For many, retirement brings leisure. It’s a time to kick up one’s feet and rest after all the years of hard work. Retirement was not like that for Grady Fuller.
After his retirement from teaching history at the collegiate level in 1987, the Russellville native became active in the Gideon International ministry. It was after he gave his Gideon’s report to a rural church that he “felt the call of Acts 1:8 as plain as day,” and began missions work shortly after.
Since that call Fuller has participated in building projects, disaster relief, evangelism, Gideon ministry, medical relief efforts and school and orphanage founding all over the world. Countries he has served include Argentina, Ghana, China, Ukraine, India, Guam, Australia, South Africa, Taiwan, Venezuela, Brazil, Thailand, England, Haiti, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Uganda and the Philippines.
The only time Fuller has ever turned down an opportunity to go on a missions trip was a 1997 trip to Indonesia. Fuller said that decision “will trouble me for as long as I live.”
Fuller also has had an orphanage named after him in Andhra Pradesh, India, because he gave the first donation for the building.
In the Unites States, Fuller has helped build churches in Maryland, Wyoming, Illinois, Indiana, Texas and Wisconsin through the Franklin County Baptist Builders Association.
Fuller, who is now 92, has received recognition from the International Mission Board and from his home church, First Baptist Church, Russellville, for his numerous short-term missions trips. With the help of his wife of 58 years, Martha, Fuller has compiled accounts of his missions work into a book titled, “The Power of God in My Life.”
He and Martha have four children and seven grandchildren.
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