Jay Wolf likes to tell the golf club story when he talks about missions volunteer Bill Lambert.
Lambert — a member of First Baptist Church, Montgomery, where Wolf is pastor — retired in 1997. He immediately had a custom set of golf clubs made and expected to spend a few years learning to play golf. But it didn’t take long for him to realize he wasn’t really interested in golf.
One day at church Lambert heard a missions testimony that changed his perspective on retirement. Before long he took his first missions trip and looked for opportunities to serve. His work has helped bring clean drinking water, medical care and, most importantly, the love of Jesus to people around the world.
Lambert’s first missions trip was to Mexico in 1998. Since then he has completed 50 international missions trips. First, Montgomery, recognized Lambert’s milestone Oct. 12.
“Bill has become a missions entrepreneur in our church,” Wolf said. “He loves the Lord and he and his wife are models of what authentic Christianity looks like.”
Wolf said Lambert does not just talk about the Great Commission, he lives it. His life inspires and instructs, Wolf said.
“Many Baby Boomers have time and resources to spend on missions for Christ and Bill’s life shows how to do it,” Wolf said.
One of the projects closest to Lambert’s heart is improving access to clean water in impoverished communities. He first heard of Africa’s water needs when Tim Cearley, International Mission Board head strategy leader for Sub-Saharan Africa, then a Southern Baptist representative in Mozambique, spoke at First, Montgomery. Cearley mentioned he needed a water-drilling rig that would fit in the back of a truck. Church members bought a drill kit from a manufacturing company in Opelika and shipped it to Cearley. When Cearley needed volunteers to come to Africa and use the drill, Lambert committed to go.
He didn’t want to go unprepared, however.
“I didn’t want to get all the way to Africa and not know what I was doing,” Lambert said.
So he bought a drilling rig and tried it out on his farm. It was not a successful venture. The drill bit got stuck in the bottom of the hole. Lambert called the manufacturing company and asked them how to avoid the problem, which turned out to be a good call.
“When we were drilling in Africa we ran into the same problem, but I knew what to do and was able to get it unstuck,” Lambert said.
Wolf remembers the Mozambique missions experience as a turning point when the Jesus Film was shared.
“Bill was set up in the edge of a school soccer field with 300 to 400 people watching him. We were out doing evangelism, showing the Jesus Film for the first time in the Ndau language and lots of people were coming to Christ,” Wolf said.
It was after that trip that Lambert gave away the golf clubs and he has not stopped doing missions since, Wolf said.
Lambert returned from Mozambique with a desire to learn more about drilling wells. He trained with Living Water International, a faith-based nonprofit organization headquartered in Texas that helps provide safe drinking water in developing countries. Since then, he has drilled at least 14 wells, primarily in Central America. He also has helped set up simple and inexpensive water filtration systems in India and other developing countries. Lambert said he recognized that providing clean drinking water not only meets a need, it gets people interested.
But helping provide water is not all Lambert does. He also has helped build churches in Brazil and an orphanage in Malawi. He has assisted in famine and drought relief in Kenya. He went to Peru twice with one of his doctors to do medical and church planting work. Closer to home, he made 15 trips to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina devastated the region. At First, Montgomery, he teaches citizenship classes to international students in the conversational English ministry.
He never had an objective in mind other than helping where he could. He told his church family he wanted to be like Caleb in the Bible, still strong in his 80s. Now 76, he plans to continue working for the Lord as long as he can.
“I don’t think God planned for us to reach 65, quit work and not do for other people,” Lambert said. “In my opinion true joy in life doesn’t come from things that we do for ourselves but from what we do for others.”
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