ASHLAND — Billy Graham’s grandson challenged hundreds gathered Thursday for the annual Ashland Community Prayer Breakfast to rethink their callings in life.
Edward Graham, a U.S. Army veteran who works in leadership at Samaritan’s Purse — a Christian humanitarian relief organization — addressed 677 people gathered during the Ashland Community Prayer Breakfast held annually on May 1 at Ashland University’s convocation center.
The date marks the National Day of Prayer, an annual event observed by some to pray for governmental and other service-oriented officials.
Leaders from the faith-based community in Ashland took turns Thursday morning to pray for various figureheads in local government, school districts, law enforcement and social service agencies.
‘Jesus is the rock’
But before those prayers happened, Graham shared some anecdotes from his life. He now works as the chief operating officer of Samaritan’s Purse. His dad, Franklin Graham, serves as the organization’s president and CEO.
He credits his mom, Jane Graham, for leading him to Jesus. But he didn’t follow in the family’s ministerial steps. Instead, he joined the military, graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point.
He served 16 years in the Army, during which he went on eight tours overseas. They were all combat oriented, he said.
During one such tour, he recalled a skirmish. As an officer of the unit, his responsibility was to ensure mortar weapons were oriented accurately. During the heat of battle, a comrade asked him, “Is the base plate settled?”
Ensuring the weapon’s base plate was secure was an important task, he said. Other friendly soldiers could die or get wounded if it was not.
He related the anecdote to a passage in the Bible, where Jesus told his disciples, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
Graham said, “Well, Jesus is the rock.”
With that, he encouraged everyone in attendance — mayors, commissioners, state representatives, educators, veterans — to rethink their vocational responsibilities.
“My calling was not to be an Army Ranger, my calling is not to be the COO of Samaritan’s Purse. Our calling is to be evangelists,” he said.
John Bouquet, lead pastor at Bethel Chapel in Savannah and the Ashland County Ministerial Association’s chairman for the annual prayer breakfast, said there are 119 churches around the county.
“That’s a lot of churches for our county,” he said. He added area churches spend time exchanging members instead of reaching the ones who are unchurched.
Bouquet said that’s why each table had cards on them — to foster outreach and to pray for others. He encouraged everyone to fill them out and vowed to pray over each request.
The National Day of Prayer is observed annually on the first day of May. It was officially established in 1952 by President Harry S. Truman, making it an annual event.
Past events in Ashland have featured well-known speakers, such as a controversial pastor from Canada, a member from the famous Duck Dynasty family and others.
