Six years ago today, my husband, Joe Harris, went home to be with the Lord. As I remember him today, I do so by honoring his life and legacy. I can honestly say, “To this day, God has not used anyone to convict me of my lack of love for the souls of men, as he did through Joe Harris.” Joe lived and breathed evangelism and passionately engaged everyone he met in a conversation about their need to get right with God. Joe frequently shared about a dream he had when he was a kid that haunted him for many years. He dreamed that he was a nobody, and everything went wrong for him in life, but then suddenly he became a somebody, so after he came to know the Lord, he was on a mission to let everyone know about the God that changed his life from a hard-core violent drunk to a beloved man of God.
Joe began drinking at 10-years-old, even drinking rubbing alcohol. His life was hard, growing up very poor, being sexually assaulted as a child, spending time in prison and attempting suicide five times before Mike Pruitt lead him to the Lord in 1975 by telling him that Jesus loved him, and he could be somebody. Mike arranged for Joe to go into the Teen Challenge program in Washington, DC. God used that program to transform Joe into a man that loved the Lord and passionately cared for the souls of man.
As I remember him today, I do so with a heart of gratitude for his life and ministry. Through Joe’s unique anointing and the ministries of Crossroads’, he was instrumental in seeing a troubled community completely transformed by the power of God, churches come together beyond denominational walls to minister side by side for the sake of saving the lost, and hurting men, women and children’s lives touched and changed forever by the one that transforms nobodies into somebodies.
While I am not as gifted an evangelist as Joe, my heart yearns to see people come to know the love of God in Christ Jesus, particularly “the least of these.” As I struggle to carry on Joe’s legacy through the ministry of Crossroads, I ask for your prayers. May the Lord help me honor Joe by doing everything in my power to see souls saved and nobodies come to know that they are somebodies in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Crossroads Ministries Inc. 