us ordinary evangelists and affirmed us in our call. And through it, for me, God was again in the shadows, marking my path for the future and opening up the world.