Wayne Craig is Every Man A Warrior’s Northwest Director for the United States. In 2021, he helped launch EMAW’s first prison ministry outside the U.S. At that time, COVID had pretty much shut down all prison ministries worldwide. But Wayne and the team had a friend-of-a-friend who was a prison warden and who gave them full access to a prison in Kenya. Here, Wayne speaks to incarcerated men. (Courtesy photo)
By Steve Bertel
[Editor’s note: This is the second installment of a two-part article. The first article is available to read at www.christianlivingmag.com: https://www.christianlivingmag.com/every-man-a-warrior-wayne-craig-tearing-down-and-building-up/]
April 4, 1999 was a turning-point day in Wayne Craig’s life. That’s when he went forward during an altar call at a little country church in Eagle, Idaho and gave his heart to the Lord.
But the experience wasn’t quite what he expected. “There was the pastor and a few men in the front of the church. I got a slap on the back and, even though they were happy for me, they said something like, ‘Here’s your Bible. Now go read it,’” he recalls. “[But] that’s not what I needed. I felt I needed a man to come alongside me to mentor and disciple me.”
Of course, Wayne was unaware at the time that God was already working on that.
Struggling through the Old Testament, Wayne soon became disheartened and went back to his “old” ways – with his work, his hobbies, his family – and became “too busy” to spend time with the Lord. “I believe God could have provided a man to come alongside me at that time,” he says. “But I think He wanted me to go through that experience, so I could understand the incredible need we have within the body of Christ right now for men to step up, dedicate some time, and mentor baby Christians.”
The so-called Great Recession that started in late 2007 left his life in shambles. His family’s electrical contracting business, which he managed, ground to halt. As a result, “I lost everything. I lost our big beautiful home on ten acres. I lost my new, one-ton diesel truck. I lost all my ‘toys,’ my ATVs …”
Eventually, he heard of a job opening in North Dakota. And he took it. The plan was: his wife, Jaymi, and their teenage children would stay behind in Idaho, a plan that would allow their kids to graduate from high school with their friends. The couple figured the arrangement would last about two years. And Wayne could come home to visit every so often.
But a year into it, “I hit my knees and cried out to the Lord, ‘I give up! I can’t take this anymore!’ I told Him I would do anything He asked of me; that I would make any change He needed me to make, if only He would bring back my family to me,” he says.
Wayne began attending a local church in the North Dakota community where he lived. There, he met the church’s associate pastor, Ron Dazell, a man who became his mentor, his close friend, and who soon invited him to attend a men’s small group study called Every Man A Warrior – a Bible study that helps men disciple others, especially new Christians. Its four-book study program, written by founder/president Lonnie Berger, teaches men how to walk closer with God, how to build a personal love relationship with Him, and how to conquer the typical daily battles men fight, all while teaching them the biblical foundations of how to be a godly husband and father, how to stay morally pure, how to find victory over sins they gave up trying to fight, and how to succeed in life when they go on to teach the same truths to other men.
At the time Wayne joined, the study program was in its infancy; by 2015, men in all fifty states and several countries were using EMAW; in 2017, the ministry joined TransWorld Radio, a worldwide Christian radio network; and by 2019, 80,000 men in sixty countries had been impacted by the EMAW curriculum.
Finally being mentored made for “a radical transformation in my life,” Wayne states. “God used Ron to disciple me through the EMAW curriculum – which forced me to slow down and spend time in His Word. The work He did in my heart, changed me from the inside out.”
Five years after Wayne left Idaho, Jaymi – now an empty-nester – moved to North Dakota to join her husband. Not only did the two become actively involved in their church, Wayne was hired full-time in the Every Man A Warrior ministry and became the group’s Northwest Director. Even though they had developed deep roots in their community, Wayne and Jaymi followed God’s prompting, returned to Idaho, and began developing the EMAW ministry in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, traveling to churches, assisting pastors, and growing the ministry.
When he joined the organization, Wayne knew God was orchestrating his steps. But what he didn’t realize was that God was about to lead him into one of the most deadly and dangerous regions of the world.
Africa.
In 2015, he made his first trip to Uganda. “I traveled with a missions team to serve with an orphan care organization called New Hope Uganda,” he says. And he found his work with children and teens so fulfilling, “I returned to NHU in Africa later that year with my mentor, Pastor Ron.” It was the first of many trips the two would take to Africa during the next four years.
During one trip, Wayne saw firsthand the darkness of the “Dark Continent.” “As we made the 45-minute drive through the bush from Gulu City to one of the Teen Challenge locations, a rehab facility, our guide told us about the property and why its location was so special due to its ties with one of Africa’s most evil men to ever live in Uganda, Joseph Kony, leader of the LRA – the Lord’s Resistance Army.” Kony is a notorious Ugandan militant warlord whose army is known to kidnap children to become soldiers for its cause or, worst yet, sex slaves. Wayne feels “The evil that this man has done to children has earned him a special place in hell; he continues to be the right hand of the devil even today.” He makes that statement based on the personal visits he has had with some of Kony’s former child soldiers, who told him horror stories of the inhumane ways they were abused and tortured. “In fact, I have a photo of a teenage girl who had her lips, nose, and ear cut off by the LRA,” Wayne says. Reports estimate some 25,000 children have been kidnapped and over 10,000 children have been killed by Kony’s vicious army. Those numbers don’t include the children who have been tortured, raped, and maimed.
But Wayne quickly emphasizes, “When I drove away from that [Teen Challenge] property, I was at peace knowing we serve a greater God – and that He always wins. The ground I was walking on, that was once used for so much evil, God is now using for His glory and purpose. He is equipping, healing, growing, and binding up the brokenhearted by setting the captive’s free!”
Today, Wayne treks to Africa two or three times a year – and has every year since 2015, under the auspices of the Every Man A Warrior organization, teaching, mentoring, and shaping young men to follow The Word and become godly leaders of their families.
“Given the unrest in that part of the world, I know there’s always a risk of harm,” he points out. “But we always stay aware of our surroundings, and we stay smart; by that I mean, we don’t walk the streets at one o’clock in the morning, just like we don’t walk the streets of Chicago or San Francisco at one o’clock in the morning.”
“What’s more, Nigeria has become the number one nation in the world for persecuted Christians. So, when I taught there, my local leadership assigned armed guards to me the whole time, because of the threat of kidnapping by warlords or Islamic extremists. To the extremists, I was a six-foot-tall, white paycheck walking around. So I was assigned armed guards as a deterrent.”
But, despite the horrors, the tortures, and the threats of violence or death, God is moving in major ways in that part of the world. “God began opening doors and opportunities faster than I could keep up. It was amazing!” Wayne exclaims. “2018 to 2020 was a great time for us, speaking to groups of pastors and men all over Uganda – including in colleges and universities — planting seeds, taking them books, teaching, launching groups. By the fall of 2020, my entire ministry focus was on helping men start discipleship groups. In 2022, God gave us the ability to translate our books in Swahili, so men can study in either English or their native language – equipping them on how to become the husbands and fathers that God designed them to be.”
And there were other doors opened, other victories as well. For example, during a trip to Uganda in 2017, Wayne met a young man named Wilber Kasaale and, in 2020, began mentoring him through the EMAW discipleship program. “I am so proud of him and how far he has come,” Wayne points out. “From surviving on the streets of Jinja [a city in eastern Uganda] at only nine years old, to coming under the orphan care organization of NHU, to graduating from Kaymbogo University.” Through God’s transformation of Wilber’s heart and Wayne’s mentorship, the young man became so on fire for the Lord and the work the organization is doing, “In January of last year, we brought Wilber on staff as our director of the collegiate ministries. And he’s done an incredible job. He’s a rock star!” Wayne says. “I see the Lord working through this very gifted young man in a very big way. Jesus said in John 15:8 ‘By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciple.’ I can testify that Wilber’s vineyard is full of fruit; he has proven faithful and [now] loves the Lord his God with all his heart, mind, and soul.”
EMAW’s teacher/student “Paul-and-Timothy-like” work has not only spread through villages, colleges, and universities in Africa, it has even expanded behind prison walls.
In the summer of 2021, Wayne helped launch EMAW’s first prison ministry outside the United States. At that time, COVID had pretty much shut down all prison ministries worldwide. But Wayne and the team had a friend-of-a-friend who was a prison warden. “So we went to Kenya, without having [previously arranged] full access to the prison; we were just trusting that God had a bigger plan.” And He did. The warden allowed Wayne and the team into the prison yard for a two-hour visit with the convicts. “It was amazing the number of men who came forward and gave their hearts to Christ,” Wayne recalls. “Plus, we were the first people the prisoners had seen in over a year, other than the guards. Given COVID concerns, prison officials hadn’t even let family members in.” Seeing the impact Wayne and his team had on the inmates, it wasn’t long before authorities granted them access to four other prisons, including a “supermax” maximum detention facility housing the region’s worst-of-the-worst criminals.
“By the end of 2022, we had chaplains from all five prisons trained, and they each started Every Man A Warrior groups within their facility,” Wayne points out. “Today, chaplains in all Kenyan prisons – about 125 – have been trained on how to start EMAW discipleship groups. God has grown the ministry work to have active groups in more than eighty prisons in that country.” Those numbers are expected to increase even more this year.
The ministry has seen its greatest amount of growth in the continent over the past three years. “Some 22 countries in Africa now have active EMAW discipleship groups and established country leaders. That’s incredible. Only God could have done that,” Wayne says.
And, when he travels to Africa, he is quick to point out that “Jaymi is my rock, my anchor who stays home … and ensures that I don’t follow my heart and my passion and stay in Africa,” he chuckles.
Today, Wayne does double duty; splitting his time between mentoring men one-on-one or in small groups here “in his backyard” in the United States, and doing the same for those half-way around the world. Reflecting on his experiences, he says, “When God welcomed me into His Kingdom and invited me to be part of this ministry, He basically told me, ‘Wayne, I want you to go down this path. But I’m going to be so far out in front of you, you won’t be able to see me. But don’t worry about it. I’m going to leave little sticky notes along the way, telling you about the work I need you to do.’ So I’ve been going along that path, running after God, trying to keep up with Him, going through the doors he has amazingly opened; some doors that we never expected would be opened … and following all the sticky notes He has left me.”
If you’re interested in learning more about the Every Man A Warrior men’s ministry, contact Wayne at [email protected].
Steve Bertel is a multi-award-winning professional radio, television, print media, and social media journalist, who retired after a 30-year broadcasting career. Now a busy freelance writer, he recently released his debut suspense novel “Dolphins of an Unjust Sea,” available on both Amazon and Kindle. Steve and his wife of 42 years live in Meridian, Idaho. He can be reached at [email protected].
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