The great commission to most of us is a commonplace, "Go ye into all the world . . ." And yet, how does it actually happen? Often in very strange ways. Recently we ran across an autobiography written by a man living in La Habra California. He was for many years an insurance agent, but his fun in life was talking about Jesus Christ. In the bio he has a long chapter about the Island Republic of Malta, and how it came about that he and some friends got involved in preaching the gospel there. We will let him introduce the story, so you will know something of who the people are.

Robert Seelye wrote. "My wife Barbara and I came to know the lord in 1954. We were in a liberal Quaker (Friends) church and later we had the joy of seeing a number of young people in the church come to the Lord. As a result, you might say, they thought it best to dispense with our services. We got into a red hot Friends Church where we still are in 2003. In December of 1957 I had the joy of leading a man named Ray Lentzsch to Christ. He was a teacher and the public relations director at Whittier College. Before too long he left the school, went to seminary for a time and then joined Operation Mobilization, with whom he is still connected. It needs to be mentioned that he has preached publicly in every country in the world. Including Saudi Arabia, Bhutan and North Korea.

It is my hope that this accounting, though short, will give you a vision for what God's nobodies can do when they let God have the reins of their lives."

The Malta Story

In March of 1962 an article appeared in TIME magazine about a recent election in the island of Malta. Malta, for the uninitiated, is three small islands about 65 miles south of Sicily. Malta is the big one, Gozo is smaller and more fertile. The third is only a huge rock that has a hotel on it. The country had been part of the British Empire since 1800, the population of the island is 98% Roman Catholic. In the body of the report were two sentences that especially caught my eye. The election was between the leftist party and the party of the church. The first quote was by the Archbishop where he said, in reference to the badly needed importation of teachers, "They are born and bred in a Protestant atmosphere, and can never become perfect Catholics." His party adopted the slogan, "Every vote for Dom Mintoff (for Prime Minister) is another thorn in the Sacred Heart of Jesus!"

This looked to me like virgin territory so far as evangelization is concerned. I copied the article and sent it to Ray Lentzsch, who was working with Operation Mobilization (OM) in northern Italy. I thought that something ought to be done about this pathetic situation. Ray responded that he was already engaged in hand to hand combat in Italy, he didn't really need another place to fight. The idea would not go away, however. I got a couple of books on Malta, read what I could about the island and wrote periodically to Ray about him going to see what the actual situation might be.

This went on for a couple of years, with Ray growing increasingly testy at me talking about him going to Malta. Then one day in 1965 there came a letter to my insurance office from Ray in Malta!! I quickly called Barbara and we read it together over the phone. Ray had decided to go see what the island was all about. He was there only a day when he was out in a prominent place preaching the Gospel. In English, as that is the island's second language. Before long the police came by and hauled him into the station. They said it was against the law, him preaching in an effort to proselytize the Maltese. Ray said, "Show me the law" so they got out the books and after a time, said, "See, here it is." But it said, "No British Commonwealth subject will spelling out what should not be done and the penalties. Ray said that since he was an American, it didn't apply to him, bid them a "Good day" as they realized he was free to go. But not before distributing tracts to each one.

He returned to his spot and went to it again. The police came by and harassed him but he kept at it. This went on for several days until the Archbishop had a paper read in all the 122 churches of the island (population 350,000) saying there is an American heretic preaching at the bus entrance to Valletta and for everyone to avoid him like the plague. Or words to that effect. The results were dramatic, the crowds on Monday surged around him, he was ecstatic. To hear the American heretic was exactly what they wanted to do. The letter from Ray was simply incredible.

Ray went back to Malta a couple of times and one such time was pivotal. He was preaching away when a drunken English girl came unsteadily by and he called out to her. In the ensuing conversation she trusted the Lord, stayed around long enough to get somewhat sobered up, gave him her name and address and off she went. She came back the next day, a totally different girl. She told him that she had been shipped to Malta by her parents to live with her aunt and get new friends away from the influences of home. A day or two later he was invited to come have lunch with her aunt and uncle, which he was glad to do. Dom Mintoff and his wife were absolutely thrilled with what had happened to the niece, the girl seemed on the road to doing something right. The family and Ray met a number of times as the girl grew in the Lord, and one day Dom said to Ray, "Ray, if there is ever anything I can do for you, just let me know and it is done."

In the fall of 1967 Ray came back to Whittier for a couple of months and we talked at length about Malta and how to do what needed to be done. We prayed at length about it, enlisting the aid of the kids in King's Heirs (my college age Sunday School Class) in a daily month long early morning prayer time. My idea was that we find an American layman, a member of CBMC, a man with experience in such things. That was exactly Ray's idea, but his further idea was that I was the one to come and do the preaching. I did not agree. For one thing I was really short in the financial end of things, as mentioned in another place. I was changing from selling life insurance to auto and fire and wasn't there yet. I had no passport, never had been to Europe, it just wasn't me! But, as he said several times, "You are the one with the burden for Malta, this looks like your baby."

In December he was leaving for his family home in New Jersey and then to Malta to make arrangements for the two week campaign that would begin the last Saturday night in January. "But Ray, I haven't said I'll go!" He said he would be praying about it, and that really scared me, as I always thought he had a better pipeline to heaven than I did. So off he went. With me stewing about such a huge issue, to go to Europe or not to go? And no money in case I decided to go. What have I gotten myself into? The first Wednesday of January came and with it CBMC at the William Penn Hotel. "Well, Robert, are you going to Malta?" asked CBMCer John Smith. "I haven't decided, but when this hour is over I'll have the answer." I have long forgotten what the speaker had to say, but the gist of it was that we need, in all things, to trust the Lord. Well, of course I knew that, had taught that for a long time, but now it was time to personally fish or cut bait. I said to John, "I'm going to Malta!" and he let out a big "Praise the Lord!" and began to dump the money on the table. He had collected it from the various members in case I decided to go. Out it came, a couple hundred dollars, I was incredulous. I was stunned. It WAS the right decision. When I got home I told Barbara what had been decided and she let out a big "Praise the Lord!" and opened up a big coffee can full of money that the college kids had given in case Robert decided to go to Malta! A few days after that I was speaking at CBMC in Anaheim and was talking to my old pal, Earl Griffiths, talked him into going with me to handle the music, Emcee work and general soul winning. My brother Howard, editor of The Palos Verdes News, knew a travel agent in Palos Verdes, he had him work out the tickets. The tickets came to $664 round trip, the church gave me $200 for newspaper advertising, as they wanted a piece of the action, and with $200 of my own money, off we went. Checks had come from various sources, including brother Howard and other members of the family. What came in was exactly the amount of the travel and not a dollar more. I had no credit card, so there was no margin for error. Credit cards were not a big thing in 1968.

To say it was exciting to arrive from London on a BOAC Comet 4 after a stopover at Palermo, Sicily, would be a vast understatement. We had a long letter from Ray giving us last minute instructions about what to say and what not to say, but one item was especially interesting. They might not let us off the plane! We decided that Earl would get off through the back door and I would exit the front door facing the terminal. If they refused me entrance, he would be the preacher. Instead of that, however, Ray had rounded up the press and at the bottom of the steps were photographers vying for a picture of Mr. Seelye from America!! "Just one more, Mr. Seelye!" was the cry. Laugh, I almost died, though inwardly. They had no more idea who I was than the man in the moon. At the terminal area I was ushered upstairs into a VIP chamber for an interview with the reporters, quite an entrance to Malta. Pictures and quotes in the papers, pretty exhilarating stuff. Due to an airline glitch we had not made it on Friday but got there on Saturday, too late for an evening meeting that day. One other thing had also taken place that had an important bearing on the whole enterprise. Ray had gone to visit Dom Mintoff, the head of the Labour Party, and asked him if, when his friend from America arrived, he could have the Party newspaper give as much publicity as possible? He was glad to promise that. What it came down to was that the Church wanted to have us thrown out. The Leftists would have been delighted to have that happen as that would give them a chance to lambaste the Church. The Church fathers were smarter than that and didn't dare throw us out, so we were walking a tight rope down the line between these two gladiators. In the end, we got tremendous publicity, headlines nearly every day, long stories about what was preached, but most of it was in the Catholic owned paper and not so much in Dom's papers. I was interviewed on the radio, we were the big news for a couple of weeks. But back to the thing as it unfolded.

A not so side issue was that the British believers were all part of the local Plymouth Brethren assembly and they were what are known as the Closed Brethren. When they found I was a Quaker, they became the Frozen Brethren. It was only on Wednesday of that week that they finally agreed to support the meetings, but only in prayer! All very much at arm's length, they wanted to have nothing to do with us. A Quaker, indeed!! Such heretics. Ray remonstrated with them, "Well, this is the man who introduced me to Christ, he can't be all bad." They finally relented, but only for prayer. We were to have our initial meeting on Sunday night at Queen's Hall, in Sliema. Before that happened, however, there was the "Little Gospel Meeting" at six at Gospel Hall in Floriana, three miles from Sliema. I was the speaker and such a suspicious bunch you never saw. I got into my testimony and as I related my experiences with the liberal Quakers, eyes began to light up and eventually smiles broke out on those icy faces. Before long they were convulsed in laughter as I related how I grew in Christ through all the adversity. Throughout, of course, I was giving them doctrinal truth, truth that they recognized as biblical and their own. By the end, they had joined our team, the most eager bunch of workers imaginable. There was nothing too hard to do for the success of the meetings. One thing they were afraid of, of course, was getting involved in "proselytizing the Maltese" and getting run off the island. Some were retired, most were service people in the various British forces. They could see, however, that this was an American show with them really no part of it, officially. Without them, nothing much would have happened. If we had arrived on Friday as originally planned, it could have been a very poor entrance, that Sunday night meeting was key.

So what DID happen? To try to give the whole Malta story would take a book in itself (which is already written but not edited or put into any kind of form) so we will content ourselves with the highlights. And even then we slight the thing. So it is best to start today and work backward. In 2001 there are twelve churches functioning where there was to were two believers in 1968. Of course there were more, the Lord always has his elect in every place, but they were not visible. We had three additional campaigns over the years and the best we can say about the whole business was that we were able to break the ice. Crack the door open so those who could come and stay longer could do that. Ours was the merest of pinpricks, but the initial pinprick where there had been no pinpricks before. Hard to fathom that organized evangelism had never been done there over the centuries.

There were three major things that took place. The first were the folks that actually came to know the Lord in the meetings. Even though the crowd was tiny, averaging less than forty a night for two weeks, we had twenty two Maltese make professions of faith. There were also twenty two British who found the Lord and one drunken American sailor we found downtown in Valletta. The next result was the publicity we got in the papers. The third was the meeting that Ray arranged at the University of Valletta which was a voluntary assembly from noon to 1:30 on the second Thursday.

A smallish item or two about some of the people who came to the Lord in the meetings. The first evening a big burly man came, and after the meeting one of the guys dealt with him and he came to Christ. I came along to meet him and we really hit it off, he was about ten days different from me in age, we agreed to go out for coffee the next evening. It was after 9PM when we got to the cafe and it was 3AM when we left. What a lot of interesting stories he had to tell!! He had lived through the wartime in Malta, and had vivid memories of when the Germans tried to sink the island with their bombs. They almost succeeded, too. After that he had become a shipyard worker and a union man. He was a leftist and then some, but he had trusted Christ. Said that nothing else made sense if Christ had died for HIS sins. Years later this man became the secretary-general of the Maltese Communist party and one day Ray was talking to him in his office and he asked Ray to go with him outside so they could talk. They sat on a bench in a plaza out in the sun, not under a tree, "Too many mikes hang from trees," was his explanation. As they talked he said to Ray that no doubt he and Robert were very disappointed in him, him being the head of the CP and all. Ray said that to your own master you stand or fall, and neither of us were his master. He liked that, then said to Ray, "I am going to tell you something that no one but my wife knows, you can tell Robert, but no one else. After I had been a believer for a time, I got a wholly different view of the world and could see the tremendous evil that communism really was. How do I get out of this trap? But one day it occurred to me that there might be a better way. I contacted InterPol (the International FBI) and began reporting things to them. I might not be able to get rid of the dirty talk and blasphemy (as that would give him away), but there is something I can do, help sink the ship." Tony continued on as Secretary and as a reporter for Tass, the Soviet news agency, for many years. Now his story can be told.

In 1982 we had another campaign and this time Barbara and I went, along with six college guys from Granada. One day Tony asked me to bring a couple of them to have cokes in his office That was the thrill of a lifetime for those fellows, going into that place with pictures of Lenin and hammers and sickles on the wall. Decorated in red, quite a thing to behold. I get occasional letters from the man, he isn't the outgoing Christian I hoped he would be, but he has certainly served his Lord well and faithfully. Each in his own way. I would venture to say his way was more difficult than any of the rest of us will ever experience.

But first things first. The second night in 1968 an English couple came in and sat to my left as I spoke. They were in the third row. He was tall and spare with a shiny bald head while she was short and vivacious. As I expounded on Romans I noticed his brown paper wrapped Bible. I also noticed that when I turned a page in my Scofield Bible he turned his page. Aha, he has a Scofield! More than that, every time I made a strong point he lit up with agreement while his wife became more and more despairing. The moment the meeting was closed they hightailed it out the door. I asked one of the British sailors who that couple might be. "Oh, that man is Satan himself, he teaches Religious Knowledge (RK) at the British secondary school (from grades six to ten) and has been destroying the faith of our children for years. Why do you ask?" I replied, "Well, I discern that he is a believer and his wife isn't." The man retorted, "You Americans are daft, you know, that man is a rank unbeliever." I agreed that it could possibly be so, but my spiritual feelers told me otherwise, and he went away shaking his head, these Americans think they know everything.

The next evening here they were, same thing again. She cringed but he glowed. After, I went right to them and got into a conversation, and bless be, a man took a photo of Tom Moyle and me talking, an amazing thing as it worked out. We've become exceptionally close over all these years and to have that photo of our initial encounter has been special. What they wanted was to have me come to their home the following night to make a tape to play in his religion classes at school. Why a tape? Well, you never know about these Americans, he was afraid to invite me to his class. If I got out of line on the tape he could toss it out. So it was agreed that I would go and he could bring me back to Floriana where we were staying. In an upper chamber at Gospel Hall. We got to Tom's house and all four of their kids were running around, anxious to see the American. Three teenagers and a girl nine. Finally they got them shooed off to bed and we got into the taping. I was a real novelty, an American preaching the gospel where it was forbidden, in Catholic Malta. To make it even more bizarre, rumor had it that I was a Quaker. They'd never heard of a Bible believing Quaker, certainly not in England. Since Tom Moyle was the British 'religious leader' he was forced to come. Later he said he would rather have done anything than attend, but had no choice, it was expected of him. We finished the tape and as I sat back to survey the scene, I can remember the thought running through my head, "Now we will get down to the business for which I am here." I got into a deep conversation with wife Margaret, and as things went along, she trusted the Lord, just as neat as can be. She said to Tom, who had interjected at one point that he knew all of that, that Christ died for our sins, "You never told me this," and she was pretty scathing about it, too. It turned out that he had trusted the Lord at age 22, after the Navy. When he went to the Methodist seminary they knocked all the life out of him. Here he was in Malta, teaching liberal drivel to impressionable students.

I got back to Gospel Hall at 3AM. This place was really getting interesting, Malta! The following evening Earl was up there during the preliminaries and I about died when he chirped cheerfully that, "Now we are going to have some testimonies, popcorn testimonies, just pop up and say what is on your heart." I thought, "O boy! Popcorn testimonies, what do the Maltese know about popcorn testimonies?" About that time up popped Margaret. I have or had a tape of that testimony and I would have to say that for a person not quite a day old in the Lord it was an incredible thing. At one point she said, "I told Robert last night that I was going to jump in with both feet! But no, that isn't the way it is to be. My Bible says, 'Be still and know that I am God.'" And there was more. Wow, we all about expired, and the sailor came over later and said I had read the tea leaves correctly. And how did the Moyles work out? You would not believe it.

In 1972 they returned to UK, but while they were in Malta many dozens of Tom's pupils found the Lord. So many that the parents came to see what had happened to Johnny or Suzie. He led them to Christ, even the Navy Padre (chaplain) who was the pastor of the Methodist church got saved, but that was a bit later. When they got back to England he took a job teaching RK at a high school northeast of Birmingham. Ray had led the son to Christ, also the three daughters. Marshall the son was said to have spoken to nearly every student at his high school about being saved. Today he has a fabulous ministry in Slovakia, where they develop Christian book publishing houses all over Eastern Europe. The sisters walk very well with the Lord, it is a very energetic family. Tom and Margaret joined Associate Staff of Campus Crusade, and after a few years switched to a small group whose ministry was to put on soul wining weekends in Methodist churches. He became Chairman of Lay Witness Ministry very quickly and it grew remarkably, for nearly two decades they ran that until they retired in 1997. They had seen thousands come to Christ in that ministry and in personal work. Evangelize the Maltese? That was why we went. The Lord has his own ideas, many British trusted Christ and a number of them have had ongoing ministries of remarkable scope, but it all started in Malta.

Ray had printed up large posters on yellow paper three feet high and two feet wide. He was able to put them in store windows all over the island. Huge headline type an inch and a half high spelling out my name. It had a big picture of me and then the caption below. "A Christian Layman From America" and gave the date and location of the meetings. These were everywhere.

An unexpected difficulty has arisen with the newspapers. At this point (2001) I cannot find the 1968 papers but have all the ones from October of 1969. In 1968 we bought front page space advertising a Bible course, it included my picture. We had good stories printed in both the Maltese and English language papers. We also bought space for small ads inside that gave a verse and then told where and when the visiting American would be speaking. We had good stories but nothing like we had in 1969, that was spectacular.(2003 Found the papers!)

In 1969 one headline in Mintoff's paper said "One Thousand Maltese Changers of Religion!" This came from the reporter asking how many people were enrolled in the Bible correspondence course, then assuming that many had converted. One article given front page play had the headline, "A Disaster for Catholic Malta!" The man's point was that even if the "1000 Changers of Religion" proved not to be true (I had jokingly said in the meeting, "I know of five, where are the other 995?"), it was a disaster that such a story could even be printed as possibly true. Other stories dealt with their unhappiness with the "Bible Only" approach, which to them was heresy. It went on and on. We advertised the correspondence course on the front pages, as in 1968, and had a huge response. We created quite a stir.

In 1968 a priest came several evenings and try as I would, I could not get him to open up or even talk to me. He wrote a scathing article against salvation by faith only, so he heard what was said. It got pretty exciting, to say the very least. The news for two weeks was salvation by faith, never before heard in those remote precincts.

The third big event of the Malta campaign in '68 was the time at the University of Valletta. Ray had somehow gotten this arranged and then he and a Maltese man spent the morning going from class to class announcing the upcoming noon event. We also had notices in the newspapers, it was a public affair. At noon the folks filed in and there were about 125 on hand. Mostly students, with some priests and a few townspeople. During the preliminaries the guys sang (there was an American that had come with Ray from Italy) a couple of songs and a Maltese man shared how he had come to Christ. He had met Ray a year before on the Italian island of Lipari. His testimony was in Maltese. They clapped loudly when he finished and it was my turn. I spoke on Galatians 2:16, "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith." I didn't speak too long, long enough to make the case that it wasn't by what we did but by what we believed. Then when the conclusion came, it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. I had paraphrased Matt. 27:22, "What will you do with Jesus who is called Christ?" As I surveyed the hushed crowd, I let my eye and finger go down each row and I would ask over and over, "What will YOU do with Jesus who is called Christ?" as I pointed to each of them in turn. I've never known such a moment before or since. Finally, I had to clap my hands to more or less bring them back to life. I announced that we'd have questions and answers, I would answer any question, evade nothing, give them straightforward answers and "Who is first?" A bunch of minor questions and then, "Mr. Seelye, do you receive the primacy of the Pope?" I kind of laughed and asked if they wanted my long answer or my short answer? Several said short, so I said, "Of course not". They all laughed. There were more questions, some really good ones we don't have time or space for here, and then, "Mr. Seelye, do you receive Peter as the first Pope?"

I knew this one would come up, it is the foundation point of Romanism. I took about fifteen minutes to show a number of things. Peter was never in Rome. Peter did not know that he was designated as the head of any organization. Peter knew he was the apostle to the Jews and Paul to the Gentiles, which is exactly backward to the way the Roman church has it. The first Pope wasn't selected until about the year 320 or a bit later. Peter had a wife, and I finished with the statement that if Peter were to be miraculously raised from the dead, he would be horrified to hear that he had been named to be Pope. "In short, ladies and gentlemen, I do not receive Peter as the first Pope." With that the meeting was over. Instantly a big group of seminarians came at me with blood in their eyes. They wanted to argue, but the more thoughtful ones drifted over to talk to the other men and there were some really fine conversations. I was the lightning rod as I took them on for about an hour. Any long term results?

In 1986, Donald Malcolm, Italian Campus Crusade, and formerly in Kings Heirs, went to Rome to a convention of Catholic Charismatic. He wasn't one of them but wanted to see and hear what they were doing and how the movement was going. He met a very vivacious priest and asked where he was from and it was Malta. As they talked it was obvious that he was born again and his layman brother as well. The two of them were the heads of the Maltese movement. They had seen many hundreds come to know Christ and the thing was moving along nicely. "Well," Donald asked them, "How did you fellows come to know the Lord yourselves?" It seemed that eighteen years earlier this American had come to Malta and in the course of things had spoken at the University of Valletta. They were just furious at what was said, the very idea that the Bible took precedence over Roman tradition! But over time they got to reading the Bible and it turned out to say exactly what the American had said it said. No twists or turns and in time, they believed to the salvation of their souls. Donald was chuckling at all of this, and asked if they remembered the name. They did, and then he told them that the man had been his teacher during his college days in California. Small world.

To wind up, we had four campaigns in all. October of 69 was when Barbara went the first time. She had meetings with women and was very well received. In 1976 I went, but we could not set up a ministry for Barbara. In 1982 we both went for the fourth and last campaign. All were exciting, each was different, not many came to the Lord in any of them. Our role was getting the door open so others could come in and work long-term. Getting into the papers and encouraging the local believers made it worth the effort. Ray has spent over seven years on the island, his input was invaluable. For 25 years I have subscribed to the Sunday Times and find I am able to get letters to the Editor printed about twice a year. In 1998 and up to April of 1999 there was a controversy raging on the letters pages. We had about 75% of the space, pro and con for over six months. The letters were from four of us, three Maltese and me. We got down to the very basics of Bible truth contrasted with Catholic dogmas and a compilation of all the letters is really impressive. The bottom line? The (Maltese) Catholics do not accept the Bible at face value. A good book, a Catholic book, they say they own it, but they refuse to take it seriously. It has been fascinating to watch Malta over all these years, who can say what the outcome will be? The following article appeared in "Power for Living' on Sept. 27, 1970. This is a very widely distributed Sunday School supplement for encouraging soul winning, missions and getting with it in general. It is published in Wheaton, IL by Scripture Press Foundation.

"Two years ago a young man from Malta living in Australia wrote home inquiring whether it were possible for him to return to the tiny island in the Mediterranean. He wanted to tell his people about his newly acquired Protestant faith. When he had left home a few years earlier, 100% of the Maltese were, like himself, Roman Catholic. In fact, it was said that the Archbishop had so much control that priests from such "Protestantized countries" as Spain and Italy weren't allowed on the island.

The woman who received the letter wrote nothing in return. She simply tore off the front page of that morning's newspaper, stuffed it into a plain envelope, and mailed it to the young man. A few days later he pulled out the clipping and found, to his astonishment, a Gospel tract printed on the front page of a Maltese daily paper.

He was ecstatic! The good news that man is made right with God by Christ's work on the cross was being preached in his homeland.

The one partly responsible for the printing of that tract was Robert Seelye, an insurance salesman from La Habra, California. He and another Southern California insurance man, as Earl Griffiths,flew to Malta in January of 1968 to hold evangelistic meetings. How it all came about is a good part of Seelye's spiritually exciting story.

"Back in 1962," Seelye says, "I read an article in Time magazine that intrigued me. It not only told about the economic and political situation in Malta, but also reported the control the Roman Catholic Church had on the island. At the time I was challenged that God might break through such a barrier so that the Gospel could penetrate the island."

At first Seelye had grandiose schemes of dumping Gospels of John from an airplane realize that he would one day spend two full weeks there preaching to the Maltese people.

Seelye himself had first heard the Gospel in 1954 from the man who delivered his mail. The mailman invited Seelye and his wife to attend a summer Bible camp. Seelye, who had "a real hunger in my heart," accepted. "This guy had something to get excited about," Seelye recalls. "I thought I'd just go and investigate what it was. On that Labor Day weekend my wife and I placed our faith in Christ the Savior."

Seelye never had been the kind who could keep silent about anything he found exciting. In the months that followed, when he wasn't selling insurance he was witnessing. One man he spoke to was Ray Lentzsch. Lentzsch, too became an enthusiastic Christian and soon became associated with Operation Mobilization (OM), a Christian literature and evangelism organization. With Seelye's urging, Lentzsch visited Malta during his literature distribution trips. Much to Seelye's surprise and encouragement, Lentzsch reported that the island wasn't as tightly closed as had been thought. "One reason," Seelye explains, "is that the country had recently held elections and though the Church party had won, it had lost its grip on many of the people. The Church had warned that to vote for the opposition would be a mortal sin. Some 65,000 of the 325,000 people voted for labor party candidates anyway."

Lentzsch coaxed Seelye to come to the island and hold evangelistic meetings. Seelye argued that he was only a layman, but Lentzsch argued back that a laymen would be accepted by the people. After some time of wavering, Seelye decided to go. He asked Earl Griffiths to go along to handle the music. "When we got there we weren't sure we were going to be allowed to enter," Seelye says. "Instead of keeping our arrival a secret, Lentzsch had acted as our PR man. Everyone on the island knew who we were and why we were there before we stepped off that plane. Reporters and photographers were there to meet us. The newspaper that morning said that we were being met by the American consul. (It wasn't on his agenda)

When the plane landed, Seelye decided that perhaps he and Griffths should split up. Griffiths got off the rear of the plane, while Seelye stepped off the front. But no one stopped either man. When it came time to pass through immigration, the Officials just said, "Have a nice stay," and stamped their passports. They didn't even look in Seelye's travel bags which contained Bibles and "Four Spiritual Laws" booklets. In addition to being joined there by Ray Lentzsch, the two Americans were also joined by Paul Volle, who had come down from Italy with Ray. Volle acted as a leg man during the two weeks, greeting editors, meeting with officials, saying hello to policemen, and hanging up posters.

Griffiths, as planned, handled the music and acted as master of ceremonies. He played the out of tune piano, sang solos, and formed a trio with Lentzsch and Volle. He also helped out with counseling. Lentzsch, as the advance man arrived on the island six weeks before Seelye and Griffiths. He arranged everything. "There wasn't anybody on the island who didn't know who we were, " says Seelye

One day he walked into a drug store (chemist shop) to buy some toothpaste. The lady behind the counter said, "We're glad to have you here, Mr. Seelye, my son was in your meeting at the University the other day." "What was his reaction?" Seelye asked. "Well, he came home and reported every word you said." "My goodness," Seelye replied. "It took us two hours." "Well, it took him two hours to tell us. He's got a good memory. He gave it to us word for word." "Well," Seelye repeated, "what was his reaction?" The woman put one finger under her collar and tugging at it, said, "Our priests speak from here, but you spoke with authority from the Bible."

Despite all the publicity, the early meetings were sparsely attended. They were held in "a drafty hall, very narrow, very high, and very long," say Seelye. "The temperature was in the upper 40s, with the only heat coming from a small freestanding oil heater. For the two weeks, the meeting averaged about 45 people nightly. Forty five people turned to Christ, 22 Maltese, 22 British and one American sailor. On the last day of their visit the Malta News printed the Gospel tract on its front page, paid for as an advertisement. It was that night that Seelye met the woman who had the letter from the young man in Australia.

Last year (Oct. 1969) Seelye returned to the island with team members of OM for the first evangelistic services ever sanctioned by the government in the history of Malta. Held in a lounge of the island's best hotel, the meetings drew an average attendance of 75 people. 25 made decisions for Christ. Again, press coverage was heavy. The subject of justification by faith, without good works, was hotly debated in the daily newspaper columns. Bibles are now openly for sale in Malta, Seelye reports. There are a number of red hot born again Maltese men ready to preach at a moment's notice." Included in that number is the young man who wrote home from Australia. He returned to Malta in 1970.

Meanwhile Seelye tries to lead a normal life back in California. There he keeps selling insurance while being a husband to wife Barbara, a father to three teenage daughters, and a teacher of a large collegiate Sunday School class.

"I'm just amazed to see what God can do with anybody who is really interested in doing His work," says Seelye. "You can end up in some interesting places.""

Malta in the Year 2001. At present there are 13 Protestant groups meeting publicly. While the number of visible born gain Maltese is not over 1000 people, it is a movement that seems to be increasing in momentum all the time. To leave the Roman church in Malta is tantamount to giving up Maltese citizenship. Or was. A couple of the brothers have a weekly radio program, and many of the churches have regular days when they are out passing out Christian literature. As we write in June of 2001, Ray Lentzsch has been in Malta for a couple of years preaching daily in a prominent spot in the capitol city of Valletta. Malta has a very efficient bus system and all busses terminate at a big open air terminal at the gates of Valletta. Ray's preaching spot is just inside the gate. Everyone in Malta will eventually pass his location and at least know there is preaching going on. Many stop to talk and he has seen conversions.

In the February of 1981 three Irish girls came to Malta on vacation with one objective. They wanted to see a Maltese come to Christ before going home. One day Paul Mizzi and two other bank clerks had gone to the plaza to eat lunch and these girls came along. They got into a conversation and each girl paired off with one of the guys. They talked about the Bible and the Lord but soon it was time to go back to work. All promised to be right there the next day to carry on the talks. The next day only Paul showed up and in the short time they had together, he trusted Christ, giving up his Ouija board and other things he was trying. He had been searching for spiritual truth for some time, he could see the Roman church as totally lacking. The conversation ended as the girls made a dash for the plane, leaving Paul clutching his very first Bible.

Read it he did. By time time Fall rolled around he had finished writing an outline of what he thought the Bible taught. A short version of Systematic Theology. The only place it was off was in the area of prophecy, he had no guidance from his Catholic background. One day in November Paul was out in the plaza diligently studying his Bible. He glanced up and saw a man approaching with a sandwich board covering him front and back. The front side said: "JESUS IS COMING." Paul was amazed and dashed around to see what the back side of the board said. "ARE YOU READY?" was what greeted him. He asked the Englishman, "Are you a reborn Christian?" "And why would I be wearing a rig like this if I wasn't?" Breathlessly, Paul asked him to come sit with him as he had many questions. He explained the circumstances of his new birth and then said that he was the only Maltese person that was reborn. The man laughed, saying that simply wasn't true, there were many of them. Paul wanted to know where they were and if they met anyplace. The man pointed in the direction of Gospel Hall, less than a mile from where they were sitting. "They have a Bible study tonight at seven, why don't you come?" Paul is now the pastor of one of the Maltese churches. He was the speaker in 1997 at Granada's annual Missions Conference. He learned Greek so he could produce an accurate New Testament, and German so he could read the extensive literature to be found in that language. His entire family and extended family has become a bastion of evangelical truth. Thus the Lord gives the increase.

 

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