October 24, 2024
MARIETTA, Ga. – There are some very motivated and highly assiduous people in their 90s (nonagenarians) who accomplish amazing things. Former President George H. W. Bush celebrated his 90th birthday by skydiving out of an airplane. Leonid Hurwicz, professor at the University of Minnesota was ninety when he received the Nobel Prize. At 92, Paul Spangler finished his 14th marathon; and when P. G. Wodehouse was 93, he worked on his 97th novel.
At age 95, Billy Graham addressed the nation in a video in which he said, “There have been times that I’ve wept as I’ve gone from city to city, and I have seen how far people have wandered from God. Our great country is in great need of a spiritual awakening.”
Although our bodies become frail with age, the word “old” has come to mean less and less in the 21st century and for many, age is nothing more than a number. That is the case with Lloyd Blackwell of Marietta’s Eastside Baptist Church. He is a layman with an exceptional history as a churchman, missionary, Gideon, and servant of God.
Blackwell’s ministry has not been without significant challenges. He has had to battle formidable health issues, adverse circumstances, the death of family members, and substantial tragedies in his life. However, like the Apostle Paul his attitude is: “But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I might finish my course with joy” (Acts 20:24).
This amazing Georgia Baptist has traveled around the world, visited 174 countries and all fifty states. He has wrestled an adult alligator in Burkina Faso, Africa, traveled at Mach II speed on the Concorde supersonic passenger plane, chased polar bears with a camera in the Canadian Arctic, on two occasions landed a plane in an emergency situation, has lived among Eskimos in Greenland and primitive Indians in South America, and went skydiving over the Mojave Desert at age 72 from a height of three miles.
However, Blackwell’s travels are not just marked by Indiana Jones-like adventures. They have primarily been characterized as the missionary ventures of an ambassador for Christ. That is the most defining reality about Lloyd Blackwell’s life. He has served the Lord, shared the Gospel, baptized converts, cared for poor, hurting, and disadvantaged indigenous people in countries all over the world.
He has distributed Gideon New Testaments in 43 states, 42 countries and on all seven continents of the earth – even at the North Pole. He has distributed Bibles on the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth while crossing the Atlantic Ocean, on a scientific research submersible vehicle 1,000 feet below the ocean surface, on the Concorde – flying at twice the speed of sound and at a height of eleven miles above the earth, and on a whitewater rafting trip through the 278-mile length of the Grand Canyon. And that is not even scratching the surface.
Blackwell has invested much of his time and Christian service as a member of Eastside Baptist Church where he and his wife Clara have taught children’s Sunday School classes and served in the nursery. In the 1990s he became the president of the Genesis Sunday School class and developed a card/phone ministry for the encouragement of others. With his current limited mobility, Blackwell decided that there is much he can do from his home to encourage others. He has purchased hundreds of boxes of Dayspring cards and given about half of them to other Sunday School classes at Eastside so that they can be sent out to express gratitude, sympathy, and the promise of prayers to those who are ill.
John Hull, pastor of Eastside Baptist Church, explained, “Lloyd Blackwell is a global Christian with a heart for the local church. He is one of the greatest encouragers I have known in my forty plus years of ministry. I pray that every pastor would have a person like Lloyd in their congregation.”
The ninety-year-old champion for Christ has also been active in the Noonday Association where he has served as Brotherhood Director, Disaster Relief Director, leader and participant of Builders for Christ. He is currently involved in the Association’s Storehouse Ministry and is on the Executive and Administrative Teams.
Daryl Price, the Executive Director of the Noonday Association commented, “Lloyd Blackwell could have easily let his medical and physical struggles keep him from serving. He is an example worthy of emulating as he presses through difficulty and sometimes frail health to serve, encourage, and bless others with his words and deeds. He has served with distinction in a multiplicity of areas in our association.”
Lloyd Blackwell has not reached the finish line yet, very likely because he is continuing to give, to serve, and to minister. He also has a vision for what he wants to accomplish each day and believes God still has work for him to do; and he is making himself available with as much faith and fervor as a nonagenarian can muster. The prospects of him finishing well are not even debatable.
