At the age of 17 Wally came to know Jesus as Savior and a short time later, Wally felt called to ministry in some capacity. He did not know exactly how that would look but he surrendered to serve however and wherever God led him. Wally attended the Liberty Bible Institute in Lynchburg, Virginia for two years. In the summer of 1979, after his first year at LBI, Wally met the love of his life, Sylvia, while they served together ministering at the Treasure Island Children's Summer Camp through Thomas Road Baptist Church. They were married the next summer.

Although vocational ministry did not happen right away, Wally began to minister in music, teaching, or preaching wherever he and his small family found themselves. He enlisted in the US Marines in 1980 and served 10 years until December 1990. In 1991, Wally started a career with the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Springfield, Missouri. Throughout their travels, Wally continued to minister in the churches where he and his wife were members. Wally retired from the Federal Bureau of Prisons and in 2014 was called to pastor a small Baptist church in Mount Vernon, Missouri, where he has been since.

Wally is involved in ministry to veterans and first responders through Peterson Outdoors Ministries. He spends a week each summer preaching at Ponca Bible Camp in Ponca, AR to 9th and 10th grade students. He and his church are also involved in ministering to those in the community who are in addiction recovery programs.

Wally and his wife, Sylvia, have 8 children and 9 grandchildren. In 1988, they began homeschooling their oldest daughter and continued the journey of homeschooling until their youngest daughter was enrolled in their local high school in 2020, where she graduated with honors in 2024.

In March 2024, Wally published his first book, Why Me, Lord? In this book he shares the lessons he learned through a series of tragedies that struck his family.

Wally Long - Author & Speaker | Why Me, Lord?

Long, Wally

Wally Long

Welcome to 12 Minute Converse with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, His creation.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Praise God for you Wally.

What part of the world are you in today?

I live in the southwest corner of Missouri in the United States.

Were you always living there or did you eventually?

I was born and raised in Oklahoma, went to high school in Colorado, went to College of Virginia, went back to Colorado, back to Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, back to Missouri.

I've been here in Missouri, this is where I live now for about 20 years.

Do you miss Colorado?

I do.

Colorado is a beautiful state.

I love living there.

I've been there a few times, lived there a few times over the years, but it's rather expensive to live out there.

I just love living here in the Midwest.

I just really do.

Did you like the mountainous side of Colorado?

I love the mountains.

I learned how to ski and did a lot of skiing and hiking in the mountains.

Hiking is a, I just love getting out in the wilderness.

To see God's creation firsthand, to be on top of a 14,000 foot mountain peak and see all the way around you for miles and miles and miles, knowing that God created all that is amazing.

It's very tough to deny the magnificence of God when you get driving through those mountains, far less for what I imagine being on top of them must feel like.

Oh, yes.

Tell me the story, the story of your book, Why Me, Lord?

Again, three words, but so potent.

I love it in terms of the clickbait that goes with it.

Why Me, Lord?

I think many people have said that in their lives.

What's the story behind it?

Well, it started out with a series of tragedies that struck our family in 2007.

My sister, youngest sister, she was 40 years old at the time, committed suicide.

That was actually 2006.

In the summer of 2007, one of my sons had a motorcycle accident, tore his right leg off below the knee.

It nearly killed him, but he did survive.

A few weeks after he got out of the hospital, my mother passed away.

That kind of shook us.

We went through a time of rebuilding with the family and just getting everybody back on an even keel.

Then on March 1st of 2001, my brother and his wife were murdered by their own 12-year-old son in Colorado.

The two youngest children that they had were five and nine.

They were almost killed as well.

That really shook my world.

The kids did survive, and we adopted them.

They became our seventh and eighth children.

But after we got home from all of that in Colorado, and I began to kind of recover my emotional stability a little bit, I started asking that question, Why Me, Lord?

Why is all this happening to me?

Why all these tragedies in my family?

I went to the only place I could think of to find answers.

I went to the scriptures.

As I began studying and looking at various passages and just seeking answers for what God was doing in my life, those answers became a sermon that I started to preach in different churches and different places.

Then that sermon became the book, Why Me, Lord, basically just helping us to find answers to why bad things happen to us, why we go through tragedy and sorrow and suffering.

How did you come to meet Jesus?

I was 17 years old going to a Baptist church in Colorado.

I was very involved in church.

I'd been in church a good part of my life.

My parents weren't church attenders.

My mother was a believer, but because of what was going on with my father, she never attended church or very rarely did.

But they always allowed me to go or helped me find a church where I could go.

I'd been going to this Baptist church in Colorado for a few years anyway, and helping with the bus route, helping with children's ministries, but I wasn't a believer.

I believed who God was.

I knew Jesus was the Savior.

I knew all that, but I'd never made a personal profession of faith in Christ.

At 17, I was praying one day and felt very heavy in my soul.

I couldn't figure out why, so I went to talk to my youth pastor, and I said, Tim, what is going on?

I feel like my prayers aren't going above the ceiling.

I feel heavy.

I feel distressed.

He just asked me a simple question.

He said, Wally, are you truly a follower of Jesus?

Have you been saved?

I said, you know what?

I haven't.

He talked to me briefly for several minutes, and I realized I needed to be saved.

I knelt there in his office in Colorado, Thornton, Colorado, and prayed to receive Christ.

How many years has that been now?

I was 17 years old.

I'm 66 now, so in August, that would be 50 years or almost 49 years in August.

Wow, that's a long time, Wally.

The Lord has done amazing things, for sure.

As of recently, is there a Bible character that you can align with in your life today?

I kind of feel an affinity with Peter, the Apostle Peter, the follower of Jesus.

It's hard for me to relate to Paul the Apostle, because Paul was such an educated man, such a great individual.

Peter was just an average guy, and I consider myself a very average person.

Peter was a worker.

He was a fisherman.

He was very impetuous.

He sometimes spoke before he thought of what was going on.

He sometimes acted before he thought about what he was doing.

The Lord used him, and he became a powerful force for the gospel after the Lord left.

So Peter is kind of my hero, in a sense, or the character I identify with the most, because he was such a godly man, but his beginning was anything but amazing beginning.

It was a very humble beginning.

In closing, is there anything else you'd like to share?

No.

I thank you for this opportunity.

I would love one of these days to meet you in person, perhaps.

If you ever come to the States, come to Southwest Missouri, look me up.

Yeah, or come to Trinidad.

Come visit the Caribbean.

I did a Caribbean cruise with my wife three years ago.

We went down to several places, Grenada, and I can't remember all the islands we visited, but I'd love to come down there again.

Sounds good.

Sounds good.

All right, my friend.

Well, again, amazing audience.

Links are in the show notes.

If Wally's book, Why Me, Lord, has caught your attention and you want to get into that, or you simply just want to connect with him, there are links in the show notes.

Wally, a pleasure, a treasure.

Thank you for being on What Is Inspired by 12 Minute Conference.