New Collections

The Archives is continually adding items to its holdings—newly discovered letters, a recently donated photo album, transcripts to oral history interviews, an entirely new collection, and much more.

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See the descriptions below and follow the links to learn more about new resources now open for research. 

Collection 661: Records of Eastern European Mission (NEW)

Records of Eastern European Mission (first known as the Russian and Eastern European Mission, then as Eastern European Mission, and finally as EuroVision) including minutes, financial records, correspondence, reports, scrapbooks, missionary files, and newspaper and magazine clippings. Most of the documents are in English, but there is also material in Russian, Polish, German and other languages. The activities of the mission included church planting, evangelism, radio broadcasting, the printing and distribution of Bibles and Christian literature, and humanitarian relief. Although the mission sent out many North American workers, most of it activities, especially after 1945, involved supporting indigenous Christian workers in the USSR and Eastern Europe. (Added October 2024)

Collection 726: Gospel Films/Gospel Communications Oral History Interviews (NEW)

This collection consists of interviews with J. R. Whitby and Robby Richardson, executives of Gospel Films/Gospel Communications about the history of the company, the development of the Christian film industry and the Christian use of the Internet.  (Added September 2024)

Collection 740: Oral History Interview with David Harley (NEW)

Oral history interview with Harley in which he discusses his faith, work in Ethiopia among Falasha Jews, his time as principal of the All Nations Christian College in England, the role of women in Christian ministry, servant leadership, the place of women in ministry, his service as director of the Overseas Missionary Fellowship.  (Added June 2024)

Collection 637: Papers of Don Ziebell (NEW)

Oral history interviews, correspondence, reports, e-mails, memos, budgets, strategic plans, audio and video recordings, and photographs relating to activities of Ziebell, a retired American businessman, as a senior executive at Slavic Gospel Association and other ministries. The material in the collection documents the work of SGA in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and other countries; the reorganization of SGA in the late 1980s and early 1990s; Christianity in Russia during the same time period and the repercussions of the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Collection 722: Papers of Luis Palau (NEW)

Papers of Luis Palau, international Christian evangelist, including crusade-related materials, correspondence, the Luis Palau Association strategic planning documents and reports, and personal diaries. While the paper documents in the collection are subdivided into several subseries, almost all of them relate to Palau's crusades or other events as a Latin American evangelist, most after he established his own evangelistic ministry and association separate from Overseas Crusades in 1978; far fewer are the personal papers of Rev. Palau. 1947-2017. Language: English, Spanish.

Collection 718: Oral History Interview with Thomas A. Clark IV (NEW)

Topics covered include his childhood as a preacher’s kid, racial tensions at the University of Illinois, pastoring African American churches in the Chicago area, outreach to the community, church activities during the 2020 Covid 19 pandemic, mission trips to the Dominican Republic and South Africa. The time period covered in the interviews is 1970s through 2020.

Collection 278: Papers of Elisabeth Elliot  (UPDATE)

New material added includes correspondence from Marj Saint, pages from a notebook about her first contacts with Waorani women, negatives for photos from her books, and hundreds of audio files and transcripts from her radio program, Gateway to Joy.

Collection 719: Papers of Janet Wiser (UPDATE)

Wismer was the staff member and producer of Elisabeth Elliot’s radio program, Gateway to Joy. The notebook contains more than two decades of notes, letters, and ephemera from Elliot to Wismer in which she discusses the radio program, their friendship, theological reflections on courtship, marriage, child rearing, male and female roles, and more.

Since the early 1980s, members of the Archives staff have conducted over 800 hours of oral history interviews with more than 275 individuals involved in mass evangelism, global missions, Christian education, community development, medical work, and Bible translation. These figures include well-known names such as Cliff Barrows, Elisabeth Elliot, David Howard, John Huffman, William Pannell, John Perkins, and many more. To date, the Archives staff have completed over 430 transcripts to these interviews. Follow the links below to read our latest oral history transcripts. 

Please note: Oral history interview transcripts are not available online during the interviewee's lifetime. 

Collection 498: Oral History Interview with William E. Pannell. Transcripts for Tape 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 (Added December 2024)

Collection 512: Oral History Interview with Harry L. Cox. Transcripts for Tape 1, 2, and 3 (Added December 2024)

Collection 489: Oral History Interviews with John A. MacDonald. Transcript for Tapes 1 and 2 (Added August, September 2024)

Collection 473: Oral History Interview with Clayton L. Berg Jr. Transcript for Tape 1 (Added August 2024)

Collection 603: Wayne and Ruth Courtney Papers. Transcript for Tapes 1, 2, 3, and 4 (Added February, March, May, and July 2024)

Collection 398 Oral History Interview with Wayne Gordon. Transcripts for Tapes 1 and 2 (Added June 2024)

Collection 563 Papers of Robert E. Coleman. Transcripts for Tapes 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 101 (Added June 2024)