.....The Call........

People have asked me in the past, how did you get started working as a Billy Graham Rapid Response Chaplain.  Well, here is our story:

My husband had just retired from 32 years of law enforcement and I had just retired from 37 years of banking.  During the 37 years of banking, I also taught classes for the Dept of Criminal Justice at the police academy on financial fraud. 

During our careers, we both had taught bible classes and traveled on mission trips.  His job moved us to a different state several times. However, we were involved with our local church, no matter where we lived…they became our family. 

 After feeling the nudge to retire, even though we both loved our jobs, we put a ‘for sale’ sign in front of our KY farm.  We knew that we must sell it to have the funds to retire early.  You may say we put out ‘the fleece’ to see if this was really what we were to do.  Within three days the farm was sold and then....we were moving into a small apartment within 60 days! We had not even finished our notices for our jobs, which we had planned on working until the end of that year! God was definitely on the move!

Shortly after, I was online one day, doing a devotion on the Billy Graham website.  When I opened the site, across the top of the page read “Billy Graham Rapid Response Chaplains needed with law enforcement or first responder experience." Thinking this would be only a week or two a year, we talked about it and filled out the application online. The next morning we received a phone call from their office.

We attended classes at The Cove, the Billy Graham Training Center in Asheville, NC.  God blessed us with another ‘family’…our brothers and sisters that work there and are deployed with us in the field. 

We know the urgency of prayer and all of us are prayer warriors for each other when a disaster call goes out, whether it be a tornado, flood, hurricane, or shooting.  When we receive a call, sometimes it is “How quickly can you leave?” other times it is “Can you be prepared to leave in two days or so?”  We really never know when this call may come, we just know that we all must stay in a close relationship with the Lord.  This call may not come directly to us, it could be to another Chaplain Coordinator and they will need our prayers. 

This is the way life is…as the commercial says, “Life can come at you hard.” We need to stay in a close relationship with the Lord, be prayed up.  Not be a stranger to Him.  We also have our church family and our children to put the call out for prayer.  We know when we go out our door, that prayers are already going up. 

We have seen God’s hand working before we have even gotten to the disaster site. One of those times was when we were in Tom’s River, NJ and received the call “We need you to head to Sandy Hook, there has been a mass shooting at the elementary school.” We put out a call to our prayer warriors as we were leaving. 

We were in NJ, where toll roads are abundant. We were in the Billy Graham van and costs would average $10-13 dollars to pay.  Most of the tollbooths were unmanned and exact change only.  We were not prepared for this. We prayed as we drove, for the people we were going to…not thinking of the tolls. 

The first sign ‘Toll Booth ahead, exact change only’ leered at us.  We knew we did not have the exact change.  We pulled up to the tollbooth, the automatic sign in front of it said, “Out of order, Proceed.” What?  We just looked at each other!  The next one we came to had a cashier in it.  As we pulled up, he said to us, “Sorry, but I am counting my cash drawer down, just go ahead.”  It was then we knew, God was already working. 

Some of you may think this is just coincidence, but we know our God and He knows our needs and hears our prayers.  Prayers and needs are not always met as quickly and boldly as these tollbooths, but it is in His time…not ours.

God has a plan for everyone. It may not be to serve with the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team, write a book, share a story, but He does have a plan for you.  He has called us from the time of our salvation to serve Him, to honor Him, someway in our lives.  That service may change during the course of our lives, but it will not change Whom we serve. 

What is God calling you to do?  What is tugging on your heart? Let go of yourself and let God lead and guide your life.  Life is much easier lived if you live it for Him and not yourself. 

As the scripture say in Psalm 100:2  (KJV)

^“Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing”  .

Let Him put a song in your heart……

Blessings,

gs