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Bob Pierce Aided World Christians but LOST His Own Family

“How come that girl is lying down there in the mud when she could be up there in that nice, clean clinic?” demanded Bob Pierce. He was visiting Borneo. The clinic operator, also named Bob—Bob Williams—explained that the girl, who was dying of cancer, liked the cooler air by the river. Pierce took the girl’s hand, rubbed her forehead and prayed for her. The girl expressed a longing to be able to sleep. Pierce wept. Suffering leukemia himself, he knew what it was like to lie awake in pain. He thrust his bottle of sleeping pills into Williams’s hand and told him to see that the girl got some sleep. His gesture meant he himself would have to go sleepless for a week and a half until he was able to obtain a new supply of pills in Singapore. 


In his early years, Pierce had served as a youth pastor but had fallen away from Christ for a while. Restored to ministry, he had gone on to evangelize with a singing group and then to work overseas with Youth for Christ. Revivals with large numbers of converts blossomed wherever he preached.


Struck by the needs of impoverished Asian nations, he lived a lifelong prayer, “Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God.” In 1950, Pierce and his wife Lorraine founded World Vision to meet spiritual and physical needs around the world. As marketing and educational tools, Pierce made films about the places where he ministered. However, his relations with his board were often strained, in part because he would make impulsive commitments. Finally, Pierce confronted the board in a rage in 1967 and resigned. He and Lorraine lost everything they had built.


By then Pierce was shattered mentally and physically from the many demands he had placed on himself and the great suffering he had witnessed around the world. His family life had also suffered from his frequent absences, his moodiness, and his irregular habits. In 1968, his oldest daughter, Sharon, killed herself.


In 1970, after more than a year of counseling and recuperation, Pierce was looking for a new ministry. That is when the Food for the World organization asked him to lead its work. Under his direction, the little group expanded its vision “to meet emergency needs in crisis areas through existing evangelical mission agencies and national churches.” It took the name by which it is known today—Samaritan’s Purse.


Pierce experienced many divine interventions: rides when needed, funds at the right moment, physical protection, access to dignitaries, and meetings that saw many saved. God also provided physical healing. Near the end of his life, the muscles of one of his eyes quit working, usually irreversible at his age. For months he wore an eye patch over the useless eye. One day Marilee, his second daughter, was filled with faith that the Lord would heal her dad. She placed her hand on him and prayed. When Pierce removed his eye patch, nothing had changed. Yet he hugged her in appreciation and told her he loved her. Two weeks later the eye was working again. 


Marilee also wrote of the family’s final reunion, which she considered a miracle. After Sharon’s death, Pierce had increasingly avoided his family and eventually cut ties with Lorraine, his faithful, prayer-warrior wife. Following intense prayer, Pierce’s estranged family convinced him to meet with them. He agreed to a dinner. Some emotional healing took place during their hours together. Four days later, on this day, 6 September 1978, Bob Pierce died. His story had been told in Man of Vision by Marilee Pierce Dunker and in Bob Pierce: This One Thing I Do by Franklin Graham with Jeanette Lockerbie.

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