The first time I met Danny was on a 12 mile training run with the high school cross country team in the mountains of East Tennessee.  

Dry Creek Road….7 miles up, over the top and 5 miles down.  To say that it was a tough run would be an understatement.

I believe it was my sophomore year, but it might have been my freshman year.  Too long ago to know for sure.  It was the middle of August.  A rather warm day with dry heat.

Exhausted, I sat down in the shade of a tree to rest and rehydrate.  Danny had finished his run a few minutes ahead of me and he sat down to rest and rehydrate as well.  

I looked at him and said “Hi, my name is Robbie.  What’s your name and what grade are you in?”

He laughed and said “Man I’m 33 years old and my name is Danny! ”

Instantly we were kindred spirits.  He had won my admiration and curiosity.  Who was this guy who could run with the young guns and hold his own?

Turns out Danny was the local Young Life leader and was reaching out to teens to introduce them to Christ.  To make disciples of Jesus.  

He was unorthodox.  

A rebel.

A chewer of tobacco.  

Just what teenage guys needed.  

Someone like Jesus who didn’t fit the rules, but ran by his own rules. Guided by a Spirit I hadn’t yet come to know.

You see, at that point in my life, I hadn’t really come into a faith of my own.  I’d been baptized a couple of years earlier, but looking back on it maybe I didn’t really fully understand what that meant.

And so as a high school kid, like many guys of that age, my life looked like rock concerts, sports, girlfriends, beer busts and the occasional marijuana joint or two.  Just a teen trying to figure life out when along came Danny.  As an old Young Life song used to sing “to show me the way”.

Sometime a few days later I needed a ride home from school and Danny had been hanging out with students on campus inviting them to Thursday night club.  And so he gave me a ride home in his 1970s VW Beetle.

The first thing I noticed was that it had no radio….and so I asked him “where’s the radio”?  He responded with “Man, I make my own music!  Open the glovebox and get the songbook out!”  and he wasn’t kidding….

So began a lifelong friendship that has lasted 40 years and counting.

Once a week, Danny would rise early, and pick up mostly the cross country team and drive us to one of the families houses where we would have an Investigative Bible Study before school.  He showed us Jesus in the Scriptures and we drank it in like thirsty runners on a long hot run.

I was trying to leave a life of pot, beer and carousing on the weekends behind, but didn’t know how?  Most of the people I knew were at parties and beer busts on Saturday nights.  What was a young convert supposed to do when everyone I knew was at the party?

Danny showed me the way.  

He said “come on over and hang out with my family”.  And so one Saturday night instead of going to the party I went to Danny’s.  He gave me the courage to say No to the life of the party and start a new life.

I never looked back.

We were from Johnson City Tennessee not too far from Weaverville North Carolina which just so happened to be the home of a Young Life camp called Windy Gap.  

During the next couple of years the camp would call and ask Danny if he could provide volunteers who could come and work in the kitchen on Pit Crew on the weekends serving other high school kids who were coming for weekend retreats.

It was a magical time in life. So many great experiences and then the next summer I ended up working on the summer work crew.  They made me a Mini Bike Trail Guide for kids coming to camp and I had the time of my life.

Through it all Danny was showing me the way.  He demonstrated that life in Christ was real.  He taught me the Bible and many of my friends came to know God deeper during those years.

Fast forward some 30 odd years and one weekend I got a call to work a weekend retreat outside of Nashville.  My friend Hal invited me knowing that Danny was going to be there.  

We hadn’t seen each other in decades.

Still Discipling men after all this time he was coming in from Pennsylvania with a group of men to show them the way.  So early on a Friday evening Danny and his guys lined up to meet the kitchen staff and shake our hands.  He had no idea I would be one of them.

He was shocked and happy to see me that night.  

Me, well I was honored to be able to speak into those men that night.  To tell them that decades earlier Danny had stopped his life to invest in teenage boys and show them how to walk with God in Christ.

To show them that his investment was producing fruit all these years later.  

To challenge them to follow the Master in whatever way they felt He was calling them.   

To be a witness that the investment in other men and in teens is worth the stretch.

All these years Danny has been running his race.  Hundreds of men over the years have come to a stronger faith because of his persistence. 

His unorthodox manner of living out the risen Christ before men.

To say that I’m grateful for such a great Hero of the Faith is really an understatement.  

The crazy thing is he’s not slowing down in his race.  

I tried to get him to come to this past year’s men’s retreat.  He told me he just didn’t have the bandwidth because he had started 70 men’s groups and needed to shepherd those guys at the moment.

Still sowing seeds…still harvesting souls…still discipling…still being faithful.

Philippians 3:14 says,  “I run toward the goal, so I can win the prize of being called to heaven. This is the prize God offers because of what Christ Jesus has done.” Contemporary English Version

That’s Danny…still running with the young guns…even if they are in their 50’s and he’s in his 70’s.