CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (ANS) -- Dr. Bob Finley has announced that Bill Bray has been re-elected president of the Overseas Students Mission (OSM) headquartered in Charlottesville, Virginia. Finley is Chairman of the Board.

Bill Bray

Bill Bray resumed active leadership of OSM effective October 6 and will be joining the full-time missionary staff of the organization on January 1, 2013.

“For decades the Lord has been preparing him for this assignment,” says Dr. Finley, “and he is uniquely qualified to recruit, disciple and send forth God’s chosen vessels.”

OSM is one of three indigenous missions service organizations founded by Dr. Finley in 1953 to help reach overseas visitors to the United States and help send them back as missionary messengers to all nations according to Matthew 24:14. The other two are Christian Aid Mission and International Students, Inc.

Bray most recently served the Lord as development director and special projects coordinator at Christian Aid Mission and has been actively involved in supporting indigenous mission’s movements since 1966. Bray first became involved in the work of OSM in 1991 and was previously elected president in March of 2008.

During the remainder of 2012, Bill will be transitioning to his new leadership role at OSM and focusing on his next book, “Called to All: a Love Supreme”. The book is part of a trilogy that calls for a cross-generational approach to reach all nations before Christ returns.

“I think this is the greatest challenge of my life,” says Bray. “I look forward to helping play a role in igniting the next generation of indigenous mission leadership and spending at least half of my day writing new books with the Holy Spirit’s empowerment.

“I realize that God has used me uniquely in this way over the decades and I want to maximize whatever time I have left to challenge and mentor young leaders through writing the Lord’s vision through OSM.

“A book is the most powerful medium to give birth to a new movement and I think that’s why the Lord chose to give us the written word first.”

Bray is a bi-vocational media missionary and journalist. He is the author, co-author or editor of 11 books on indigenous missions. He has seen two of his bestsellers go over one million copies in print and is currently consulting on two missions books.

Dr. Bob Finley

“For many years, our Lord has used Bill to help train, support and develop indigenous missionaries and mission agencies in many parts of the world,” adds Finley.

“This began in 1966 when, following studies at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, he went out to India as a literature evangelist with Operation Mobilization.

“Within weeks of his arrival in India, he spent a few days with Bakht Singh and became convinced that the age of colonial missions was over. He decided then that there was no hope in trying to pursue a traditional l missionary career as he had originally planned. Instead, he felt the Holy Spirit close that door and call him instead to spend the rest of his life helping indigenous missions.

“Since that encounter, he has spent over 40 years sending out native missionaries, mostly to closed lands forbidden to American missionaries. He has traveled to 65 countries delivering aid to native leaders and reporting on the spread of indigenous missions to Christians in America.

“After his return to the United States in 1973, Bill began reaching overseas students and foreign visitors in the USA through ministries such as Campus Crusade for Christ, Gospel for Asia, Christian Aid and scores of local churches with a missionary vision.

“Bill and his wife have entertained hundreds of indigenous mission leaders and overseas students in their home. He has personally helped train and disciple nearly 300 missionaries who have since returned to their native lands.”

Bray can be reached at his newly reactivated office number, 434-295-6488 or via email at bray.william@gmail.com 

Note: Divinia Sanchez, a missionary born in the Philippines and who has been involved in ministry for over 30 years, contributed to this story.

Dan Wooding, 71, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 49 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS) and he hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on the KWVE Radio Network in Southern California and which is also carried throughout the United States and around the world. Besides this, Wooding is a host for His Channel Live, which is carried via the Internet to some 192 countries. Dan recently received two top media awards -- the “Passion for the Persecuted” award from Open Doors US, and as one of the top “Newsmakers of 2011” from Plain Truth magazine. He is the author of some 45 books, the latest of which is “Caped Crusader: Rick Wakeman in the 1970s.” To order a copy, go to: Caped Crusader - Amazon