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Living a Life
Worthy
of Their Calling The life and ministry of Charlie and Shannon Worthy BY ELIZABETH BENNETT
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harlie Worthy (’00), a missionary with the International Mission Board, has made his home in Italy for the past 20 years, yet his southern accent still shines through in his voice. Charlie grew up on a farm in Tennessee and certainly knows the value of hard work. His grandparents instilled a deep faith in him from a young age. His great-grandparents were members of Merton Avenue Baptist Church in Memphis. Charlie’s entire family attended that church, and it was also where he was baptized. When he was in high school, his pastor Roger Richards encouraged him to go to school, get a good education, and go to seminary. “He was a very wise man,” Charlie remembers today. He explains that Richards was a Navy chaplain who served overseas and served in ministry until he was 98 years old. Richards kept up with Charlie even after he went to seminary and lived overseas. Today, the influence of family members and his pastor motivates Charlie in his current ministry assignment with the IMB recruiting hundreds of young people to the mission field for short-term assignments knowing the impact the work can have on those lives—and on the Kingdom. Charlie attended Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, and was blessed to have some good people mentor and disciple him. “It was through those experiences at Union University that led me overseas for the first time in 1992. I was at Union University and a young girl named
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