February 16, 2003, is a day Harold Adair will never forget. The then 67-year-old grandfather had to fight to stay in his seat. But when the altar call was issued, not one person in the sanctuary of Walkers Chapel Baptist Church, Fultondale, could have held him back.
“I cried all during the service,” Adair said. “I couldn’t wait to get there.”
That day, he became a Christian. But his journey to Christ started long before then.
In 1994, Adair was told he needed open-heart surgery. “I was scared,” he said, admitting he didn’t know where he would wind up if he died. “I was really happy when I woke up.”
Following the surgery, Adair was told by doctors to walk each day. So every morning, he strolled down the driveway. And one morning, he found a Bible by the dumpster.
“It was like it was waiting for me,” Adair said.
Though there were plenty of Bibles in Adair’s home and his wife was a Christian, he hid the English Standard Version Bible from her, and from 1994 to 1997, he read it each morning when she would leave to go to work. “Some mornings, I would have to go to work and I didn’t want to put it down,” he said.
In 1997, medical problems forced Adair to close his business.
“I know I floored my wife,” he said. “I told her I was going to go to church after I retired.”
From 1997 to that February day in 2003, Adair went to Walkers Chapel Baptist every Sunday morning, every Sunday night and every Wednesday night. But he never could get up to that altar.
Something changed Feb. 16 though. Adair could barely hold himself back.
As he was singing “Standing on the Promises” during the Sunday morning service, God spoke to Adair. With all eyes on him, he walked to answer God’s call.
Since that day, Adair hasn’t slowed down in serving the Lord. He’s a Sunday School teacher, the men’s ministry director and a member of the usher committee. He helps out with Royal Ambassadors and is the Discipleship Training director. He goes door to door in his community telling his neighbors about Christ, visits the sick and homebound all day on Wednesdays and is devoted to going on an international missions trip once a year until the day he dies.
“He is one of the most on fire Christians I know,” Dan Nichols, pastor of Walkers Chapel Baptist, said of Adair. “He has been one of the most dynamic men in the church. His testimony has resonated throughout this community.”
And it has had a profound influence on his pastor.
“Every so often in a pastor’s life, someone comes through,” Nichols said. “Everybody leaves a footprint; others walk a path through your life. Harold has walked a path through my life, and I am forever a better man because of him.”
Adair said his life has changed for the better since he became a Christian.
“I’m living the best life that I have ever lived,” he said.
And growing closer to the Lord.
In July, Adair, along with a team of members of Deerfoot Baptist Church, Trussville, traveled to Romania to help build chapels for the fourth year in a row.
“This last Romanian trip I went on, I got close to the Lord,” he said. “God showed me it isn’t anything about Harold Adair, it is about God.”
Adair said he is going to use the time he has to share about how God has changed his life.
“I missed out on work I could have done for Him. I’ve been blessed my whole life. He has taken care of this old fool,” Adair said. “He didn’t give up on me, so I’m not giving up on Him. I want do what He wants me to do.”
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