[2] George Verwer, OM's founder and leader until 2003, received a Gospel of John from a local woman while still in high school in the 1950s.

[3] Operation Mobilisation started in 1957 when Walter Borchard, Dale Rhoton and George Verwer traveled to Mexico to distribute Christian literature and Gospels.

In Summer 1962 OM's first short-term missions teams moved into Europe, coming from the UK, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, the US and elsewhere.

In the summer of 1963 more than 2,000 people blanketed Europe to encourage Christians and to carry God's Word throughout the continent and find creative ways of getting it behind the Iron Curtain.

OM and Verwer's vision for spreading the Gospel expanded to the seas with the purchase of the ship MV Logos in October 1970.

[9] MV Logos ran aground on rocks off Tierra del Fuego, Chile, in atrocious weather conditions in 1988.

[13] The OM ships have visited port cities throughout the world, supplying literature, encouraging cross-cultural understanding, training young people for more effective life and service, providing relief, and sharing a message of hope in God wherever there is an opportunity.

Titles cover a wide range of subjects, such as science, sports, hobbies, cookery, the arts, philosophy, medicine and children's books, as well as faith and life.

The books have been carefully chosen to be of interest to every member of the family, and with the educational, social and moral needs of the local community in mind.