FBC Russellville senior adult distributes Bibles worldwide

Can God call senior adults into ministry? Russellville’s Grady Fuller says absolutely.
   
Now 81 years old, Fuller heard his call at age 73 to deliver Bibles internationally to people in need. And while many people thought it unwise that he travel to dangerous places, Fuller simply relied on Jeremiah 33:3, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show you great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.”
   
Fuller, a member of First Baptist Church, Russellville, has worked nonstop for eight years, and he has traveled to Australia, India, Guam, Japan, Ukraine, South Africa, China, Ghana, Venezuela and Argentina to distribute Bibles to some of the poorest communities of the world.
   
His worldwide travels began in 1995 when he went to Argentina for Gideons International. He was expecting to be distributing Bibles at a revival, but was thrust into the role of evangelist.
   
“Because the other evangelist never showed up, the men at the revival told me I would need to be the evangelist,” he said. “I told them I was not a preacher but just a Gideon, and they all said they were happy with that.”
   
Fuller preached the revival where 95 people accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior.
During another trip to Venezuela, Fuller helped a group of missionaries construct a hospital. Gary Clayton, a Southern Baptist missionary to Venezuela, wrote in a report about the “Venezuela-Alabama Partnership” that Fuller was an inspiration to everyone at the construction site.
   
“There was a man [Fuller] on one of the teams who was 81 years old and had a pacemaker, yet he carried cement in the wheelbarrow and moved cement blocks. … He was an inspiration to me with his willingness to work,” Clayton said.
   
Gene Balding, pastor of First, Russellville, said Fuller reminded him of Caleb in the Bible. Caleb asked God to give him a mountain, Balding said.
   
“Fuller is going out into the world, preaching the gospel and claiming that ‘mountain’ for God.”
“He is an inspiration for every senior adult who is a couch potato. He is proving that anyone can do things for God no matter what age you are.”
   
At a Gideons conference in Nashville in 1997, Fuller met Sudhakara Rao, a Church of Christ minister from India, who was responsible for making Fuller well known in India before he even went there.
   
Fuller became a member of the Indian Bible Society based in Bangalore, India.
   
After Fuller made four trips to India, giving some of his money to the communities to purchase Bibles and sharing the love of Christ with the people, a community in Anakapalle decided to name an orphanage after Fuller.
   
The Grady Fuller’s Home for Neglected Children now serves as a beacon of hope to children in need of love and care.
   
Fuller travels alone much of the time when he visits other countries, and he said he prefers to live among residents because he is able to build relationships with the community.
   
Fuller has lived among and ministered to the people of Ghana on five trips. During one of his trips to Apewosika, Ghana, he helped lead  a man named John Awiah, a practicing member of the voodoo religion, to faith in Christ.
    
Awiah’s wife, who had became a Christian earlier, had told Awaiah about a dream she had where a white man came to their house, handed him a Bible, he received it, and as a result accepted Christ.
   
Awiah dismissed his wife’s dream, but when Fuller came to his house, Awiah believed and accepted Christ.
   
“I ran across John’s pastor six years later, and his pastor told me that John had led more people to Christ in six years than anyone else in the church,” Fuller said.
   
“People in the community saw that if God wants to change a man like John, then they should accept Christ as well.”
   
Fuller said he will continue traveling back to India, Ghana or any other country the Lord wants him to go to share the gospel.