This weekend I preached the funeral of a deacon from my home church who was the most influential laymen in my life, apart from my own father. Dr. Kerfoot Walker, MD was responsible for many of my firsts: teaching a SS class; giving my testimony in public; preaching a revival; mobilizing a mission team; a tropical cyclone; and my first hitch hiking experience.

I have no memory of life without Kerfoot since I was only five years old when my family joined Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler Texas. He was one of my countless crazy uncles (and aunts) at GABC where my parents were faithful members for fifty years.

Nobody who knew me as a child or teenager would have of predicted that I would speak for a living, but some like Kerfoot could claim they saw potential in me long before I did. Kerfoot not only saw potential in this shy, shaggy headed boy, but he gave me opportunities to discover and develop my spiritual gifts. For example, he was my sixth grade Sunday School teacher, then six years later I was teaching that same class as a twelfth grader.

“What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” 

2 Timothy‬ ‭2:2‬ ‭CSB‬‬

Kerfoot was unfazed whenever I tried to tell him that I was not old enough, smart enough, or confident enough to speak in public.

There are no heroes without hero makers, and there are no missionaries without missionary makers. As you know, I am a big fan of pastors, but today I want to take my hat off to all the off-stage volunteers like Kerfoot who take punks like me to camps, retreats, and mission trips.

I also want to take my hat off to my home church of Green Acres which is like a Cape Canaveral for the Great Commission. Churches like that have a legacy of launching members into marketplaces and mission fields all over their community and all over the world. Those of us who grew up in a missionary culture like that should not only be grateful for our roots, but responsible to pay it forward to the generations behind us.

“What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

2 Timothy‬ ‭2:2‬ ‭CSB‬‬

One of the college students on that first Belize mission team I mobilized was a first timer named Craig Miller. That trip would be the first of many for Craig, who later became a phenomenal missionary. He started a relief organization called Thirst No More. Craig reciprocated by introducing me to deer hunting. That is a good trade! (The featured photo: Craig Miller, Drs. Kerfoot and Marrietta Walker, and a younger version of me in Brazil)

Inspired by what I had learned from Kerfoot in the jungles of Belize and Brazil, I would end up mobilizing numerous medical mission teams around the world as a pastor – most of them in China. Many of those trips included Kerfoot, Craig, or both of them together.

Good missionaries like Kerfoot and Craig are fearless, flexible, unorthodox – and rare. The best missionaries however are the ones who pass the baton to others.

“What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

2 Timothy‬ ‭2:2‬ ‭CSB

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