Operation mobilization

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Operation Mobilization
(OM)
logo
legal form Non-governmental organization
founding 1957
founder Georg Verwer (founder and international director until 2003)
Seat German office: Mosbach , Germany
motto Changing lives - shaping society
main emphasis International, Christian aid organization and mission society with 5,200 employees
method Young Christians in worldwide service in various projects
Action space Worldwide in over 110 countries
people Peter Maiden (international director 2003-2013), Lawrence Tong (international director since September 2013)
Website OM Germany: www.om.org/de

OM International: www.om.org/en

Operation Mobilization (OM) is an international Christian aid organization and mission society with an evangelical background. The non-governmental organization founded by George Verwer aims to win and train young people for a consciously and consistently lived Christian faith . OM's work began in Mexico in 1957 and spread to Europe and India from 1963.

OM currently has around 5,200 employees from 120 nations who work in over 110 countries and on the ocean-going ship Logos Hope . Almost 300 of them come from Germany.

history

prehistory

The organization has its origins in the United States . The foundation goes hand in hand with a Ms. Clap, who prayed from 1940 that high school students from the nearby high school would come to the Christian faith and go out as missionaries all over the world. In 1952 George Verwer received a Gospel of John from her . Three years later, Verwer accepted the Christian faith with Billy Graham at an event in Madison Square Garden , New York City . During the 1957 semester break, Verwer and two friends, Walter Borchard and Dale Rhoton, traveled to Mexico and distributed 15,000 Spanish Gospels of John. In the same year, Verwer founded the organization Send a light . He was later arrested while smuggling Bibles into the Soviet Union and expelled from the country and had to change his strategy. He now mobilized other people to become active for God, from which the organization Operation Mobilization emerged.

founding

In 1960 the first team, led by Verwer, moved to Spain to do missionary work there. The country allowed little open missionary work at the time. During this period the idea of ​​an international evangelization and training movement was born, which Verwer named "Operation Mobilization" (OM) the following year. In the years that followed, work was built up in Europe, the Middle East and South Asia. National leadership and close cooperation with other mission societies and local Christian communities was an important guiding principle of the organization.

1960 to 1989

200 young Christians took part in OM's first summer project in Europe in 1962. In the following year there were already 2000 participants from 30 countries who took part in the summer project in south-western Europe. Of these, 200 remained for an annual assignment in Europe, Iran, Lebanon and Turkey. In 1964 the first team drove to India with two used trucks and a VW bus. India is now the largest operational area of ​​OM with around 3,000 local employees. The work in Bangladesh arose in 1972 from caring for Bengali refugees in India.

The German branch of the Organization Operation Mobilization International was founded in 1972 as Operation Mobilization e. V. / OM Germany founded. The head office of the registered association is located in Mosbach , Neckar-Odenwald-Kreis , in Baden-Württemberg . Doron Lukat has been the director since April 2019. Dieter Weisser has been the managing director of OM Germany since May 2013.

OM Germany regularly receives the donation seal of approval from the Evangelical Alliance , which was developed in cooperation with the German Central Institute for Social Issues . As a non-profit organization, OM Germany is also committed to absolute transparency and is therefore a member of the Transparent Civil Society Initiative .

OM's ship work began in 1970 when the Danish ship "Umanak" was bought, converted and renamed "Logos" (Greek for "word"). The "Franca C", sailing the Mediterranean Sea under the Italian flag as a cruise ship until 1977, was bought and began serving all over the world as "Doulos" (Greek for "servant"). In 1980 in were China Sea so-called " boat people " taken on board the "Logos" and cared for. In 1988 she ran aground off the Chilean coast. A Spanish ferry was bought and put into worldwide service as "Logos II". The slogan of the ship work is "Education, Help, Hope for People Worldwide".

OM started working in Switzerland in the 1960s. Operation Mobilization Switzerland was founded in 1976 as an association based in Wallisellen . This is where the team that works in German-speaking Switzerland is based. In French-speaking Switzerland , the team is based in Cortaillod . President of OM Switzerland is Richard Mauersberger. OM Switzerland is fully financed by donations. OM has signed the code of honor of the Swiss Evangelical Alliance . The seal of approval obliges the signatories to deal responsibly with donations.

In 1985 various teams became active in Latin America. Another OM field was created in South Africa in 1986. 1989 began with a conference in Offenburg, at which around 7000 people took part, "Love Europe", the summer assignment program for the 1990s. Of the 7,000 participants, 5,000 took part in a summer project. In the same year, the first OM team in the former communist Eastern Bloc was founded in Poland.

1990 until today

In 1990 an office was opened in South Korea. In the following year, new areas of work were created in Albania, Romania and Bulgaria. OM started in 1992 with teams in the European CIS countries and Central Asia. In the same year the first teenage congress “ Teenstreet ” took place in Germany with 39 participants, in 1993 there were already 56 participants. In 1994 an international strategic plan was adopted. In 1997 the revised annual program started under the name "Global Action". The organization helped with the Kosovo crisis and the 1999 earthquake in Turkey. The “Global Action Team” in Zurich started in 2000 with four employees. 2001 was the start of “Global Challenge”, the successor program to “Love Europe”. In 2003 George Verwer passed the post of "International Director" on to Peter Maiden from England; as early as 1998, Verwer had announced this step for his 45th year in world mission. Maiden took part in a short assignment in Spain as a teenager and came into contact with OM. He headed the work of OM England for ten years and since 1985 has assisted George Verwer in international management. Joseph D'souza (India) and Francois Vosloo (South Africa) were appointed as international co-leaders. In 2004 the car ferry "Norröna" was bought, converted in Croatia for the needs of ship work and renamed "Logos Hope". In 2007, 50 years of OM International were celebrated worldwide. In February 2009 the official service of Logos Hope began after the multi-year renovation phase. In March 2013, Lawrence Tong from Singapore was appointed as the new international director of OM. In September 2013 he took over the management from Peter Maiden, who was retiring. Tong started working for OM in 1978 on board the OM ship Doulos. From 1999 to 2001 he was Head of OM Taiwan, Director of Logos II from 2001 to 2005, and financial development for OM Ships in the USA office in Florence, South Carolina. From 2006 to 2013, Tong led OM's fast growing work in China. In addition to Lawrence Tong, Sue Priestley from Canada, Peter Tarantal from South Africa and Viv Thomas from England have been appointed as deputy directors. Steffen Zöge, deputy head of OM Germany until 2013, has since been part of the extended management team of the international management of OM.

Today OM is an international movement of people who, as Christians, offer a message of hope to people of this world. This takes place mainly in the five work areas evangelism, development cooperation, church planting, human dignity and training & mentoring. An international OM conference called the “General Council” takes place every three years. Long-term employees who have been with us for at least five years take part.

Ship work

OM uses ships as a floating mission station, book market, conference, cultural and aid center. For this purpose, the OM Ships International (OMSI) branch was founded in 1970 . The legal owner is not OM itself, but the operating companies EBE and Gute Bücher für Alle e. V. (GBA Ships e.V.), whose headquarters are in Carlisle, United Kingdom and Mosbach, Germany. The ships call at selected port cities and often stay there for several weeks. Over a million visitors are counted on the OM ships every year. Between 1970 and 2015, over 44 million people visited the OM ships in over 1,400 port cities in 150 countries. Anyone belonging to the main group of Christian churches can work on the ships.

Logos (1970–1988)

In 1970 the Danish Umanak was bought and converted. In logos renamed, it was in use until 1988 worldwide. During the passage of the Beagle Channel the Logos ran into a reef and had to be abandoned.

The Doulos in Southampton

Doulos (1977-2010)

In 1977 ship work was expanded by buying up the Franca C and converting it. A division of labor arose between the ship, renamed Doulos , and the Logos : The Logos was mainly used in the western hemisphere (Caribbean, South America), the Doulos mainly in the eastern (Africa, Asia). The Doulos was taken out of service in Singapore at the end of 2009 and sold there in early 2010 to a businessman who uses the ship as a conference and museum ship.

The Logos II in Roseau

Logos II (1988-2008)

After the loss of the Logos , the Mediterranean ferry Antonio Lazaro was bought and renamed Logos II . After 20 years in the service of OM, the ship was sold to Turkey for scrapping in September 2008.

The Logos Hope 2008 in Kiel

Logos Hope (since 2004)

The Logos Hope is a former car ferry that was built in 1973 near Nobiskrug in Rendsburg . At that time it was christened Gustav Vasa and was then used as Norröna for two decades for the Faroese shipping company Smyril Line . OM bought the former ferry from Smyril Line on April 19, 2004 and renamed it Logos Hope . After several years of renovation, the Logos Hope went into service in February 2009 and replaced the Logos II , which had already been sold for scrapping in September 2008 .

TeenStreet

OM hosts international teenage Christian conventions called TeenStreet annually. The congress is one of the focal points of the OM projects worldwide and began in 1993 in Offenburg , Germany with 56 participants. The special feature of the project is that, in addition to the theoretical part of the congress, there is also the practical part on the street. There, people are encouraged to believe in Jesus Christ through creative contributions and personal conversations. “We chose the name TeenStreet because we wanted to show teenagers a street, a path to walk,” explain Dan and Suzie Potter, founders of TeenStreet. There is TeenStreet work in Germany, Malaysia, Australia and Brazil. The number of participants in TeenStreet Germany grew rapidly: in 1997, over 1,000 young people took part in TeenStreet, in 2000 it was already over 2,000. From 2003 onwards the number of participants fluctuated between 3,300 and 3,900, and since 2013 to 4,300 to 4,400.

literature

  • Detlef Eigenbrodt: On the way to the wonderland. 50 years of Operation Mobilization. Hänssler, Holzgerlingen, 2007, ISBN 978-3-7751-4611-1 .
  • George Verwer: Experience Jesus in practice. 7th edition. Hänssler, Holzgerlingen, 2001, ISBN 3-7751-0093-8 .
  • Ian Randall: Spiritual Revolution: The Story of OM. Authentic, 2008, ISBN 978-1-85078-766-2 .
  • Elaine Rhoton: The Doulos Story. Hänssler, Holzgerlingen, 2003, ISBN 3-7751-3938-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.om.org/de/deutsch/portal/om-international
  2. ↑ Rolf Höneisen: We need pilgrims, activists, artists , ideaSpektrum N ° 17, Belp / Liestal 2017
  3. ↑ 2.8 billion people unreached with the gospel of April 9, 2019.
  4. ^ Christian media magazine pro from April 15, 2013
  5. ^ Transparency International Deutschland eV - the signatories ( Memento from September 5, 2017 in the Internet Archive ), voluntary commitment by OM Germany
  6. ↑ Operation Mobilization Switzerland : About us
  7. ↑ Global (OM-Nachrichten) June / July 2013 edition, page 5
  8. ↑ Elaine Rhoton: The Doulos Story . Hänssler, Holzgerlingen 2003. ISBN 3-7751-3938-9
  9. ^ History of the OM Ships , omships.org, accessed December 25, 2015.
  10. ↑ Ulrich Stock: Fairytale . In: Die Zeit , August 12, 1983 No. 33
  11. ↑ http://www.teenstreet.de/de