Years ago, my mother and dad were living in a small apartment in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He was in the U.S. Army and taught ROTC at Louisiana State University. They had three young daughters, and my mother was home alone much of the time taking care of them. Money was tight. Then she learned she was pregnant. Another baby was the last thing she wanted or needed.
My mother told a friend of her dilemma, and the friend told her that she knew a doctor who could take care of it – meaning an abortion. Mother met with the doctor and made an appointment for the procedure. The night before the appointment, she was in the bathroom with pills in her hand that she had been instructed to take to calm her nerves. Right then God spoke to her. My mother did not know God, but that night she knew God’s voice when she heard it. He said to her, “You are going to have a son, and he is going to be a preacher.” She flushed the pills down the toilet and didn’t go for the procedure.
After the months passed, mother went to the hospital for delivery. During the birth the doctor told her, “You have a beautiful baby girl.” She couldn’t understand it! She knew God had told her she was going to have a son. The nurse suddenly called out, “Doctor, come quickly, I believe there is another one.” The doctor delivered the second baby and carried it to my mother saying, “You also have a baby boy.” God had given her a son, with a twin girl as a bonus.
Fifteen years went by, and my mother had never made a lasting commitment to Jesus. But she did listen to a local Assemblies of God pastor on the radio every morning. One day he announced that the church was having a revival with a great evangelist. During that week mother and dad, my four sisters, and I attended the revival and accepted Jesus.
One evening I went to a youth convention. When I returned home, I told my mother, “Tonight God called me to preach.” She started crying and told me then what God had told her when she was considering an abortion, “You are going to have a son, and he is going to be a preacher.”
My mother looked at me, put her finger in my face, and said, “Son, always remember this: we are Pentecostal people, and I dare you to ever stand and preach without the anointing of the Holy Spirit on your life and ministry.” Until the day she died, my mother prayed every day, “God anoint and use my son.” For 52 years in ministry (48 as a missionary), I have never forgotten what my mother said to me that night. I am a legacy of my mother’s obedience and her faithfulness to pray every day for me.
As my wife and I have continued in ministry through the years, we too want to leave a legacy. We want our legacy to be the people in whom we have invested our lives. We have ministered to persecuted believers in house churches in creative access locations, preached to unreached peoples who had never heard His name, planted churches in areas where none existed, and helped open new countries to Assemblies of God World Missions. We have served as leaders to area and regional missionary teams.
Second, we want to see our three children, two sons and a daughter, become a living legacy of our ministry. Since their birth we have tried to help them understand who we are in Christ and why we do what we do. We taught them to love the peoples to whom God had called us. Although my missionary ministry has been an itinerant one, often having to leave my wife and children at home, we made it a point to take the children with us to some of the places of ministry so they could experience it and feel a part of it.
I remember our oldest son at 3 years old, sitting on the ground under a starlit night as a I preached to the lost in Thailand. Another time as I laid hands on a group of young ministers receiving ordination in a secret service, I turned and saw him, at age 10, laying hands on the young ministers. Our daughter went with me to preach in churches and Light for the Lost tours. I remember our younger son being with me in Vietnam and standing beside a Vietnamese soldier. In Thailand our children sat alongside Thai boys and girls in children’s church as we co-pastored a new church plant with a Thai minister.
Today, our oldest son and his wife and children are serving as missionaries. Our daughter and her husband and children are serving as missionaries. Our youngest son and his family operate a computer technology business serving our Assemblies of God missionary endeavors.
Third, Penney and I want to have a legacy of investing our lives in other missionaries. We have tried to empower, affirm, and mentor missionaries whom God allowed us to serve in leadership and those missionaries who came after us.
Fourth, we want to have a legacy of giving generously of our finances. I believe that the best and happiest way to live is to live and give generously. Somehow God’s math always enables us to give more than we have received.