Our History

In 1961, Will Bruce from Overseas Missionary Fellowship (formerly the China Inland Mission) and Marvin Graves from New Tribes Mission, along with nine other missionaries and pastors in Manila, decided to form Christ for Greater Manila (CGM). Their first ministry was called Youth Time and it consisted of large, well-planned rallies held at the Philippine General Hospital in Manila. By the next year, CGM had expanded into camping - something entirely new in the Philippines. Churches had never had family camps or children's camps. This was a great success and led to purchase of a large tent for evangelistic meetings. Later, open air meetings were held and then a film ministry was started.

When Will Bruce, due to ill health, had to leave the Philippines, a young couple named Doug (pictured at left) & Margi Nichols were just finishing Tagalog language school. They were also with OMF and were assigned in 1972 to direct CGM. Under Doug's leadership the outreach expanded to include jail ministry, literature work, bookstores, opening of the Bible League, ministry to street children and prostitutes, church planting among the poor, Gospel ads, evangelism, and discipleship and vocational training for street children, with a much larger involvement of Filipino workers. The staff grew to 166.

Because several expatriate missionaries were involved, it was decided that a mission should be incorporated in the United States to represent their interests. Thus, in 1974 in Chicago, Action International Ministries first started to function. In 1975, ACTION was officially incorporated in the state of Washington.

From those beginnings, the mission now has over 225 members from thirteen different countries, with ministries in over twenty countries including: Austria, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Honduras, India, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Spain, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, USA, and Zambia.

Not content with this expansion, over 200 positions have been identified, catalogued, and publicized, including needs on existing fields and potential worker slots on new fields we plan to open. Job descriptions have been written for most of these positions.

ACTION is now incorporated in the USA, Canada, the Philippines (separately from CGM which is now also incorporated in the Philippines as Christian Growth Ministries), the United Kingdom, and Colombia.