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for making additional contributions to the Malaria Intervention Fund ($350) and the Global Food Crisis Fund ($50).
Two more. Three to go.
Read all the posts in the Wess Speaks series.
My very earliest memory is from when I was about five. I don’t know why our earliest memories are usually frightening ones, but I remember getting caught in a barbed wire fence when I was five years old. I still have the scar from that. I was totally trapped like an animal – the more I pulled, the more I tore myself apart. That’s my very earliest memory.
My second earliest memory is the S.S. United States – the ship that took us to Africa when I was five years old. It was on its second voyage. It had crossed, like the Titanic, from England to New York and we were on the return trip. The reason that memory is so emblazoned in my mind is because we went through a horrible storm. Turned out it was the worst storm that the captain of the ship had seen on the Atlantic in 30 years.
I remember looking at the waves way above the top of the ship. They would go down and the ship would just leap out of the water – the exposed propeller would rattle the whole ship. One minute we were going uphill because the ship was almost straight up, and the next minute we were running downhill.
My dad and the captain were the only two who didn’t get seasick. (My dad had just gotten out of the Navy.) But it was so bad that I remember one time at the dining room table, in one wave everything on the table slid right into my dad’s lap. We even strapped ourselves into our beds at night.
And for some reason (stupid little boy that I was!), I got outside and managed to climb up on the railing. I was hanging onto the railing as we were rising and falling in the storm. My mom came and grabbed me, otherwise, I could have gone overboard.
My wife knows full well that she’s raised three children – two daughters and me. Because even though I’m all grown up now, 58 years old, I am still a child at heart. I still love to have fun. I am anything but a workaholic. I work really, really hard, but when I am not working, I am really not working.
So anything outdoors, I am all over it. I love to fish, especially in the ocean. I love to hunt. I love camping. I love hiking.
I don’t love golf. I used to caddy, and I know how to play golf, but I play it so poorly that all it does is make me mad.
I live on a little ranch with a lot of Ponderosa Pines, so I love clearing brush and chopping trees.
I play some sports. Every Friday that I’m in the office, I play racquetball with a bunch of guys.
I love riding a motorcycle. I would love to get a Harley someday, but I don’t have that kind of money. At least the motorcycle I do have – a Honda Magna 65 – has a big enough engine that nothing passes me up!
We recently gave you the opportunity ask our president, Wess, any questions you like. We’re publishing his transcribed answers one day at a time. Well, today is special. You get two.
At one time I fully thought I was going to go into journalism. I have a master’s degree in international broadcasting, and I would have enjoyed going into journalism with a heart to do good – to have been a television anchor or a radio personality that honored heroes. The closest I ever come to using that part of my formal schooling is when I do the radio program, Speak Up With Compassion. But that’s about the only thing I can imagine myself doing.
I also could have happily gone back to the mission field where I grew up, but I guess that would be “work in the ministry field” so that won’t work for this question. It’s just hard for me to not think that way.
I don’t even know where to begin. God has had his hand on Compassion’s ministry for 56 years and I’ve seen 31 of those years. I’ve been able to shepherd this organization for 15 of those years.
I’m overwhelmed by the blessings on the place. I rejoice that there are 4,500 churches across the world that have been able to be salt and light in the midst of really poverty-stricken communities. And I really get a kick out of the fact that we add two churches — with 200 or 300 children each — every day of the year. I get up in the morning and get a cup of coffee, light a fire in the fireplace, and I pray for those two churches wherever they are in the world. I think Lord, I don’t know where they are but let them get off to a good start. Let them be a blessing to their community.
My greatest joy is that this year over 150,000 of Compassion’s little children will accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. That doesn’t happen just because of Compassion … that happens because of the churches where these children are being blessed. It’s at the knee of their pastor or in the Sunday School class under the mango tree. That’s 477 children every day! (But who’s counting?)
The blessings are absolutely overwhelming. Maybe people don’t know this, but this is a 56-year-old organization that has doubled in size in the last four years. That’s amazing! This year’s budget is 54 million dollars bigger than last year’s budget, and that’s in this economy where “nothing” is going right. Amazing! God has chosen to bless us in spite of the circumstances in which we try to work.
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