“Love God, and love people—all people,” advised Larry Leggett.
Larry takes his own advice seriously and loves everyone, regardless of who they are or what they look like.
He grew up as a humble country boy, and it made a big impact on who he has grown up to be. He never really cared about extravagant things; instead, he simply enjoyed hard work and being able to do a little hunting.
“I grew up close to the country, and I loved to go hunt rabbits and squirrels,” recalled Larry. “Also, we heated our house with a wood burning stove heater, and I had to get the wood all the time. I’d cut the trees and play with my makeshift paper wood truck, which I made out of my wagon. I enjoyed cutting and hauling the wood and hunting the wild game.”
When he was older, he was blessed to do something that many people long for: he literally married the woman of his dreams.
“I actually had a vision of my wife when I was probably about 12 years old. I had never met her or knew her, but I fell in love in a dream,” Larry reminisced. “I met Rosie, my wife now, at Jackson State. I met her and knew she was the girl I saw in my dream. I’d left the campus and gone down to a drugstore, and I met this girl who I’d already claimed as my wife. I stopped her as she walked back and told her who I am, and she told me who she was. She told me her dorm address, and when I went there, I told the dorm manager I was there to pick up Rosie Brown. She came down, and she kept coming down. I dated her all four years. When we graduated, I gave her an engagement ring, and she said yes. We got married and have been married for almost 50 years and have six children.”
Once they were married, they started to move to different states. Larry has always been a hard worker, and he took on a job that moved around a good bit in order to support his growing family.
“We left Mississippi and moved to Wisconsin and spent about five or six years there. Then, we moved to Texas. I started out in purchasing and material management and travelled quite a bit,” explained Larry. “I worked in El Paso, but a lot of our plants were in Mexico, so I had to go over there quite a bit.”
It was while he was in El Paso that he finally surrendered to something that he had been struggling with for quite some time: the call to the ministry.
“The Lord called me to the ministry, and I struggled with the calling. I actually made it to the ministry and did several churches as assistant pastor or treasurer,” expressed Larry. “My family had been in Little Rock, Arkansas, for a while, and then we moved back to Quitman. I was at Pearly Grove Church for a while and then Shady Grove A.M.E., and then I moved on what I felt like God was calling me to do, which was to build a church. We built and raised up Family Life Church. My vision and dream when I built the church was that it would be built with enough room to do whatever we needed to do in the ministry.”
While building the church, Larry continued to work another job as well. His dedication to working multiple jobs at the same time took up a lot of his time, but he didn’t mind.
“I worked some long hours. When we were constructing the church, I was in insurance sales and was travelling all over in Meridian, Hattiesburg, Waynesboro, and Laurel year round as a home service sales agent,” stated Larry. “Plus I went all over training agents and doing recruiting. I remember when we were building the church, there was a time I’d travel from here to Meridian, Hattiesburg, Laurel, Newton, out in the country and all that, and when I’d get home, I’d go to the church and maybe paint the walls and everything. There’d be times that I’d work until 4:00 in the morning, go home get a shower, get an hour or two of sleep, and then get back on the road again.”
After years in the church he built, Larry felt God calling him to help another church in need out by selling the building to them, and he followed through with it.
“About three years ago, a tornado came through Desoto and leveled a church that was there. Fortunately, no one was there when it happened,” explained Larry. “The Lord was dealing with me at that point about letting them buy the church. I was tired and had had a stroke. I prayed about it, and the church bought our church building and everything that was in it with some money they got from a grant.”
Despite selling the church building he had built and started years ago, Larry still hasn’t completely retired. He still feels called to the ministry and plans on following the Lord’s will. No matter what, Larry will continue to serve the Lord and love all those around him. People will continue to be greeted by him with a vibrant smile and joyous spirit.
If you would like to nominate someone for Person of the Week, contact Brittney Mangum at 601-776-3726.
