Page 32 - Senior Link Magazine Winter 2021- Online Magazine

Exceptional
Randy Gallaway
Legacy of a
World Changer
by Bear Mills | The Bear Mills Podcast
andy Gallaway was a world
changer. He still is, although
Rhe stepped into eternity one
year ago this September.
When friends gather to reminisce
about Randy, they speak about him
in the present tense. It’s as if he
might still join them to provide an
update on his latest humanitarian
project in China. When they’re
reminded that he’s been gone a
year, they lean in, saying, “Randy’s
in heaven, but the work continues.” GIVE UP.” Randy understood
I met Randy when my daughter,
Sarah, was attending Texas Tech.
She interned with Randy and
wife Mary Ann’s humanitarian
organization, Partners in
Development Worldwide (PIDW).
Sarah called to say, “Dad, there’s
this guy with no arms who travels
all over the world speaking about
how to have hope. His life story is
Randy and Mary Ann at the
soccer field where Randy spoke
to 1,000 fifth and sixth graders.
32 Lubbock Senior Link
SENIORS
incredible. I want you to meet him hasn’t spoken yet.” Thirty-eight
and write a book about his life.” surgeries and a year and a half later,
Randy entered university. He’d
Three years later, Death Knocking, lost all of his right arm and his left
Life Calling was published in English hand. But instead of being deterred,
and is available on Amazon. In the Randy was more motivated than
fall of 2018, a Chinese translation ever to make the most of his second
of the book became available for chance at life.
readers in that country.
He earned an engineering degree
Randy’s message was simple, but with honors at the University
important. “As long as there’s a of Texas at Arlington, before
breath of life within you, NEVER pursuing a lifetime of helping
others find durable hope, regardless
the temptation to cash in your of life’s circumstances. He also
chips. During his senior year of earned graduate degrees from
high school in Fort Worth, he was Southwestern Baptist Theological
involved in a horrendous industrial Seminary and Golden Gate
accident. He was hit with 38,000 Seminary.
volts of electricity when someone
turned on the power as he assisted Randy met Mary Ann Milliken of
an electrician in his part-time job at Lubbock while leading evangelism
American Manufacturing. The man workshops at Texas Tech University.
he was working with died instantly. They married in 1975. Together
they ministered in Dallas, Texas;
Doctors said Randy Riverside, California; North
stood no chance Vancouver and Toronto, Canada;
of recovery. Fifty- Lubbock, Texas; Mexico, South
five percent of his Africa, and across China.
body suffered third
degree burns. It In 2016, my wife, Caryl, and I
appeared there was joined Randy and Mary Ann on a
only enough time trip across China, where he spoke
for family to come in schools and churches, met with
into the emergency business and education leaders,
room and say helped amputees get artificial
goodbye. However, limbs, and worked to build hope
his pastor was there in a world where hope is on the
and said, “We are endangered species list.
going to pray. God