OMF International

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OMF International
logo
legal form Profit company
founding 1865
founder James Hudson Taylor
Seat East asia
motto Heart for Asia. Hope for Billions
main emphasis Spreading the good news of Jesus Christ among the peoples of East Asia
Action space East asia
Employees 1400 employees from 40 nations, including 60 Germans
Website www.omf.org

OMF International (originally an abbreviation for Overseas Missionary Fellowship ) is an evangelical mission organization that was founded in Brighton in 1865 by James Hudson Taylor (1832-1905) as the China Inland Mission (CIM) . In Switzerland the association was founded in 1950 and has its headquarters in Uster , in Germany it was founded in 1967 and its headquarters are in Mücke, Hesse . Until 2015, the organization was called Überseeische Missions-Gemeinschaft in German-speaking countries, abbreviated as ÜMG .

history

English missionary Hudson Taylor did not find a religious community consistent with his spiritual principles during his home leave in 1865. Hudson Taylor then founded the China Inland Mission in Brighton, England, which still exists today . Hudson Taylor held fast to his firm foundation of belief and practice of prayer . From the beginning, the CIM saw itself as a mission of faith . Taylor wanted to reach China's 11 inland provinces and Mongolia with the gospel of Jesus Christ . Like his role models Karl Gützlaff and William Chalmers Burns , he was convinced that Chinese clothing should be worn during missions in the interior of China and that the missionaries must learn the Chinese language.

In 1866 Taylor traveled to China with his family and 16 employees and by the end of this year there were already 4 stations with 24 employees. In 1872 the London Council of the China Inland Mission was formed. In 1875 he began systematically evangelizing China. He requested 18 missionaries for the nine unreached provinces. In 1881 he asked for another 70 missionaries, in 1886 another 100 missionaries. There were always crises and attacks from locals to overcome in the mission. In the meantime, Taylor traveled to several continents to promote the cause of the China Inland Mission. In 1900 attacks took place in connection with the Boxer Rebellion , in which 58 adults and 28 children from the ranks of the China Inland Mission were killed. In the same year, Dixon Edward Hoste assumed the mission as director.

The Kiel Mission emerged from a German branch founded by Pastor Johannes Witt in 1896 . In 1899 this German branch was taken over by Heinrich Coerper , from which the Liebenzeller Mission emerged in 1906 .

As part of the CIM, the German China Alliance Mission founded in Barmen began to work as the first German-speaking mission, from 1895 the pilgrim mission St. Chrischona and from 1899 the German branch of the CIM, today's Liebenzeller Mission.

In 1905, the founder Taylor died in Changsha and was buried in Zhenjiang . By 1915, in addition to many Christian communities, 372 schools and 11 hospitals had been founded. In 1939 the mission community numbered 1,300 missionaries, and nearly 200,000 Chinese and ethnic minorities had become Christians through faith and baptism. Due to the Sino-Japanese war, more and more missionaries left China in the 1940s, mostly not back to Germany, mainly because the way to war or post-war Germany was blocked, but to the USA, where many mainly worked in orphanages or similar institutions. The China Inland Mission was primarily close to the revival movement and the sanctification movement .

When Mao Tse-tung proclaimed the People's Republic of China in 1949 , the remaining missionaries had to leave the country within a few years. 1951 went down in the history of the missionary community as a year of retreat. After detailed discussions, the mission leadership came to the conclusion in February 1951 not to dissolve the mission society, but to continue the work in other areas of Southeast Asia, namely in Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Taiwan. China Inland Mission Overseas Missionary Fellowship was chosen as the new name . In 1952 the overall direction of the mission was transferred to Singapore . In 1965 the name was changed to Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF) in the year . Employees have been able to travel to China since 1988. In 2005, Patrick Fung became the first Asian general director of OMF. Today the organization is only called OMF International for short .

The OMF today

The OMF is internationally active and non-denominational. The Swiss association was founded in 1950, and the German branch in 1967, led by Armin and Heike Messer. In 2015 OMF International had over 1,400 employees from 40 nations worldwide, including 60 Germans. The Swiss OMF Association, which is headed by Markus Dubach, has around 80 employees, 70 of whom work as intercultural employees overseas. Language and culture remain challenges. Every organization in the countries in which OMF operates today is independent, determines its strategy and decides where foreign employees are deployed.

Work areas

OMF is currently active in the following countries: • Indonesia • Japan • Cambodia • Laos • Malaysia • Mongolia • Myanmar • Philippines • Singapore • South Korea • Taiwan • Thailand • Vietnam • China

In Germany , the contacts were shaped for years by the relationships with the Liebenzeller Mission and other circles of the reviving Pietism . But also free church congregations found their ideal of faith in the old Inland China Mission of Hudson Taylor and partly in today's OMF. Well-known leaders and missionaries of the OMF were or are Jim Frazier , Michael Griffith , Isobel Kuhn and Oswald Sanders . The OMF became known not only through its missionary work, but also through the books and mission reports of the Canadian Isobel Kuhn, which were also translated into German and found a broad readership. In 1980, James Hudson became Taylor III. , a great-great-grandson of James Hudson Taylor director of OMF.

literature

  • Archibald Glover: wonder of wonder - on the run from the boxers. Verlag der Vereinsbuchhandlung, Calw & Stuttgart 1906.
  • Archibald Glover: A Thousand Miles of Miracles: The Dramatic Escape of China Missionaries at the Time of the Boxer Rebellion. Betanien-Verlag 2011, ISBN 978-3-935558-49-5 .
  • Valerie Griffiths: Your heart beat for China Broschiert. Brunnen-Verlag, Giessen 2006, ISBN 978-3-7655-1387-9 .
  • Frank Houghton: Faith Triumphant. OMF Books, London 1973, ISBN 0-85363-089-5 .
  • Isobel Kuhn: Nests above the abyss. Publishing house of the China Inland Mission, Merligen (Switzerland) 1950.
  • Isobel Kuhn: They're looking for me / In the arena. Brunnen, Giessen and Basel 1982, ISBN 3-7655-3156-1 .
  • Isobel Kuhn: People of the Second Mile. Verlag der St.-Johannis Druckerei, C.Schweickhardt, Lahr-Dinglingen, 1988, ISBN 3-501-00373-0 .
  • Isobel Kuhn: At the end of the world - with God. Verlag der St.-Johannis Druckerei, C.Schweickhardt, Lahr-Dinglingen, 1984, ISBN 3-501-00279-3 .
  • Isobel Kuhn: Green leaves in the drought. Brunnen, Giessen 2000, ISBN 3-7655-3648-2 .
  • Leslie T. Lyall: Daring to do the impossible. The China Inland Mission 1865–1965. Translated from the English by Emmi Baumann, Brunnen, Gießen 1965.
  • John Pollock: Hudson Taylor, pioneer in the Forbidden Land. Brunnen, Giessen 1983, ISBN 3-7655-3196-0 .
  • Ron and Gwen Roberts: To fight better. A biography of J Oswald Sanders. Highland Books / OMF, Crowborough 1989, ISBN 0-946616-58-2 , Oswald Sanders was General Manager of OMF from 1954 to 1969.
  • Roger Steer: In the heart of China, J. Hudson-Taylor, a man of faith. Brunnen, Gießen 1994 and CLV, Bielefeld 2002. ISBN 978-3-89397-612-6 .
  • Howald and Geraldine Taylor: Hudson Taylor, a picture of life. Emmi Müller-Verlag 1912, The China Inlad Mission 1925 and China Inland Mission Thun (Switzerland) 1955 (two volumes).
  • Howald and Geraldine Taylor: Hudson Taylor, a man who trusted God. Brunnen, Giessen and Overseas Mission Community, Zurich. New edition 2014. ISBN 978-3-7655-2128-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ History of the Kiel Mission , Gemeinschaft-kiel.de, accessed on June 24, 2015.
  2. ↑ The Origin of the Marburg Mission , eh-tabor.de, accessed on December 30, 2017.
  3. ^ Christof Bauernfeind: From Hudson Taylor to today. Idea May 28, 2015, p. 8.
  4. ↑ a b Wolfgang Merdes: Überseeische Missions-Gemeinschaft . In: Helmut Burkhardt and Uwe Swarat (ed.): Evangelical Lexicon for Theology and Congregation . tape 3 . R. Brockhaus Verlag, Wuppertal 1994, ISBN 3-417-24643-1 , p. 2047 .
  5. ↑ Lyall: Dare to do the impossible. P. 169.
  6. ^ Roberts: To fight better. P. 99.
  7. ↑ Frank Houghton: Faith Triumphant. P. 38.
  8. ↑ OMF International: First Asian Director in 140-Year History. Archived from the original on November 4, 2010 ; accessed on November 4, 2010 (English).
  9. ↑ East Asia Mission OMF Germany has new leaders , idea.de, message from January 29, 2019.
  10. ↑ ÜMG Switzerland , accessed on August 24, 2010
  11. ↑ ÜMG Germany . Retrieved August 24, 2010
  12. ^ Christof Bauernfeind: From Hudson Taylor to today. Idea May 28, 2015, pp. 8-11.
  13. ^ Christof Bauernfeind: From Hudson Taylor to today. Idea May 28, 2015, p. 11.