April 9. William Seymour. All his life, Seymour never let a locked door stop him from seeking God’s will. Born to freed slaves, Seymour fled the deep south to escape poverty, oppression, and prejudice. But while he was working in Ohio, he contracted smallpox, which left him partially blind. But it also confirmed in him […]

April 8. James Chalmers. Chalmers was known to be a stubborn man—a stubborn man on fire to be the first one to preach to a group of people who needed Jesus. So Chalmers and his first wife Anne sailed to the Cook Islands northeast of New Zealand. Part-way there, they were shipwrecked, stranded, and rescued […]

April 7. Bob Gass. Bob preached his first sermon when he was 13, and he entered full-time ministry at the age of 18. He worked as a pastor, a guest speaker, and an evangelist before beginning his career as an author. In 1994, at age 50, Bob produced the first edition of “The Word for […]

April 6. Eric Irivuzumugabe. On this date in 1994, a plane carrying the president of Rwanda was shot down, launching a 100-day genocide against the Tutsis people by the Hutu people. More than 800,000 Tutsies died. Two million became refugees, and there were 120,000 new orphans. Eric was one of those orphans. But God showed […]

April 5. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pastor and theologian, who became the lead spokesperson for German Protestant resistance to the Nazis. Much of his resistance work was done undercover inside the Germany’s Military Intelligence organization, but he also demanded that the Nazi’s change the way they defined Jewish people. He insisted Christians with Jewish ancestry were […]

April 4. Ronald Dale Jackson. Ronald is a deaf-blind man with blond hair, cut military short. In a church basement in New York City, an American Sign-Language interpreter named Pamela and her husband JH met Ronald, and they marveled at a man who had lost both hearing and sight, but gained the presence of God. […]

April 3. John Jasper. John was baptized one morning and preached a funeral service that same afternoon. Being a man of reason and courage, he defied the laws of Virginia that forbade slaves to learn to read and write. More than a century later, that same state recognized John’s achievements and honored him as a […]

April 2. Mark Palm. What young boy doesn’t dream of flying an airplane? Mark Palm is no exception. But young Mark had a second passion, and that was to help people. In August of 2000, Mark founded Samaritan Aviation, a ministry that provides flight-related medical services to people who live in the remote jungle regions […]

April 1. Jack Wyrtzen. Jack was not always Jack. He was originally dubbed Caspar, but high-school classmates showed him the wisdom of an immediate name change. So Jack—not Caspar—was less than respectful of Christianity. Early encounters included mocking a Bible teacher at the YMCA and a fist-fight at the Methodist Church. Young Jack was a […]

March 31. Franklin Graham. Franklin—the son of American evangelist Billy Graham—is a well-known evangelist, missionary, and author. He serves as president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and of Samaritan’s Purse, an international Christian relief organization.  Franklin has conducted evangelistic Festivals (formerly called Crusades) across the US and in forty-nine other countries. He meets with world leaders and encourages people to engage in civic opportunities in their own locales.  His […]