After inviting countless Muslims to follow Jesus and countless Christians to give everything for Jesus, on Saturday, July 19th, Greg Livingstone went to be with Jesus. He heard the, “Well done, good and faithful servant” that he’d dreamed about for so many years.
I didn’t know Greg as well as I wish I had and I didn’t get to know them until way too late in the game.
In the early days, he was my missionary hero, the guy who did a Perspectives class at Penn State University and recruited four intrepid guys to move to Libya: An event which helped catalyze the beginning of Caleb Project and Frontiers and so many other good things.
Later, he was the guy who believed in the ethnographic research teams we were doing when few others did and perhaps no one should’ve. Greg said, “Yeah, I’ll try anything. I’ll listen to anyone, even a bunch of college kids if it might result in some Muslims finding Christ.” When a flood prevented our team from going to Khartoum, and then also our plan b, Dhaka, Greg advised us to go to Bombay. He gave us one phone number! On the strength of his reputation, that contact led to another and to another and eventually to three months that irrevocably changed my life.
When Caleb Project went out of business, I happily accepted Bob Blincoe’s invitation to crash land at Frontiers and began to look for a chance to bump into Greg Livingstone. On the rare occasion that happened, I was like a kid meeting his favorite player at a ball park, embarrassed, tongue-tied, but happy for the encounter.
Years down the road when my marriage fell apart, Greg jumped into the fray and sent the most sincerely apologetic and empathetic email ever to land in my box. After the divorce, he and I developed a friendship that has legit been one of the delights of my life. We sent emails. We chatted on the phone. We made a few wildly lo-fi videos and I was blessed forever.
The power of that guy to encourage! He’s the only one who ever said “Shabash” to me. (Urdu for “well done.”) If you’ve ever gotten one of those from Greg, and I’m sure some of you have, you know it leaves a mark!
Greg was such a blessing to me: hero, mentor, terrible marriage counselor, but such a good, encouraging, inspiring friend. May God raise up a thousand like him in his place.