Montgomery Baptist named Volunteer of the Year

When Bill Lambert retired in 1998, he planned to spend a lot of time getting to know his new custom-designed golf clubs. But that quickly changed after Lambert discovered a different course for his life — missions.
   
Now, after eight years, 28 international trips and countless hours spent on state and local missions, Lambert’s dedication has earned him the Volunteer of the Year Award from the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM).
   
“(Bill Lambert) is a living example of Acts 1:8,” the standard for the award, said Reggie Quimby, director of the SBOM office of global partnerships and volunteers in missions. 
   
Quimby presented Lambert, a member of First Baptist Church, Montgomery, with the award Nov. 14 during the Alabama Baptist State Convention annual meeting at Hunter Street Baptist Church, Hoover.
   
“I always get a blessing every time I take a trip,” Lambert said. “The feeling that you have done something for the Kingdom is a blessing.”
   
His humble spirit combined with a wide variety of missions work is what led Harold Hancock, minister of missions for First, Montgomery, to nominate Lambert for the honor.
   
Lambert’s service is not only “across the water somewhere, it’s across the street,” Hancock said, noting that Lambert is active in ministries around Montgomery and was active in rebuilding work on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
   
“He’s just an all-world Christian,” Hancock said. “He’s comfortable anywhere he goes and in whatever task he takes on.”
   
Jay Wolf, pastor of First, Montgomery, said Lambert’s dedication to missions is evident in his preparation for trips. Wolf recalled how for a trip to Mozambique to drill water wells, Lambert bought and installed a drill in his backyard and trained himself on it. 
   
He then shipped the drill to Mozambique and used it there to drill water wells for the Ndau people.
   
“Bill provides a motivational example of how retired people can use their resources to make an eternal difference when they become missions entrepreneurs,” Wolf said.
   
Ken May, director of missions for Montgomery Baptist Association, agreed. “Bill certainly epitomizes (missions involvement) and is a leader in that. I wish that other folks who have the opportunity could see his example and follow it.”
  
Lambert’s interest in missions was first whetted when he was stationed in Japan with the Air Force in the 1960s. He and his wife, Phyllis, traveled to sightsee in Korea and ended up staying with the Southern Baptist missionaries working there.
   
But Lambert did not follow up on that interest until after he retired, when he went on a missions trip to Mexico.
   
Since then, there’s been no stopping him. “God has given me the ability, even at my age, to work pretty hard and I enjoy doing it,” Lambert said.
   
One of his greatest joys is getting to know the people he is serving, especially the children. Through playing games and spending time with them, “you’re able to hopefully let them know what it means to have the love of Jesus in your heart.”
   
Lambert said he hopes the award’s spotlight on volunteer missions will encourage others to “lay down their golf clubs … and go.”
   
“I have a pretty simple philosophy of what God expects of us and what we should be about and doing,” he said. 
   
“It’s summed up in the Great Commandment that we are to love God and love our fellow man and the Great Commission to go in the world and proclaim the gospel.”