...if Wally McCall showed up at FBC one day. I hope he does.

McCall and Abbey have done a great job letting you know how great our day was.

I have a different agenda.

We have 18 folks on this trip.

17 are from First Baptist Wilmington. You either know them or hopefully will have the chance to meet them at some point in the future.

Walter (Wally) McCall is a 62 yr. old gentleman from the mountains of NC. That's him on the ladder in the picture.
He doesn't attend FBC, so you might not ever get the chance to meet him.

That's too bad.

Wally heard about our trip through the church in Alabama that sponsors the house we're staying in. He asked about going on a mission trip to Guatemala with them but they weren't doing any more this year, so they told him about ours. He saw we were from NC and said what the heck. Called up, signed up, and met up with us in Ft. Lauderdale. It was the first time any of us had ever laid eyes on him.

The man is funny. Sneaky funny. Funny like half of it is what he says and the other half is how he says it.

At breakfast yesterday, out of the blue. He says "I had a dream last night I was eating pancakes. ..........I woke up and I couldn't find my blanket."

In the van he said he was somewhere one time where it was so cold instead of milk the cows were giving ice cream.

On a trip some things you learn about people very quickly. We found out he's funny, friendly, helpful.

Hard worker, too. Very good to have on the work site.

And these are all good things, but there's more to him than just that. There are things you wouldn't know unless they share it with you.

I was talking to him yesterday about mission trips and he matter of factly mentioned he'd been to 20 different countries on mission trips since 1984. Several more than once. He told me he'd been to every country in Central America except Guatemala and when he saw info on our trip he signed up.

He came to me before devotion tonight and said he had a story he wanted to tell afterwards to the group if we had time. He said he'd been thinking about it after our conversation yesterday and he wanted to share it. I said sure.

What he told us, in very plain and often hilarious language was the story of how God led him to the mission field. I wish you could've heard it. I wish I could recount it word for word, but it's late. A summary won't do it full justice, but I'll try.

As a little boy he learned about the Amazon river and was fascinated by it, always hoping to go one day.He ran a service station and retired. He said he retired early in case he died early. He ran out of money and opened another service station. He heard about a mission trip to Brazil. He asked his wife if he could go. She said you don't have any money and no one to work the station for you. He said if I solve those two problems, can I go? She said yes.

A guy called him up and said I heard you want to go on a mission trip. I'll work two weeks for for free.

He went to his wife and said Honey I'm halfway to Brazil!

Then a guy called him up and asked him if he wanted to sell apiece of land that he owned. Wally came up with a figure that paid off the land and included the price of the mission trip. The guy said OK.

Wally went to his wife and said Honey I'm going to Brazil!

The next year he wanted to go on another and she said he couldn't afford it.

He said " Well, I have a wife I can't afford, 4 kids I can't afford, and a service station I can't afford. What's the difference?"

He went to the bank, borrowed the money , went on the trip and paid $125 a month to the bank for a year.

Then did it the same way the next year.

And the next.

Then the bank just gave him a credit card and told him to do it that way.

Borrowed money from the bank to go on a mission trip.

He learned Spanish for a trip to Colombia, S.A. only to have it cancelled due to political unrest. They asked him if he would go to France instead. He said "Do they speak Spanish there?"

And went.

That's just part of it. We really do find something deeper and more Godly about him every day.

I said earlier you'll probably never get the chance to meet him. I take that back. He gets around. It would not surprise me......

P.S. McCall purposefully left out the details of my "night in jail". It wasn't anything criminal. Ask me and I'll be glad to tell you about it.

Nice try, McCall.