My Story   

 I was born in the winter of 1948 to an eighteen year-old cotton mill worker; unmarried and systematically abused by her father. I was sixteen months old when she left. No longer able to bear the constant beating and verbal abuse she walked out of the cotton mill where she worked, got on a bus and disappeared. I lived in a foster home until I was seven years old. I had no memory of my mother or father, I knew of no brothers or sisters or cousins, aunts, uncles –– no one that I could call family other than a kindly old man named Clarence and his wife Ruby. 

     One night, in the middle of my first year of school. Ruby woke me up and led me to the kitchen of the only home I had ever known. Standing in the middle of the room was a young woman who was weeping bitterly. Ruby said, "Michael, this is your mother and you'll be leaving with her in the morning."  The next day, I was on a Greyhound bus with a woman that I did not know on my way to East St. Louis, Missouri. Overnight, I had gone from feeling as if I had been abandoned to feeling I was being abducted. 

     My poor mother spent the rest of her life running from her abuser, even after he was dead. She could find no happiness, no peace, no sense of safety. I dragged along behind her from city to city, state to state, cheap apartment to rooming in with strange men. I had no sense of family, no sense of belonging, no direction or purpose. 










 

   
There has always been a special place in my heart for the abandoned, for the broken, for those who look into a future that bears little hope. I am drawn to those who feel like they are less because of the circumstances of their birth and life. I know what that feels like. I spent almost thirty years traveling back and forth between the U.S. and East Africa working as an advocate for the Deaf children of Kenya. 

I am also drawn to the ministry of encouraging men to realize the calling that rest upon each of. We are called to be the spiritual heads of our households. God has called us to be the provider, protector, and priest in the lives of our wives and children.  

     God has blessed me with a wonderful wife, Barbara, who has been my partner in ministry for more than fifty years now. He has blessed us with five remarkable children and between them we have seventeen grandchildren (so far), and one great grandchild. My wife and I are committed to leaving a lasting legacy in our children and through the ministry God has given us together.  I have turned the leadership of the church I pastored for more than 35 years to my oldest son and I have committed my remaining years to calling the church to revival and men to their spiritual priesthood. I have given my days now to Sharpening the iron of the Church and encouraging men to be men. 

                                                                                                                                 Michael Gantt