By Dan Wooding, Founder of the ASSIST News Service
RALEIGH, NC – (ANS – August 23, 2015)
– Dr. Danny Lotz, the son-in-law of the Rev. Billy Graham, has died at
the age of 78, after being found unresponsive in the swimming pool of
the Raleigh home he shared with his wife, evangelist Anne Graham Lotz.
A retired dentist, Danny Lotz,
who was known to many as “God’s Gladiator,” died on Wednesday, August
19, according to Rex Hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina, which issued a
statement for the Lotz family.
The retired dentist was taken off life support two days after he was admitted to the hospital.
A statement on Anne Lotz's
Facebook page said the couple had been married for nearly 49 years and
her husband suffered from heart disease that required five arterial
stents.
According to a message on
http://www.annegrahamlotz.org, Danny and Anne would have been married
for forty-nine years on September 2nd.
“At
the age of fifty Danny developed a severe case of Adult 1 diabetes. For
over ten years following his retirement from dentistry he fought the
ravages of the disease, earning him the beloved nickname, ‘God’s
Gladiator,” said the message.
I had the privilege of spending
a week in New York City with Danny Lotz as part of the Festival of Life
NYC '02 outreach led by former Ground Zero chaplain, Mike MacIntosh,
and held on the second anniversary of the devastating 9/11 attack. Danny
was also one of the speakers at some of the events.
As we travelled around his home
city New York – he was born in Flushing, Long Island – he shared with
me details of his life with Anne Graham Lotz, Billy Graham’s second
daughter who her father has called “the best preacher in the family.”
Lotz, a gentle giant, told me
that he still could still hardly believe that the “shy” girl he first
met and fell in love with back in 1964 is now the dynamic preacher who
addresses thousands in arenas across the United States as she aims call
people to a personal relationship with God through His Word.
At 6’6”, this former college
basketball star who played on the North Carolina team that won the
national championship in 1957, said, “My father, who ran the Ascension
Baptist Church in the Bronx, was also a street-corner preacher in New
York City until the Lord called him home at the age of 84.
“A lot of the weekends, we
would go with him to the Bowery Mission where my brothers and I would
play the trumpet and trombones and my Dad would share the Good News.”
Danny Lotz got a full
basketball scholarship to the University of North Carolina and said, “I
was honored to be on that team. It was during the next year that I broke
my leg, and ended my career. I couldn't understand why this happen at
the time, but because of that I heard about a group called The
Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA). And that resulted in my meeting
Anne for the first time.
“Through this organization, I
ministered on campus and around the state and then years later, at an
FCA conference in 1964, I first met Anne. She was dating a high school
fellow and her folks - Dr. Billy and Ruth Graham - lived close to where
the FCA conference was to take place. Anne came over to hear the
speakers, and the first time I saw her, that's all it took for me. I
fell head over heels in love with her.
“She
was a gorgeous 5 feet 9 inches tall, blonde with blue eyes. Her dad got
the word out that he wanted her to date one of the college guys. Anne
was 17 at the time and I was 28 so you can imagine the difference.”
He said that Anne agreed to
come on a date with him for the second night of the conference and when
he arrived at the Graham's mountaintop home in Montreat, North Carolina,
Mrs. Ruth Graham told him, “Be sure to bring her home by 9:30 p.m.”
Lotz went on to say, “So I
brought her home by that time and Anne went to bed and I stayed and
talked with her mother until about midnight.
“On my second date, the family
knew I was serious, so they invited a lot of family members for a big
steak-out at their home. I arrived and talked with everybody and then I
went outside where Dr. Graham was cooking the steaks. When I got there,
the whole place was in flames and the steaks were all burned. Mr. Graham
said, ‘Let’s just scrape off the charcoal. The steaks will be good any
way.’ I believe that was his last cooking job that I've ever seen. He
was definitely a better preacher than he was a cook.”
Danny Lotz had by now joined
the US Air Force and was stationed in New Mexico and continued, “I wrote
her every day for 15 days and I never heard from her. Then I finally
heard from her. She and her family had been on vacation and so that's
why she hadn't responded. Then I came and visited her. There was an Air
Force plane coming to North Carolina so I hitched a ride and dated her
again in July.
“Then, that September I got out
of the service and her father was having a crusade in Denver so I went
there and met Anne. I drove her to Estes Park, which was an hour from
Denver. However, when she got there she got deathly sick. Her
temperature was 104 degrees, so I rushed her back to the hotel and her
Dad got her a doctor. We found out that she had mononucleosis, which is a
rare blood disease that you get when you are over-stressed. So instead
of going off to Wheaton College, she had to go back home to North
Carolina and I moved to Raleigh to set up my dental practice.
“Every Friday night, I drove to
Montreat and saw Anne for a few minutes. Her mother would cook me a big
steak and I would spend the weekend with them. I did that for a year.
At the end of that year we got engaged, and I was asked to go to London
for the Billy Graham crusade at Earls Court. I spent two months in the
UK doing basketball clinics around England and sharing my testimony. I
was rooming with Charlie Riggs, who was then the head of counseling and
Loren Sanny, who was the head of Navigators. I actually played for the
English basketball team once against the Belgians and we beat them. But
it was wonderful to meet the young people and invite them to the
crusade.”
The couple was married Sept. 2,
1966, at the little chapel at the Graham house in Montreat. “I was 29
at the time and Anne was 18, so you can imagine the phone calls that
their family got.
“I have to say that Anne at 18,
was as mature as any Christian girl at 50 years of age because of the
way she was brought up and grounded in the scriptures. My father and Dr.
Graham did the ceremony together. Then we went to Palma Valley,
California, for our honeymoon. We flew to California for a week, then
came back and set up our little house in Raleigh, North Carolina.”
The couple then set up house in
Raleigh, N.C., and began their family. Anne began her speaking career
not long after in a rather unlikely way.
Dan
told me about Anne's first-ever speaking engagement: “Anne was very shy
when we first married and never spoke in public,” he said. “I was asked
by a pastor if Anne and I would do a Valentine's Banquet. This was
months away and I didn't think of asking Anne. A couple of days before
we were due to speak, her picture was in the paper, which said that Anne
Graham Lotz would speak. Well, Anne called me at the office. She was so
upset and said she wouldn't do it. We had a bad evening that night. She
was all nervous and stayed up most of the night. We were each supposed
to share for 15 minutes that night. She spoke first, and half-an-hour
later I had to get up and tap her on the shoulder to say, ‘Anne, I'm
supposed to speak too.’
“From then on, Anne has never looked back.”
From 1976-1988, he said, Anne
taught Bible Study Fellowship, a weekly Bible study class in Raleigh,
N.C. of over 500 women. Her original class multiplied until today there
are 10 other classes of similar size in Raleigh.
“Then about,” he said at the
time, “eight years ago, Anne was getting so many calls to speak around
the country that she just felt like the Lord was calling her to go out
to preach and teach,” he said. “She started speaking mainly to women's
meetings in churches around the country in churches. She would be
invited to speak at churches and she said she would come if they also
would invite the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and the Assemblies
of God. It got bigger and she felt so burdened that women needed to be
grounded in God's Word that years ago she started these revivals and it
was with Jill Briscoe and Kay Arthur. Then she added Fernando Ortega,
who sings, 'Just Give Me Jesus,' as the musician. She has had about 10
of these meetings. She's already had one in Raleigh. Next month will be
Cleveland, then Denver, then Tampa and Charlotte.”
He went on to say, “I am in awe
when I see her speak, because this is my shy little wife and here she
is out proclaiming the Good News in such an anointed way.”
Anne established AnGeL
Ministries, an independent non-profit corporation, in 1988. AnGeL
Ministries is based in Raleigh, N.C. and is committed to giving out
messages of Biblical exposition so that God's Word is personal and
relevant to ordinary people. The ministry's name, derived from the
initials of Anne Graham Lotz (AGL), is especially fitting as an angel's
Biblical role is to go only where the Lord sends and to proclaim only
the Word of the Lord. AnGeL Ministries serves as the umbrella
organization for the diverse ministry of Anne Graham Lotz - including
her many books, tapes and speaking engagements as well as special events
like “Just Give Me Jesus” and “A Passionate Pursuit.”
When asked if he ever got
jealous of Anne, Lotz replied firmly, “No. Having been brought up in the
family of a street-corner preacher, you just praise the Lord for
whoever gives out the Good News and for Anne to be called. She is so
gifted. I give little talks, but you know that she is so gifted and the
Lord has anointed her for this ministry.”
Anne Graham's Lotz website can be found at http://www.angelministries.org/ .
Now Danny Lotz has gone home to
his reward, but I’ll never forget that week in New York with him as he
revealed about his wonderful marriage to Anne Graham Lotz. He was truly a
humble and fascinating person.
Photo captions: 1) Danny Lotz
and his wife, Anne Graham Lotz (holding Long Leaf Pine citation).
(Special to The Herald-Sun/Dan Way). 2) Danny Lotz fires a left-handed
hook shot in this UNC archival photo taken at Woollen Gym circa 1956.
(UNC file photo) 3) Billy Graham with Anne at his home. 4) The couple
together at their home. 4) Dan Wooding chats with Billy and Ruth Graham
at their Montreat, North Carolina, home.
About
the writer: Dan Wooding, 74, is an award-winning journalist who was
born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, and is now living in
Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for
more than 52 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six
grandchildren who all live in the UK. Dan is the founder and
international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic
Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS). He is also the author of some
45 books. Dan began his journalistic career in 1968 on Billy Graham’s
British newspaper, The Christian, and in later years was part of Mr.
Graham’s media team in Russia, Germany and Puerto Rico.
** You may republish this or any of our ANS stories with attribution to the ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net)
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