She is a 74-year-old widowed great-grandmother with diabetes, arthritis, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, no kneecaps, screws holding her ankles in place, and absolutely no shame when it comes to leading people to a saving relationship with Christ.
Nell Kerley, left, led Kathy Borders, a nurse at Iredell Memorial Hospital, and her husband, Ivory, to receive Christ.“So,” Nell Kerley asks, “what’s your excuse?”
Kerley is a soul winner extraordinaire.
“I’ve been a Sunday school teacher forever,” Kerley said, “but until just a few years ago, I had never shared with anyone what it takes to go to heaven. Can you believe that? I just never had. I bet there are a lot of people in our churches like that.”
In 1998, at age 66, Kerley decided to make a change. Her church, Bethel Baptist in Statesville, N.C., offered FAITH Sunday School Evangelism Strategy training, and she enrolled. “I needed to learn how to witness to people,” she said.
“Learning to share Christ with people was the best thing I ever did,” Kerley said. More than 2,200 salvations later – 2,250, as of Aug. 29, 2007 – she isn’t slowing down.
First convert
FAITH opened a new ministry opportunity for her. “On our first FAITH visit, our team went to a home to visit a man and his wife. The couple didn’t want to pray to receive Christ, but I knew Danielle, the 15-year-old daughter, had been listening. I told my group that I wanted to talk to her. So I just asked her, ‘Danielle, you’ve heard all we said tonight. Wouldn’t you like to give your life to the Lord?’ and she nodded and said, ‘Yes, I would.’ So we prayed and she received Christ.”
Kerley said that first salvation was like a drug to her. “I just couldn’t wait to do it again.”
Hospital missions
Kerley has ongoing health issues related to an automobile accident in 1975. She’s been in the hospital time and time again for surgeries on her feet and legs, and several times for other broken bones she sustained from falls. “After all,” she quipped, “you can’t walk good when you don’t have any kneecaps.”
Through the years, she developed a warm relationship with chaplain Tom Sherrod. As she was able, she would accompany him on his rounds, talking to people about the Lord.
“She has such a gift for evangelism,” Sherrod said. “She loves to talk to people, and they love to talk to her. She can take the simplest conversation and bring it around to talk about a person’s salvation.”
As a licensed practical nurse and former employee at the hospital herself, Kerley had a special relationship with the nurses.
Kathy and Ivory
Kathy Borders is a nurse at Iredell Memorial. Six years ago during one of Kerley’s hospital stays, Kerley attempted to talk with Borders.
“But I told her I was too busy to talk right then,” Borders said. “I really wasn’t. I just didn’t want to talk to her. I was scared. She asked me if I’d come back later, though, and I told her I would.
“When Nell told me about Christ – how he loved me so much that he died for me – and that all I had to do was accept that love and his sacrifice, I felt this completely unnatural and wonderful peace just flood over me,” said Borders. “I had never experienced anything like that before. Never.”
Later, Kerley had the privilege of leading Border’s husband Ivory to the Lord as well.
“Nell told me I needed to get in church, so I did,” Borders said. “I joined Higher Ground Baptist Church and now I do all sorts of things, from singing to working with the children to working with the women. Ivory and I love our church and our pastor. Life wouldn’t be like this if it weren’t for Nell.”
“Oh, honey,” Kerley said, giving Borders a hug, “it was the Lord who took hold of you and changed your life, not me.”
Baptist Center
When her witnessing at the hospital was curtailed, Kerley looked for another place of service. She found it at South Yadkin Baptist Association Baptist Center, where each Tuesday for the past seven years Kerley has shared the plan of salvation with people who come to the clothes closet and food pantry.
“They have to come see me before they can get their things and leave,” Kerley said. “I have led so many of the people to the Lord there. It’s wonderful. So many of them have just never had it explained to them how to become a Christian.”
Kerley is also adamant about telling everyone she leads to Christ about the importance of church membership. At the Baptist Center, she has a form she fills out on every person she talks with. Director of missions Ron Harrison arranges for a church to follow up with the new convert.
“People need to be in church,” Kerley said. “These new Christians can’t make it on their own. It’s too easy to slip back into their old ways, but if they’ve got a good church to support them as they grow, they’ll be fine.”
Bill Fay
Bill Fay, author of “Share Jesus Without Fear,” published by LifeWay, and Kerley have become “share partners” through the years.
She said, “I tease him that he will give out my phone number to anyone he hasn’t won to the Lord yet and have me take a run at it. Do you know, because of Bill Fay, I have talked to his barber, to a man in prison who murdered two people and a Playboy bunny? Yes! And I led them all to the Lord. Oh, and the bunny is in another line of work now.”
Kerley’s smiles and laughter are contagious. The joy of the Lord bubbles out when she sees people receive Christ.
“I look at these people I talk to and see people that Jesus loves and died for,” Kerley said. “They just don’t know it. And I get to tell them. I get to tell them how they can go to heaven. There is no greater privilege in the world than that. If God can use an old woman like me, he can use anybody. For however long I have, I’m going to keep talking.”