Frank also told of their helping the destitute. “Montreat is in
the rural southern Appalachian mountains. They would unhesi-
tatingly give and help the poor. They are very generous people.”
Billy described his own awakening to the needs of the
Appalachian poor. “One Christmas Eve a friend came to my house
and said, ‘Would you like to go out with me distributing Christ-
mas packages up in the mountains?’ I was glad to go. And I was
in for one of the greatest surprises of my life! I thought everybody
in our community had all the necessities of life. But I was taken
back into some little mountain valleys where people did not have
enough to wear, enough to eat, and could not even afford soap to
wash their bodies. Appalled and humbled, I asked God to forgive
me for neglecting the people in my own community.”
Disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker also testifies to the love of
Billy Graham and his family. Despite the fact that Bakker’s public
scandal, which involved sex, hush money, and defrauded
investors in a real estate scheme, had brought suspicion and scorn
on all evangelists, the Grahams maintained a friendship with
Bakker throughout his imprisonment and afterward.
Bakker recalls with appreciation the time that Ruth Graham
“took all of Billy’s Bibles in his library that he wasn’t using and
gave them to me to give to other inmates.” When he got out of
prison, the Grahams paid for a house for him to live in and pro-
vided him a car. And something more—confidence.
“The first Sunday out,” Bakker said, “Ruth Graham called
the halfway house I was living in at the Salvation Army and
asked permission for me to go to the Montreat Presbyterian
Church with her that Sunday morning. When I got there, the
pastor welcomed me and sat me with the Graham family. There
were like two whole rows of them—I think every Graham aunt
and uncle and cousin was there. The organ began playing and
the place was full, except for a seat next to me. Then the doors
opened and in walked Ruth Graham. She walked down that
aisle and sat next to inmate 07407–059. I had only been out of
prison forty-eight hours, but she told the world that morning
that Jim Bakker was her friend.
Leading with Love