Audacious Faith
Bob Pierce’s most famous prayer, “Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God,” has formed the basis for World Vision’s work alongside the poor and oppressed around the globe.
Bob Pierce's testimony of faith inspires us to step out of our comfort zone and do whatever we can to be God's Hands extended to poor and marginalized women and children to change the world one child at a time. What a privilege and honor we have in our small way to join this vision. Read what Rich Stearns says in his article below.
By Richard Stearns, President, World Vision U.S.
A risky, costly, reckless endeavor
Sixty years after founder Bob Pierce’s bold, audacious idea, World Vision has become a global organization whose presence in nearly 100 countries has helped change the lives of millions of children across multiple generations.
Bob Pierce’s most famous prayer, “Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God,” has formed the basis for World Vision’s work alongside the poor and oppressed around the globe.
I sometimes wish that Bob Pierce had chosen a name other than World Vision when he founded our organization 60 years ago, in September 1950. If he had chosen a name beginning with an A, we would always be the first charity listed by the media after a natural disaster instead of the last.
But what a name — WORLD Vision. Ironically, Bob Pierce was denied his dream to be an Army chaplain in the 1940s because he had poor vision.
I have often mused over Bob Pierce’s sheer audacity. When he made his first trip to Asia in 1947, he barely had enough money to get to Hawaii, much less all the way to China. And he had to borrow an office from Youth for Christ in Portland, Ore., just to get the ministry started. So you have to love the recklessness of a guy who names his little charity “World Vision.” I think it made God smile.
A foundation that has shaped our identity
For 60 years, World Vision has lived by this risky, costly, and even reckless faith, believing that if we dared to follow Christ by going to the darkest and most dangerous places on earth, God would go before us and “be a lamp unto our feet” as we served the poorest of the poor in His name.
That unwavering conviction has led successive generations at World Vision into the pain of the world. Our courageous staff has faced earthquakes, famines, riots, cyclones, military coups, floods, pandemic diseases, and wars. They have lived among the broken, walked among the homeless, and given comfort to the widow, the orphan, the least, and the lost.
And they have done these things knowing the risk and paying the price but believing that God had called them for the great privilege of serving. Rarely does a year go by that doesn’t cost one or two of our staff their lives — seven have died this year alone.
Because of one man’s vision
That audacious faith of Bob Pierce has always characterized World Vision, and I dare to say it has changed the world for millions of children over the past six decades. That tiny seed planted in Asia in 1950 by one man has now grown into an organization of more than 40,000 men and women on six continents in 97 countries.
More than 3 million children are now assisted by sponsors worldwide, and 100 million people receive help of one kind or another — all because one man had the audacity to believe God and because millions more just like you were willing to join him.
World Vision...I think it still makes God smile.
