Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 20, 1994 TAG: 9411220009
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BOONE, N.C. LENGTH: Long
"Yes, sometimes we come in just a few feet off the road," Franklin Graham acknowledges with a broad smile.
Plopping an airplane down onto the short valley runway is an exacting, exciting kind of flying. The kind that seems to suit Graham, the 42-year-old frequent-flying president of Samaritan's Purse, just fine.
As a teen-ager, Graham's inclination to do the unconventional - if not downright risky - led him to drink and smoke and Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
As an adult, he's still taking risks, but today they draw him to places such as Bosnia and Rwanda and Haiti, facing down danger in an effort to provide food and medicine to some of the world's most needy.
While his parents no doubt still worry when he's traveling to the world's hot spots, at least they are no longer concerned that he's taking the road to hell to get there.
And while no one is picking a successor just yet, Franklin Graham is widely considered the front-runner and logical choice to follow his father one day as head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
For the past five years, Franklin Graham has been accumulating preaching experience, conducting eight to 10 evangelistic crusades a year. He usually shares the pulpit with fellow evangelist John Wesley White, and the events are organized under the auspices of the Billy Graham association.
Franklin Graham's most recent crusade was in Hampton earlier this month. In Raleigh in September, he preached his first solo crusade and his first in his home state.
Speculation was rampant there that Billy Graham, who appeared on the platform with his son on the final night, was ready to anoint Franklin. It didn't happen, and Franklin seems comfortable with the mystery about his future.
"I don't need a job. In a way I'm glad I don't work for him, and I think he likes that relationship. He knows I don't need a job, so when I tell him something, he knows it's from my heart, not because I want to get something from him.
"If I went to the Billy Graham Association, I'd not be gaining anything except more headaches.
"I think Daddy could preach, easily, for another five years. If the Mayo Clinic and his doctors can keep his medicine right," controlling the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, "he could go on longer than that."
Still, asked if a merger of Samaritan's Purse with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association would be a reasonable future scenario, Graham said, "It very well could happen."
Already Franklin Graham serves on the board of his father's association and is active in its decision-making.
"But Samaritan's Purse is not Franklin Graham. And the Billy Graham association is not Billy Graham. Boards of real men and women make the final decisions on things like that.
"I have a sense that my father would be happy with something like" a merger of the two organizations, but there is no telling what will happen "until the day comes" when a decision has to be made.
For now, Franklin's hands are full with the occasional crusades and heading up Samaritan's Purse and its medical arm, World Medical Mission.
On Nov. 10, two biomedical technicians completed a mission to Haiti, where they had accompanied an Air Force airlift of supplies from World Medical Mission.
Boxes and crates of dressings, sutures, antibiotics, IV fluids and other equipment were bundled up for shipment from the offices in Boone.
Samaritan's Purse and World Medical Mission have helped victims of war and natural disaster from St. Louis to Somalia.
Getting food and medicine to the people of civil war-torn Rwanda is one of the more dramatic settings. Graham's organizations got access to the country in May by negotiating with the rebel army there and figured they had enough money to stay four or five weeks, Graham said.
They are still there, feeding 400 to 500 children a day, down from a high of 2,000 a couple of months ago. The government gave them for their headquarters a house where 11 people had been killed, on the condition they bury the bodies that had been decomposing for a couple of months.
The death toll in the country has been staggering - between 500,000 and 1 million people between April and July. It is a pace of death, Graham pointed out, that even Adolf Hitler didn't equal.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, the Rwandans "are very receptive to the Gospel," Graham said.
"We never force ourselves on anybody. I believe in giving the best we can give and letting the people know who we represent: Jesus Christ. We love them and we tell them about God's love."
Graham also says he doesn't want to pressure anyone to donate money to his organization. While his agencies do air some self-produced radio and television spots soliciting donations, most appeals are low-key, such as a brief mention at Graham's crusades.
"I don't ever want to twist anybody's arm to give money." Graham himself doesn't take any money from the crusades he preaches, but he does pass out information on the organizations he presides over.
"I believe we should present the needs of God's people to God's people" and trust them to provide for them.
To that end, Graham has appeared frequently as a guest on talk shows as diverse as Pat Robertson's "700 Club" and ABC's "Good Morning, America," Jim Bakker's "PTL Club" and "Larry King Live."
Those appearances may not produce a lot of direct donors, but they have given Graham's agencies name recognition and the ability to double in growth in the past three years to an annual budget of $10 million.
Despite the growth, the needs outstrip the ability of Samaritan's Purse and World Medical Mission to meet them. And no matter how large the agencies grow, they are unlikely to be able to meet every need, Graham concedes.
The workers know that in many places where they feed children and heal their wounded parents, famine or war or both are likely to create a need for their services again in a year or two or five.
That's when they look at the long term.
"The real question is, `Where will they spend eternity?' As a Christian, I want people to know God and his son Jesus Christ. ... I want to give them the best food and the best clothes that we can for as long as we can, but I also want to introduce them to God's son.
"For me as a Christian, I see this as an opportunity to get right in the middle of these famines and wars and plant the flag of the church of Jesus Christ.
"We're not going to let the forces of evil run this world. We will show compassion and love; bring healing to broken bodies. If we help one person, we will have done something."
by CNB