Shortly after my father died in 1999, my mother, Margaret, asked me if I would mind if she left a five-figure sum to the Jesus Film Project in his honor.

At the time, my parents owned a small oil and gas company in West Virginia that–in its heyday–employed five people and delivered gas and diesel with two marginally reliable gas trucks. If I’m being honest, my gut reaction was, “What?!? Let someone else pay for this.” But mom was persistent, and the donation was made. That donation made it possible for thousands of people to hear the Gospel in the Lukpa language in Benin and Togo, West Africa.

Years later my mother shared with me that when she was six or seven growing up in Wells, Minnesota, she wanted to serve the Lord but was afraid that meant she had to become a missionary to do it. She prayed, “Oh Lord, I’ll do anything, but please don’t send me to Africa!” When telling me this story 50+ years after praying that prayer, just after receiving information about the impact of her donation, with a twinkle in her eye, she said, “It looks like the Lord sent me to Africa after all.”

Some of us are called to go. Others are called to fund the going. And in rarer cases still, God places an undeniable calling on a person’s life to both go and find ways to fund the going in a way that impacts hundreds of thousands for generations.

That is the kind of impact that World Hope International Founder, Dr. Jo Anne Lyon, has had around the world.

I was reminded of my mother’s story last week as I watched a video of Jo Anne talking about the calling placed on her life at the tender age of six. How Jo Anne went from being a pastor’s kid in Oklahoma to being elected as the first female General Superintendent of The Wesleyan Church while dedicating her life to spreading hope and fighting injustice around the globe is one that seems even too much for Hollywood. Talk about a legacy!

Jo Anne uses the book of Amos to explain the calling placed on her life at age 6: “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream.” (Amos 5:24, NIV). “Justice and righteousness. Together. Transformation. That’s the call I believe God placed on my heart and my life,” she says.

At the time Jo Anne’s parents were pastoring in Enid, Oklahoma, a segregated town. The woman who picked up their trash every Wednesday was African-American, and Jo Anne wanted to know more about her. Her father obliged, and one night he drove her to “Colored Town” as it was known at that time. “I will never forget that day. The pavement ended and the dirt road began,” Jo Anne says. That was her first introduction to segregation, and how society can separate the “haves” from the “have nots” based on skin color. “I knew something was wrong, but I just didn’t know what it was. I believe that was God’s call on my heart at six years old for justice.” 

As an ordained minister and pastor with her husband, Wayne, Jo Anne felt a restlessness to do more. A turning point in her life came when she was asked to accompany an ABC news team filming a documentary on the famine in Ethiopia in 1985. The famine claimed the lives of up to 500,000 people, including a woman who literally died of starvation at Jo Anne’s feet as she visited a feeding station.

On that trip, God moved on her heart, and Jo Anne wondered where all of the Christian volunteers were. She saw a majority of secular people and organizations there. “I kept thinking the ‘cup of cold water given in the name of Jesus is a different cup of cold water!’” She couldn’t help but wonder where was the church that is supposed to feed God’s people, care for the widows, adopt the orphans and mother the motherless.

She came home from that trip on fire with a passion and desire to do something. But she couldn’t find anyone in the greater church who shared that same level of passion. Jo Anne went about her life, pastoring a church in Warrenton, Missouri, with her husband Wayne.

But a God-given calling is not easy to ignore, and nine years later, with the burning desire to DO something still smoldering in her heart, she was assisted by Don Bray, the leader of Wesleyan World Missions, who helped her to give substance and shape to her vision.

That is how World Hope was launched in January 1996, with a headquarters “office” in her parsonage bedroom. In 2000, when the Lyons moved to Washington, DC, to lead another church, headquarters was moved to Alexandria, Virginia, where it is to this day. Twelve years after being the first CEO of World Hope, in 2008, this visionary leader was elected as the first female General Superintendent of The Wesleyan Church.

Do you ever wonder what legacy you will leave?

Some are called to be in ministry, or to be missionaries in far off lands. Some are called to be volunteers in local missions. Others are blessed with the resources to fund these critical missions. But all are called.

World Hope is so grateful, as we celebrate the 85th birthday this month of our founder, that Jo Anne answered her unique calling to fight for both justice and righteousness. Together. To go to Africa, and Cambodia, and the Philippines, and Haiti. And for taking us on that journey with her.