We all know there are people who love to condemn the church, saying it’s “full of hypocrites” and that kind of thing. There’s even more scorn for old-fashioned denominations such as the SBC. But I’ve seen how these crises become the church’s finest hour, again and again. And the cooperation of Baptist churches makes immense generosity available. God moves the hearts of his people, and they rise to the occasion, showing sacrificial love and compassion. Kandi and I were soon to experience this ourselves.
It was good to see Rob and Annabeth Wilton again. Rob is a Southern, African-American Cajun, by his own description—a unique guy. His mom and dad are from South Africa but came to New Orleans for seminary. Rob, his brother Greg, and his sister Shelley, were all born on the New Orleans Seminary campus. Then he spent his high school and college years in South Carolina, when his dad became the pastor of First Baptist Spartanburg.
Like me, he was a college basketball player. He and I worked with MissionLab and prayed together in the Out of Range group. God has extended his range since then through an opportunity to be an NFL chaplain for the Saints, as well as preaching all over the world. Rob planted Vintage Church in New Orleans in 2008, bringing a new ray of hope to a city trying to rise again from the floodwaters. He was one of the few who went back.
One other thing—Rob’s dad, Don Wilton, was Billy Graham’s pastor for the last two decades of Dr. Graham’s life. In retirement, Dr. Graham joined Don’s church even though he lived more than an hour up the road near Asheville, North Carolina. He respected Rob’s dad that much, and looked to him for counsel and encouragement during his final hours.
When we arrived in Spartanburg, the Wiltons received us with open arms. I honestly don’t know what we’d have done otherwise, but this episode was clearly a key piece in God’s plan for us all along. It was his way of finally showing me the range of ministry he had set out for me.
Kandi and I settled in to a small trailer the church made available, and Dr. Wilton immediately let us know he was going to put us to work at First Baptist. I was all for that. He knew we needed to be busy, and in particular, busy with ministry. What we didn’t need was to brood over what we’d lost and why God had chosen such a perplexing way to respond to our prayers.
There was also an immediate question to address. Two months after Katrina, in October of that year, Rob and I had scheduled a mission trip to Indonesia with David Platt, my first overseas mission trip. I’d really looked forward to it—one of my first true mission experiences—but now I couldn’t imagine such a thing. I told Kandi, “I’m pretty sure I need to pull out of that trip. It just seems wrong to leave you here in Spartanburg, when we’ve both lost so much. We need to be together right now, don’t you think?”
Kandi didn’t hesitate to vote me down. She’s the most supportive wife and ministry partner imaginable, but she won’t hesitate to give me her honest take. “Robby, this is a trip God planned,” she said. “He knew the hurricane would come, but he called you to that mission. So I don’t think you should back out of it.”
I prayed about the trip and came to the conclusion that she was right, especially since she assured me she would be fine in Spartanburg. I had to believe God opened the door for the mission trip, and he would close it if he had other plans for me. David, Rob, and I traveled on to Indonesia, and to this day, I’m so grateful we made that trip and I didn’t miss an important spiritual marker in my life.
Crisis times tend to focus us inward. We become absorbed in our own problems and changing plans. It’s healthy to break out of all that and get involved and visit the front lines of kingdom work. This whole episode of my life was about learning to depend upon God and his providence—this was a perspective-changing moment.
Our task was to teach in a Christian seminary. Indonesia is a fascinating place. It holds the fourth largest population group in the world, the largest Muslim population in the world, and it’s made up of 17,000 islands that stretch across an area wider than the United States. With all of that, the gospel is on the move in that country. As you visit God’s people there, you can sense the intensity that’s in the air when God’s Spirit is moving.
But it wasn’t exactly the calmest place to visit after our storm. Muslims were on the move as much as the gospel was. There was violence in the air. Indonesia has 267 million people, 88 percent of them Muslim.3
That’s a lot of radicalized people, and a Christian seminary is an obvious target.
Huge, eager crowds showed up to listen to us speak. The local people were thrilled to hear from their American visitors. They came by bus, by motorcycle, and by foot, many walking great distances. They came through danger and strife, and as we spoke, every eye was on us. Every ear was tuned in to our words. Everyone who teaches or preaches loves to have an audience that is one hundred percent attentive. This was what it looked like when people were famished for sound teaching and the solid meat of God’s Word.
As we finished our teaching segment, I turned to Rob and said, “They’ve heard what we have to say—now, if it’s okay, I’d like to hear what they have to say.”
We explained that it would be our deep privilege to hear their personal stories, and we turned the microphone
