I don't know about that, but my Dad gave his life to them, especially the less advantaged kids. He would drive out into the boondocks and bring kids into Sunday School, and again to the MYF meetings. He spent nearly every day calling an various members of his constituents, or on families that needed his care.
In one instance, he had to threaten to beat the tar out of one fellow who, had the habit of spending his time over on the Mahogany Ridge, then go home and beat up his wife and kids. Dad really meant it, having been a farm boy and athlete, huge hands from many early years of hand-milking cows. He put a fear of God and his wrath into that fellow, who knew it and quit, cold, and never did that again.
Not long after, his oldest son showed up to see Dad, and vowed to become a missionary. That fourteen-year-old boy did genuinely follow through, graduated from college and seminary, was ordained, and was sent to Central Africa for many years, until he and family had to flee for their lives.
God worked a curious miracle in that family, including that many years later, my life a wreckage, I had moved back to the area, and it happened that the missionary's younger brother crossed my path. Himself having been a reprobate, but saved from a bad life, he was given the occasion, a Providential appointment, to confront me and lead me to the Cross. Haven't seen him since.
Not by my Dad's convincement and prayers for me did I come to grips with my state, but by one of the products of the Bible seed faithfully and diligently sown by my father in this man's life when he was but a lad. Just amazing. God is everywhere, sees the future, and uses it to make His Presence known. So my Dad did reap the fruit of the results of his planting as well as his cultivating, in the salvation of his own son.
Hard to believe, eh?
I cannot praise The LORD enough for His benificence to me from many avenues of seeking and saving the lost. How marvelous and mysterious the way our lives are woven together in a tapestry that proclaims His Glory and His Son's Name forever!
Your dad reminds me of mine. He was a minister, and over the 50 years he was in the ministry, probably 20 or 25 of the kids in his youth groups went on to either the mission field or pastorates in the U.S.
Thank you for telling this, brought a tear to my eye... thank you for posting and yes, may our lives be to His Glory and in His Son’t name forever! GBU and yours.
HIS ways are mysterious!