This was true especially in times like September 1983, when the center needed to pay the $6.5 million balloon payment and only had one million six weeks beforehand.
“But the Lord had miraculously brought us through again and again,” testified Roberta.
And by January 1988, the campus and surrounding houses were all paid off.
Retrospect
Reflecting on the long and difficult journey traveled in establishing USCWM, Dr. Winter’s daughters said the hardest part for their parents was probably having to endure the “naysayers.”
“I think the hardest thing were the naysayers – people who predicted it would fail,” Becky Lewis, Dr. Winter’s second daughter, told The Christian Post. “People would sometimes even question his motives and accuse him of being unreasonable or trying to make a name for himself.
“I think that has been the most hurtful – the questioning of their motives,” Lewis said. “He was just trying to get the job done and it was like ‘No one else would do it, so I’ve got to do it myself.’”
Dr. Winter – who had a degree in engineering from Caltech as well as degrees in anthropology, linguistics and theology – called himself a “Christian social engineer.” He explained that he “looks for the gaps in the social structure of the Christian cause and tries to fill them.”
To this day, after more than 30 years, USCWM remains a place where mission agencies can work together to strategize, research and promote ideas to help complete the unfinished task of reaching every people group with the Gospel. Some have called USCWM the “missions Pentagon” because it is where mission research, mission mobilization, and mission training take place simultaneously.
When the Center was founded in 1976, there were an estimated 17,000 distinct people groups worldwide that had not been targeted for evangelism. Today, 7,000 unreached people groups remain in the world.
Winter, who also founded and served several institutions and organizations, including William Carey International University, is widely regarded today as one of the key factors behind the major shift of perspective in the mission movement – a shift from going to countries and individuals to penetrating “unreached peoples,” or those who have been bypassed.
He was named by Time magazine in 2005 as one of America’s 25 most influential Evangelicals and received the Lifetime of Service Award last year at the North American Mission Leaders Conference, a major annual mission gathering co-sponsored by The Mission Exchange and CrossGlobal Link.
Winter died on May 20,2009, at his home in Pasadena, Calif., after a long battle with cancer.
His memorial service will be held in the main sanctuary of Lake Avenue Congregation Church in Pasadena, Calif. on Sunday, June 28 at 3:00 p.m.
Winter is survived by his second wife, Barbara, four daughters, 14 grandchildren, and one great-granddaughter.
Christian Post reporter Eric Young contributed to this article.
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