Dispatch Africa 2013:

I mention him enough, so I thought I’d give you some of my keen insights.  I promise that everything I am about to say is the truth, honest injun’.  The right reverend apostle and prophet, Dr. Stuart L. Sheehan, is president of World Hope Ministries International and Executive Director of its Bible Institute.  Every bit the scholar, leader, and legend, when he is on the mission field, he works like an ordnance reloader in a fighting battleship turret.  He never comes up for air.  He is as skillful in debate as he is with a fiddle under his chin.  He thinks with both sides of his brain.  He can woo the hardest heart with the most delicate winsome bravado.  In a breath, he can drop a ranging impala at 350 yards, without mussing his fabulous hair.  He’s got real moxie.

I am his proud, erstwhile, and trusty companion; sort of like Trigger.  We trot the globe together in search of untrained pastors, wild and dangerous adventures, rare and exquisite dietary delights, and air conditioning (seriously).  What I like about Stuart, er, uh, Dr. Sheehan, is he lets me be me.  He understands me.  He knows I am just out there, but I don’t mean any harm.  He laughs at my jokes and gives me straight-up advice.  He loves me so much, that when we were doing some speaking in Kilimanjaro last week, and I was suffering from a bad case of Montezuma’s Revenge, he had sympathy pains and spent a day in bed, close to a bathroom.  That’s friendship.

When nobody’s around, Dr. Sheehan likes to let it all hang out.  He kills me.  He has a knack for funny noises.  I call him droopy drawers.  He knows everybody, everywhere.  Flying home the other day, he knew three people on the plane from our connection in Frankfort, besides the two of us.  He is a master of dialects and linguistics, and a lot of other things that sound really cool like that.  As soon as he leaves U.S. airspace, his accent changes into that debonair Dos Equis (XX) guy.  But, he is the real most-interesting-man-in-the-world.  He writes books, carries an entire Radio Shack store with him everywhere he goes, can preach the horns off the devil, and makes goo-goo-googlie eyes at his wife, Amy, every day we’re on the road, even if she can’t see him on the Skype, and he freaks if he can’t reach her on the Vonage.  His adoration for his children is beyond description.  Did I mention he can pop a wheelie on a Harley at 60 miles an hour?  Well, I’ve never actually seen him do that, but I bet he could if he wanted to.

Lover, artist, theologian, counselor, hunter, comic, and international man of intrigue.  Someday, I want to be like him.  Anyway, he’s my friend.

Like it? Don’t like it? Leave me a comment!

Stuart is pictured here drawing down on that impala in Lobatse, Botswana – April, 2013.