LAOS
Diocesan Press Service. September 7, 1964 [XXIV-11]
"It asks much - it asks that the individual pay to serve rather than to be paid for serving."
This is what Bob Kochtitsky, its director, says about LAOS - Laymen's Overseas Service - a new movement within the Methodist Church, but interdenominational in scope. LAOS does not stand for the country currently so much in the news. Laos is the New Testament word for "the people of God", and is the progenitor of the present-day word, laity. It is not by chance, then, that LAOS was formed to reach and involve the laity in the mission of the Christian Church.
It all started in 1958 when Bob Kochtitzky, a young Mississippi businessman, sold his Jackson paint store and after a search for the right vocation, entered the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. Prior to entering seminary, Kochtitzky volunteered to paint a two-story mission school in the Philippines. In the summer of 1960 he led a group of students to do volunteer work in Bolivia. These short terms of service with the Methodist Church overseas convinced him that the 1,400 Methodist missionaries desperately needed the technical and vocational skills which lay volunteers could provide.
The Church in Bolivia eagerly and enthusiastically endorsed the LAOS pilot project. Mr. Kochtitsky's ideas were supported by the Jackson District Board of Lay Activities and Bishop Marvin Franklin appointed him to his present position.
Mr. Kochtitzky is frank to admit that one of the urgencies of setting up an agency like LAOS is that by the year 2000, only 22 percent of the world will be Christian: the immense surge in the world's birth rate is primarily amongst non-Christian people.
The LAOS movement essentially gives the average layman or laywoman the chance to use his skill and training in areas of need. He must serve as a selfsupporting, short-term (3 to 12 months), volunteer worker for the Church. He undergoes strict orientation training and selection. He pays his own way to and from his place of work and is required to support himself while there. What he is called upon to do depends upon the needs in the mission area. He may teach, build, farm, work with youth, or in a laboratory.
The first year of LAOS saw 11 volunteers. Volunteers coming back from their tours of duty spread the word and the needs and LAOS has experienced a surge of increase and commitment. Bob Kochtitzky is confident that this coming third year of the program will see 200 lay men and women serving Christ through LAOS.
For those who cannot go to the frontline, LAOS offers the opportunity of support by contribution. Lay people, mostly from Mississippi, but including many from all over the United States, have given financial support to LAOS. Bob Kochtitsky acknowledges the sacrifices which LAOS demands. But, he says, ". . . . it also gives much. - it gives a sense of fulfillment through personal involvement. "