Dr. Sam Vinton spent his childhood on the mission field in the Congo, with his remarkable parents, survived a devastating truck accident, and went on to become a professor and president of Grace Christian University. In this conversation with Danny Garcia, campus pastor at Grace Christian University, Dr. Sam reflects on the memories, people, and principle of gratitude that has defined his life of service.
Growing Up in the Congo
Danny: If you were to explain your childhood and where you grew up, what were the core events that really shaped who you are today?
Dr. Sam: Two things, really. One was memorizing Bible verses and reading Bible stories as a child. My mother also had a book of moral stories. I still remember one about a boy who kept lying. His father nailed a board to the wall, and every time the boy lied, they drove a nail into it. When the boy finally committed to telling the truth, they pulled the nails out one by one. But the boy looked at the board and said, “The marks are still there.” His father said, “Yes, even when we go back to God and say we’re sorry, sometimes the consequences of what we’ve said or done leave marks.” Those kinds of stories stayed with me.
The second thing was a missionary named Chris Eggemeyer, a man my dad’s age, who took me under his wing around age 15. He had me lead singing and teaching alongside him. On weekends, he would take me out to villages to preach and teach. Through that process, I really came to understand my faith and my calling.
The Accident That Confirmed Everything
Dr. Sam: Just a month before I came back to start school at Grace, I was driving a large truck with about 30 people in the back on a mountain road in the Congo. The brakes gave out. As I came around a corner, I saw workers digging a wide ditch across the road. They scattered just in time, and the truck went into the ditch, flipped, and rolled down a ravine. People were thrown everywhere.
Somehow I was thrown clear. I stood up on the other side of the road with nothing wrong, not a scratch. When I went to check on the others, the first person I found was a friend my age. He was dead. Two young people and the head pastor died in that accident.
As I walked to find help, a verse my mother had taught me came to me, Ephesians 1:11: “He worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will.” That verse hit me and stabilized me. I felt a real calmness. That whole incident affirmed to me that God had called me to serve Him. He had spared my life. I knew the language. I knew these people. That’s where He wanted me.
Danny: I’ve heard countless stories of people who go through something similar, a near-death experience or something simply unexplainable, and it brings their purpose into focus. Some push back and say that’s just humans creating meaning to feel better. But I think it also reveals a genuine longing for God in humanity. If that longing exists, something active must be there to meet it.
A Father Who Showed More Than He Said
Dr. Sam: My dad went to the Congo at 20 years old, fresh out of Bible Institute, to preach and plant churches. But after a couple of years, he reached a conclusion: “I’m telling these people they’re going to heaven, but here they are, sick, with disease, while I could be doing something to help them while they’re still alive.” So he paused his ministry, went to Europe, learned French, completed an intensive course in tropical medicine, and came back to start a medical center.
He later built a leprosy colony on land the Belgian government gave him, hundreds of acres, with housing, a dispensary, and a church. His philosophy, which his own father had instilled in him, was simply: don’t go out and tell people what to do. Do it yourself so they can see it.
For example, the local people built homes with very small windows. When my dad asked why, they said, “If the windows are too big, witches will come and pull us out at night.” A typical American would scoff at that. My dad didn’t. He just built his own house with large windows. When the villagers came and asked how he could sleep like that, he said, “The Spirit of God is in here. When those witches come, He is bigger than they are.” He never said there were no witches, but simply pointed to something greater.
Danny: That’s so biblical, “They’ll know you are my disciples by the way you love.” Not by arguing people into a corner, but by living the truth so they can see it.
Dr. Sam: My dad served 76 years in the Congo, the longest recorded missionary tenure in Africa. He was 96 when a stroke affected his speech. He wanted to stay there and die there, since my mother was buried there. But we persuaded him to come home, and he lived another eight months before he passed.
Gratitude as a Philosophy of Life
Dr. Sam: In the very first class I ever taught here at Grace, I wrote one word on the board: Thanksgiving. I told my students, “That’s my philosophy of life.” If you have real thanksgiving to God, it leads you to see the people around you who don’t have what you have. And that leads to compassion. You begin to say, “Lord, that could be me, but it’s not.” And eventually, when you’re able to do something for someone else, that gratitude moves into action.
I still can’t go a day without humming the old hymn, “How Can I Say Thanks.” I keep a list next to my bed, ten reasons to be grateful: God is sovereign, He forgives, He loves, He answers prayer. I just keep coming back to it. That’s who I am because of God.
I look at my freshman class from 1951, 30 students. I have the full list in my computer. Just recently, the last other man from that class passed away. I’m the only man left. And I ask myself: why me? The answer I keep coming back to is that God said, “I still have something for you to do.”
Passing It On
Danny: You’ve become a mentor of mentors. What are the main things you’ve tried to instill in those you’ve taught, to prepare them to equip others?
Dr. Sam: Start with gratitude. And then, get involved right away. Get connected to a local church. Start seeing what you can do. Whether it’s teaching a Sunday school class, joining a gospel team, or taking a chance to speak when the opportunity comes, do it. You don’t have to wait until you’re officially a pastor to start.
You can’t wait for God to speak from heaven before you take a step. Start where you are. Look around, you may find students right here who don’t have what you have, financially, educationally, or in terms of Christian training. Maybe you’re just a strong student and someone nearby is struggling. Help them. That’s discipleship. That’s ministry.
I pass on what I received, and you pass on what you receive, that’s the next generation doing the same thing. That’s where you all are right now.
Danny: If we could sum up this episode in one word, it’s gratitude. Be grateful, but let that gratefulness be living and active. Let the thankfulness for what God has done point you toward Him and toward loving others.
Dr. Sam: Amen. I’m just thankful to the Lord that He still has me here to do something for Him.
