MISSIONS LEADER MEETS "ALL THE WORLD" MANDATE...

MISSIONARY LEADER LOREN Cunningham personally fulfilled Christ's command to "go into all the world", last month, when he finally arrived in the only country he had not visited in more than four decades of international ministry.

One of the most widely traveled men in the world, the Youth With A Mission founder's three-day visit makes him one of only a handful of people ever to have visited all of the globe's 243 countries, territories and independent states.

Cunningham was allowed into Colonel Ghadaffi's Islamic country - where missionary work and open evangelism among nationals are prohibited - following the relaxing of strict travel restrictions. Christians he met with during his brief visit told him it was "a miracle" he had been permitted entry.

Typically visiting more than 30 countries each year to preach, teach, encourage existing YWAM ministries and plan new ones, Cunningham said that he believed that there was "spiritual significance" to the last new stamp to go into his passport.

"I feel that there is a spiritual dimension to literally obeying what Christ said when he told us to go into all the world and preach the good news, which my travels have symbolized. I hope that it might be a challenge or encouragement, too, to the next generation to continue with that commitment until every people group, every person has heard the gospel of Jesus."

The leader of one of the largest missionary organizations in the world - YWAM currently has around 11,000 full-time workers - Cunningham has had a passion for evangelism and a heart for travel from an early age. He felt called to preach from 13, and by age 20 had ministered in every state in America.

Founding YWAM in 1960 he began to travel more widely - in the days of prop planes, when a flight from California to Hawaii took almost three times today's five hours. Over the years he has used just about every form of transport available, from camels and canoes to cargo ships and even Concorde - courtesy of a businessman friend.

During his time in Libya, Cunningham visited the site where St. Mark baptized converts in the early years of the Church. "The Libyans have been an oppressed people for centuries and centuries, but they have a compassion for others that are oppressed as a result," he commented. "If they can only find the truth and freedom they are searching for, that compassion for the lonely and the isolated and the oppressed will come forth as a mighty force for God."

An American based in Lausanne, Switzerland, Cunningham has also visited more than 160 dependent countries or remote islands. Earlier this year he caught the once-a-year mail boat to accept an invitation to preach at a church on Tristan da Cunha - far out in the South Atlantic Ocean, population around 400.

In 1991, Cunningham was part of a YWAM team which stepped ashore at tiny Pitcairn Island, in the South Pacific, to celebrate the organization's having become the first missions group in history to have served in every country in the world.

Visits by globe-trotting YWAM teams over the years have in some cases been for just a few days, but in others have led to permanent ongoing ministries in more than 130 countries, with regular short-term visits to many more.

Although he has now completed his "world tour", Cunningham said that his traveling days are far from over. "I have visited every state in America and Germany, every province in Canada, but there are states in other countries I have not been to yet. There is no end to the project that God has given us to reach every person..."

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