Alabama ventriloquist celebrates 25 years of ministry

Alabama ventriloquist celebrates 25 years of ministry

As a child, Lee Pitts suffered unimaginable abuse. As a teen, she found Christ and a family that loved her. She also found a hobby that would become her lifelong ministry. 
   
Pitts, who began doing ventriloquism as a senior in high school, recently celebrated the 25-year anniversary of when she turned that hobby into an outreach — Lee Pitts Ministries — as a freshman at Judson College.
   
Her ministry’s longevity, she said, is a result of the work God did in her heart. “God delivered me from bitterness, anger and not being able to forgive,” Pitts said. “I have reconciled with my mom, and she has come to know the Lord. God is an awesome God. Even if life is tattered and torn, He can pick up the pieces of a family and build it back — I know.”
   
As a child, Pitts grew up in a tough home situation, suffering a great deal of abuse that began at age 7. There was no refuge at home, but she soon found refuge elsewhere.
   
“I’m glad someone was willing to wade through weeds to knock on the door of an old trailer to ask me to ride a church bus on Sunday morning,” said Pitts, who attended Chestnut Creek Baptist Church, Verbena, as a child. “I went Sunday after Sunday, and at 12 years old at Vacation Bible School, I learned about God’s love for me, and I asked Jesus to save me.” 
   
At age 15, Pitts’ home life changed drastically when she moved in with foster parents Bob and Betty DeLoach. Bob DeLoach was serving as the music and youth minister at Marble City Baptist Church, Sylacauga.
   
Pitts said adjusting to a new kind of family life was difficult.
   
“When I first came to live with the DeLoaches, my life was so torn apart I couldn’t even sit down and eat dinner with them at the table; I would just go into another room. I could hardly read or write or speak properly. I was 15 and I’d never used a telephone,” she said.
   
Pitts said the DeLoach family showed her what love was and believed in her when she couldn’t believe in herself. “They taught me that God ‘doesn’t make no junk.’ They really worked to boost my self-image and tell me how much God cared for me,” she said.
   
While adjusting to this new life, Pitts became intrigued with four girls at Marble City Baptist who did ventriloquism. Pitts’ foster parents took the 115 students in the youth ministry out every weekend to hold one-night evangelistic services, using music, puppets, drama and ventriloquism.
   
Betty DeLoach was the director for the puppet and ventriloquism ministry, and although Pitts was very shy, DeLoach drew her into becoming involved with the church’s puppet ministry.
   
“She (Betty DeLoach) made us all practice one hour a day to master our puppet’s voice,” Pitts said.
   
For more than a year, behind closed doors, Pitts developed the voice that would later become the voice of her ministry partner, Nicky. 
   
“When we moved to La Grange, Ga., more than a year later, my dad brought home a dummy he had found at the church. I told my parents, ‘Look what I can do,’ and I shared the voice I’d been practicing. I sang ‘I am a Promise,’ that old Bill and Gloria Gaither song,” Pitts said. 
   
Thus Nicky was born. Ever since, Pitts and Nicky have been traveling, sharing stories of God’s love. A product of Alabama Baptist Children’s Homes & Family Ministries and then Georgia Baptist Children’s Homes and Family Ministries, some of Pitts’ first performances were at area children’s homes. 
   
The duo’s travels grew to include nursing homes, schools, conferences and soon became a national and international ministry, visiting Australia and the Philippines. Along the way, Nicky was joined by his twin sister, Nicole, and little sister, Susie.
   
Evangelist Keith Fordham, former president of the Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists, first met Pitts when he invited her to an event at his home church. “I had heard of her and had her come for a special weekend I was hosting at Harp’s Crossing Baptist in Fayetteville, Georgia,” Fordham said. “My kids fell in love with her.”
   
He said Pitts’ ministry is unique and reaches all groups of people. “She’s great in children’s meetings using ventriloquism, but her testimony is so strong of how she was mistreated and God turned her life around. She has a special ministry to women and girls but really just to the whole family,” Fordham said.
   
While Pitts continues to work with children’s camps and Vacation Bible Schools, she said her main focus is now on families.
   
“I want to challenge families to put God back as first in their lives. I have been on both sides of the fence, where God was not a part and then where He was. I know how having Christ as the foundation of the home makes a drastic difference,” Pitts said.
   
Fordham, who has spent 30 years in full-time evangelism work, said Pitts’ commitment to her ministry is commendable. “It’s amazing that anybody would stay in this kind of ministry for that long. Ninety-eight out of every 100 people will be out of evangelism within 18 months of starting. For her to have lasted that long speaks well of her,” he said.
   
Pitts is married to Larry Spooner, and they will soon celebrate their 12-year anniversary. They have two children — Jonathan, 8, and Joanna, 5.