I have heard it reported that, from 1931 to 1941, all graduating cadets of Japan’s naval academy were asked this question on their exit exam: “How would you carry out a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor?”

Imagine one Japanese soldier after another biting his pencil, straining his brain and writing out in the clearest terms possible the strategy he would use to launch a successful attack. Perhaps that night as they lay in their bunks, the question and their own answers played out vividly over and over in their minds. How to stage a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor? The question intrigued them, challenged them and captured their imaginations. Finally, it became a part of them.

When I was 17, I became the lone colporteur in our conference. Walking the streets of Kansas City with Gospel books was my “Naval Academy.” I began to think deeply about how youth could make a difference for the Kingdom of Christ. My faith grew. My hatred of sin grew. I saw firsthand the filth and darkness in which so many lived. Most of all, my determination to stage a surprise attack on Satan’s kingdom grew.

Two years later, I went overseas as a student missionary. It was a life-changing experience for me, and one that most SMs would envy, because I was mentored by a godly man. On jungle trails and from hut to hut, we gave Bible studies.

While serving as a student missionary, I met some Mormon missionaries, and my competitive nature was frustrated to learn that the Latter-day Saints send out 50,000 young people every year. At the time, the Adventist Church was sending out only a measly 750 student missionaries per year. Shouldn’t we be the head and not the tail? I asked myself. Did we not have a Gospel that deserved our highest and noblest effort?

A couple years later, while still in college, I was selected for an NAD Youth-Evangelism Task Force. This led to my being invited to work as an associate with Jose Rojas at the NAD to try to formulate a large-scale volunteer Adventist youth service network. For one year, my job was to dream as big as an Adventist youth could dream about expanding service opportunities for Adventist youth in mission. In a way, I was just like one of those Japanese naval cadets. I ate, slept, and lived the question, How? How can youth grow up to put their highest ambitions into service for Christ? How can the Adventist movement ever realize those wonderful words of Ellen White, “With such an army of workers as our youth, rightly trained, might furnish, how soon the message of a crucified, risen, and soon-coming Saviour might be carried to the whole world!” (Education, p. 271)?

When I came to AFM in 2000, we needed missionaries by the thousands to sign up and go out to meet the huge needs of unreached cities, languages and tribes of the world. However, we were fortunate if five signed up per year! That is when I realized that if a movement of titanic proportion were ever to come about, it would begin in the arms of godly mothers, and in the conversations of visionary fathers with their young children. The seeds of missionary hearts must be planted early. There must be an intentional effort to raise up last-day heroes. We are not only to aim to raise bright minds, but selfless minds.

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My years as a colporteur, pastor, teacher, parent and missionary have led me to write a book titled Grow a World Changer. AFM commissioned me to write it as a practical guide, packed with illustrations and tools to help parents and educators cultivate great aspirations in children. The book has been reviewed by nearly 40 homeschooler parents and educational superintendents who have given the book whole-hearted praise.

If you are a grandparent, parent or teacher with a desire for your youth to grow up far beyond average; if you desire the children under your care to make lifetime stands on the side of Light; if you dare imagine your child becoming a world changer, then I invite you to read this newly released book!

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