Stanley Tam
How could God use one very ordinary man to reach countless people around the world with the gospel? You can find out the answer when you consider the life of R. Stanley Tam, of Lima, Ohio, who whole-heartedly dedicated everything he had to his Lord and Savior during the majority of his 107 years on this earth (1915 - 2023).
As a young man Stanley Tam set out to work hard and make money to live a good life. Coming of age during the Great Depression in the United States, he had to work hard.
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In 1934, while working as a door-to-door salesman, Stanley called on a woman who turned out to be a committed Christian, and through her witness he came to receive Jesus Christ as his Savior!
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A few years later he started his own company, but things did not go well with it. One night, in despair over the lack of profits and the burden he was carrying to provide for his own needs, he prayed and asked the Lord for direction. As God's plan began to unfold, he also believed that he was to make God the senior partner in his business! After being turned away by the first few attorneys he talked to about it, he finally found one who helped him to establish a non-profit ministry and he donated 51% of the stock in his company to the new ministry. This would mean that when his company became profitable, 51% of the profits would be available to go immediately and fully into Kingdom work!
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His company did flourish, and soon a great deal of money was being given to Kingdom business. But Stanley Tam felt there was more to be done, and, ultimately he donated 100% of the stock in his company to the ministry so that 100% of his company's profits would go straight to God's work. His book God Owns My Business tells the whole story.
He also served the Lord in any other way he could, including giving of his valuable time to anyone who stopped in, or called his office. Roger Lonnquist, President of New Life Africa Networks (and speaker on the Global Perspective radio feature) had the privilege of talking to Mr. Tam in 1997, and says that the 45 minutes Mr. Tam spent with him on the phone still impacts his ministry efforts today.
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But the thing about Stanley Tam that is so extraordinary is that the there was nothing extraoridnary about him...he was just a simple, hard working man who gave all he had to his Savior, and joyfully did what he believed God told him to do to the best of his ability.
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May each of us follow the lead of R. Stanley Tam and dedicate everything we have to the One who sacrificed His own life to redeem us from our sin.
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"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service." (Romans 12:1)