Presbyterian Record readers are familiar with Phil Callaway and now so are American soldiers. The U.S. Army has purchased 30,000 copies of Callaway's Be Kind, Be Friendly, Be Thankful, a children's book about two best friends who are forced to say goodbye and the lessons they subsequently learn.
“I was expecting this about as much as I expected my high school sweetheart to marry me,” says Callaway. Nevertheless, as readers of this publication know, she did.
“Military families are taxed to the max when it comes to saying goodbye, so a book like this is geared to help them through that.”
While he cannot write “Jesus loves you! If you need to know more, call my home number” in large letters across the pages as he wishes to, Callaway still hopes to breathe faith into his young readers.
“I wrote about three things children need to do when tough times come, and the final one is to be thankful. A prerequisite to being thankful is to have someone to thank, and I pray the kids will find Him.”
Despite speaking 100 times each year, Callaway is a devoted family man, who says he's happiest when he's home in Three Hills, Alta., with his wife, Ramona, and their three children.
It saddens him to see the state of families today. “I don't think we've ever had more children saying goodbye than we do nowadays. I wanted to write something that would teach children how to turn even this into joy.”
The latter forms the basis for everything Callaway does. “I do what I do because I see the joy it brings to others and because I believe it is the call of God on my life,” he says. “Yes, I get tired, and much of my writing has been about things I'm trying to practice: like slowing down, and learning to trust when your wife has epilepsy or your parents have Alzheimer's.”
Life has no doubt spun out its hard balls for Callaway (not referring to his days in minor league). In such moments, Callaway leans on faith and his “warped mind,” both of which were nurtured in him as a child.
“I accepted Jesus Christ when I was knee-high to a Doberman,” says Callaway. “I think my brother told me I was going to hell, so I told my mom and she fixed both of us.”
Not only did she fix it for him then; it's his mother's faith, Callaway says, that has kept him on the straight and narrow. “No atheist has ever been able to explain my mother's life, so I'll stick by my mother's God,” he says.
“God has given me strength when I'm weak, joy when I should feel only sorrow, and an abiding peace that hasn't gone away. I can't tell you this without laughing, because I'm so thankful that a holy God loves the likes of me. It's the greatest punch line in all of history.”
