By Randal Dick
Superintendent of missions
We are the WCG, the Worldwide Church of God. I guess it's good we have the W, because without it we would be lost in a sea of CGs. But does the W, which stands for Worldwide, have any special meaning? Or is it merely there to differentiate us?
If it is merely for differentiation, we should name ourselves the A1CG, or the AAACG. That way, at least we would appear in the front of the telephone book instead of at the end.
I had an experience in early January that illustrates just how much the W of the WCG is part of who we are.
I was at a conference in Virginia. We introduced ourselves at the beginning, and one man said to call him Andre, since his African name was unpronounceable to most Americans.
I took that as a challenge, and found that his real name is Ngoi, and that he is a Christian, a medical doctor and a citizen of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly known as Zaire.
He is a big, gentle, soft-spoken man, well-educated, quietly articulate, fluent in six languages.
I invited Dr. Ngoi to lunch because I was struck by his gentle humility in contrast to his obvious competence.
He told me of his work, how he serves in the interior of the huge country, working basically without pay to improve health conditions of refugees from the latest revolutionary war.
Tears welled up as he described the slaughter of the Hutu refugees in the forests. Now, when they need to rebuild their country so badly, the international aid pipeline has been severed because of human rights violations that allegedly occurred between the Tutsis and the Hutus during the war to overthrow former president Mobutu Sese Seko.
I was especially interested in how he came to be at this conference. After all, even though he was a doctor, he would be lucky to be making 20 dollars a month.
While he may survive on that, he certainly could not fly to the United States and pay for conference fees. It turned out that a benefactor in the United States, who had a heart for seeing Christ preached in Zaire, had sent him a plane ticket and covered his expenses.
By the way, I used a little of your tithe and offering money to buy him a few books he can use to teach hundreds, maybe thousands of people in the interior of the Congo.
About 30 minutes before the end of the conference, a conference leader said: "We've got a problem. Dr. Ngoi is scheduled to go by bus from here to New York (he'd never been to the United States before, was quite overwhelmed and had no discretionary funds), where he was to be met and cared for until Sunday, when his plane left for home.
Unfortunately, something had come up for his hosts, and they could not take care of Dr. Ngoi-- could anyone in here help? Is anyone here from New York or Jersey?"
No one raised his or her hand. The situation was getting desperate. The conference leader said, "Let's stop for a moment and pray that God will open a door for Dr. Ngoi."
I realized at that moment that God had, in a sense, opened the door many years earlier that could help him, and that you and I were among those who had walked through it.
The fact we were led to be part of the Worldwide Church of God and have been led through various experiences has prepared us to edify others with needs similar to Dr. Ngoi's.
You see, some people at that conference were from Jersey or New York, but they didn't know anyone who could help, and had no solutions.
I was the last one in the room who should have been able to solve Dr. Ngoi's problem. I was from the other end of a large nation--3,000 miles away. I had 20 minutes before having to dash to the airport to catch a plane to London.
Yet, I was able to go to a pay phone in the lobby, call headquarters and get telephone numbers of spiritual family members in New York.
I talked to Jeff Broadnax, pastor of the Westchester and Manhattan, New York, churches. He in turn called some of our other family members (in reality, they are Dr. Ngoi's family members, too), whom I have never met.
I was able to say to Dr. Ngoi: Here is a telephone number in New York. When you find out what time your bus will leave for New York, call this number collect, and you will be met, cared for and taken to the airport in time to catch your flight home."
The seminar leader and his assistant were profuse in their thanks. I chuckled and said: "Well, now you see what the W in WCG is all about. This is why, though we are a small denomination, we really are a Worldwide Church of God."
I said this in a humorous vein. They didn't laugh. Rather, they looked somewhat moved, and said, "We praise God for the Worldwide Church of God."
In New York, Jeff and Karen Broadnax took care of Dr. Ngoi on Friday. Ernest and Erskileena Owens and Willie and Gladys Dudley looked after him on Saturday. Carlos and Amy Lewis took him to the airport Sunday.
Last year a number of us were sitting around a table in the dining room of a Christian conference center outside Nottingham, England.
Eddie Gibbs was our guest. Dr. Gibbs and his wife, Renee, had spent the conference time with WCG ministers from northern England and Scotland.
Dr. Gibbs, internationally known and respected as a Christian leader, said he and his wife felt more welcomed and cared for among the Worldwide Church of God than with almost any other group they had experienced.
I thanked him for the compliment and asked if he knew why he felt more comfortable. He smiled and said, "For instance, look around you--there are no name tags."
I had not given it a thought, but he was right. We were one of several Christian groups using the dining room at that moment, and all the others wore name tags.
Dr. Gibbs went on to say, "You (WCG) have taken the time to build relationships and really become family."
He pointed to our tradition of coming together from all over the world for the Fall Festivals and said: "You have taken the time and trouble to bond in a genuine family loving relationship. You know each other and obviously care for one another. This makes you more relaxed and able to concentrate on building a relationship with Renee and me--because you are secure in your relationships among yourselves."
I don't think Dr. Ngoi will ever forget the Worldwide Church of God. I hope he and our leaders in the Congo will become friends and help each other along.
I want to thank Jeff Broadnax and the New York brethren who embodied the W in WCG (maybe it also means willing) and thereby made this article possible.
Most of all, I want to thank our Leader, Jesus Christ, for giving us the W as something precious that we in turn can use as the currency of edification for the greater body, and for the world.
Jan. 27, 1998, WN, pages 10 and 11
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