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TechnoratiThe USCWM general director, who has known Winter for nearly 30 years, joked that the Center’s founder is probably Amazon.com’s best customer seeing that he had bought a book a day at the online bookstore up until last year.
Since 2002, Winter had been battling multiple myeloma (bone marrow cancer) as well as Lyme Disease. Then in January this year he was also diagnosed with Lymphoma (lymphocyte cancer), and more recently with other illnesses.
Yet despite his daily physical struggles, Winter continued to accept invitations to speak at mission conferences around the world.
Just last summer, a frail looking Winter took the stage at a mission conference held at the famed alma mater of Billy Graham, Wheaton College, to deliver a passionate address about the biggest trend in world mission.
Speaking to thousands of missionaries attending the Korea World Mission Conference – a conference held once every four years – Winter seemed increasingly energized as he spoke to the crowd of thousands of missionaries from around the world who would take the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
Although he needed help walking up only a few flights of stairs, the 83-year-old Winter, who was battling cancer and several diseases, stood by himself for about an hour to deliver a message about how to get God in the world and glorify Him on earth.
Refusing the advice of conference organizers to rest and attend the conference as a listener, Winter held multiple workshops, each lasting about an hour, for several days during the mission conference.
“He is my hero,” said Timothy K. Park, director of Korean Studies and associate professor of Asian Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary School of Intercultural Studies in California, to Christian Today in South Korea. “He has contributed greatly to the school of missiology.”
Park praised the missiologist for not becoming tied down with “traditional thoughts” and not judging people by their outward appearance.
“He was a person who knew how to accommodate tradition,” said the Korean-American pastor.
In South Korea, Winter’s friend of 40 years, Pastor David Cho of David Cho Missiological Institute in Seoul, lamented Winter’s death as a “big loss” for the school of missiology.
“This is like one big star disappearing,” Cho told Christian Today. “It is doubtful whether a prophetic missiologist scholar [like him] can ever appear again.”
In 2005, Time magazine named Winter one of America’s 25 most influential evangelicals, alongside Rick Warren, Billy and Franklin Graham, and James Dobson.
He was recognized with the Lifetime of Service Award in 2008 at the North American Mission Leaders Conference during which representatives from nearly 300 mission organizations, Christian colleges and churches honored Winter.
“A giant has fallen but he has also risen and we are following in his vision and in his goal to make Christ known,” commented American missiologist Tallman.
Winter founded the USCWM in 1976 as well as the Frontier Mission Fellowship that same year.
William Carey International University was opened in 1977 and the International Society for Frontier Missiology was formed in 1985. In 2006, Winter became the honorary chairman of The Christian Post.
Memorial services are slated for June 27.
