As a wife and mother of two, Lee Pitts tries to follow the example of Bob and Betty DeLoach, the foster parents she was placed with as a teenager through the Alabama Baptist Children’s Homes & Family Ministries.
Ever since birth, Pitts has been a miracle. The only survivor of a set of twins, she was given her last rites at birth and was not expected to live. “More and more, I’m convinced God had his hand on me before I was born,” Pitts said.
Growing up as a child, Pitts suffered through a difficult home life. Sleeping with a butcher knife under her pillow for protection, she felt nasty, dirty and even contemplated suicide at one time, she said. The house trailer she lived in from ages 3-12 had no hot water or heat.
At age 12, however, a group of church members, wading through tall grass to get to her home, invited Pitts to their church. She began attending regularly and at Vacation Bible School accepted Jesus Christ to come into her life.
“This was my hope, my lifeline that kept me going,” she said. “When I got saved, I knew I had to get out of my situation at home.” It was at the age of 15 that her life took another turn for the better, when she was invited into the DeLoach home for the first time. DeLoach, youth minister at Marble City Baptist Church, asked Pitts to invite youth to choir and allowed Pitts to use his telephone because she did not have one.
“I can remember walking into their home and feeling like it was a mansion,” said Pitts. “I had to eat in the other room because I was so shy. I was 15, had never used a telephone and was embarrassed that I didn’t know how. [Betty] coached me through each conversation.”
Soon after that visit to the DeLoach home, Pitts became their foster child. She could hardly speak, read or write adequately and was having trouble with her schoolwork. Mrs. DeLoach tutored Pitts to eventually state earning all As.
“She showed me qualities of a caring and godly mother,” said Pitts. “She also showed me how a wife should be a good helpmate to her husband, and how a wife should let her husband be the spiritual leader of the home.”
Pitts and her foster mom had a mutual passion for ventriloquism, and that common interest influenced Pitts to become the professional puppeteer she is today. Mrs. DeLoach would encourage the shy teenager to stand in front of a mirror for 30 minutes a day and practice.
When Pitts and her foster family moved to LaGrange, Ga., she performed with her puppet Nicky, who she calls “God’s little talking tree,” for the first time.
Pitts accepted God’s call to vocational ministry at a revival during her freshman year at Judson College in Marion.
She later graduated from Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, with a master of arts degree in religious education.
Through her ventriloquism, Pitts has seen thousands of children give their lives to the Lord. In each service she conducts, she challenges families to get back to the basics.
“One of the treasures I cherish is when parents join their children at the altar and dedicated their families to the Lord,” said Pitts, who will show her gratitude for the Children’s Homes by bringing her ventriloquism to summer camps for children and youth under the ministry’s care in June.
“Satan is destroying our homes,” she said. “I challenge parents to be the kids’ heroes and to pray for the kids. I challenge the families to go to the altar and pray together.
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