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| Serving Callaway County communities since 1875. | www.fultonsun.com | Sunday, July 05, 2009 |
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Ninety-one mission trips and counting By JON HETZEL The Fulton Sun
The former minor league umpire turned missionary to the nations was embarking on his first international evangelical trip in 1960. As Rogers exited a Pan Am Air plane, Cuban soldiers leveled their weapons and arrested him. Only Rogers and an accompanying bishop were on the flight. “I think they thought I was a CIA agent,” said the pastor of Fulton's Church of God on Wednesday. “They drove me around all over Havana for about three hours.” Rogers answered the interrogator's questions from the front of a taxi cab until the Cuban official mentioned baseball. Rogers mentioned that he used to play the sport with a Cuban catcher known as Valdez. “I have a good friend over here - Valdez, a famous catcher,” Rogers said. “We broke into the leagues together, and I used to throw him out of ball games.” The agent and Rogers began to talk about baseball, and before the preacher knew it, the taxi had stopped and let him out at his hotel. Now, at the age of 83, Rogers is setting out Monday on another mission trip to Tanzania, East Africa. This will be his 91st evangelical excursion. The last time Rogers visited Tanzania, he contracted malaria and remained unconscious for five days. This year, Rogers is ready. He said he is taking special medication with him. While on his travels, the preacher said he has encountered four wars, a typhoon, a hurricane, 10 floods and four minor earthquakes. He has witnessed to foreign troops, spoken in football stadiums, slept in mud huts and faced poisonous jungle snakes. All of this to help take the Gospel of Christ to the ends of the earth. “That's the only thing driving me,” Rogers said. “I heard the voice of God very plain. ... He said, ‘I have looked over the nations and decided on you.' I didn't understand it at the time.” In fact, in his book, “The Country Boy that God Called to the Nations,” Rogers recounts that he lived a troubled life before his conversion: Gambling, drinking, fighting. However, once God turned his life around, he gave up his worldly pleasures to introduce people to Jesus. One of his central goals is to meet with political leaders to talk about immoral governmental systems. “I preach a little different than most preachers,” Rogers said. “I'm preaching a great spiritual resurrection, a (spiritual) revival among the political systems. ... I talk straight with the leaders and say, ‘You're going to answer to God for the way you govern and how you handle God's money.' “Then I look straight at them and say that every political leader has failed if he did not know God or follow his standards,” Rogers concluded. Rogers said he is unashamed to speak the truth, and when he heads to Tanzania for a few weeks, he plans to visit some schools, a district commissioner and possibly other governmental officials. Although he did not complete high school or go to a Bible college, Rogers has been living the life of a preacher for more than 50 years. He does not know if or when he will make his 100th missionary trip, simply stating that it is in God's hands. “I'll keep doing this just as long as God leaves me here,” Rogers said. “I'll never quit.” |
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