I’m staring at this blank screen and thinking I can’t write this; I don’t want to write this; I would rather write anything than this. But I must.

Last night, June 24, 2026 at 8:45pm we lost him, Michael Lynn Fortson, age 83 young. Actually, he is not lost, we know exactly where he is. He slipped quietly from the arms of his gathered family, Kim and Bruce, Rebekah, Rob and Becky, Hayley and myself and landed safely in the arms of the Savior he has served since age sixteen when he signed up to preach on a clip board passed around at the base chapel in Goose Bay, Labrador.  It was a long and hard death from pancreatic cancer, as we watched and prayed around his bed, his big heart just did not want to give up until God said, “It’s time”.

This gentle, quiet man of God who chose me to walk beside him 62 years ago, (I never could figure out why and right now he would be telling me, “Now Dorris get ahold of yourself!”) he was, as one of our little grand kids had said, a “worker man.” He loved God and he loved his family, he loved the whole dream that became Neema Village, and he loved telling people about Jesus. He loved baptizing them and he loved giving out bibles in Africa.

He was a “worker man” and loved tools and could fix anything. Nothing excited him better than to pass a broken-down car with a family sitting on the side of the road and he could turn around and fix their car.  He could fix any car until the electronic things came out. He loved wiring things and sixty years ago wired the whole African student village at Chimala so the preacher students didn’t have to study at night by an oily string in a tuna can. He loved carpentry and built my huge table out of scraps so we could feed a dozen SFA students every Sunday after church.

He loved our family; our four kids and their spouses: Kim, Bekah, Rob and Matt, our nine grandchildren and two great grands and all the over 500 babies Neema took in who called him Babu.

When our four were little, they would wait for him to come home from the office so they could play lion. It was a wonder the police were never called to our house at night with all the growling and yelling as he crawled around chasing one or two while the other two pounced on his back.

Such fun it all was.

Kim said we must have walked around in a God bubble with all the crazy, wonderful things we did with him. Whither he was climbing Kilimanjaro or spear ing lobsters for supper with Eldred Echols in the Indian ocean at night by flashlight or rescuing me from the Nile River rapids, or trying to coach his seven-month pregnant wife to cross a river at flood stage holding on to a rope he’d tied to a tree, or hauling me up the mountains in Colorado on a motorcycle, not to mention the escapades of the twelve college boys on the six month Safari for Souls where he killed a cobra in the baby’s room and went swimming in a river made famous later for man eating lions, he was always just on the edge of danger.

Tying camp meat up a tree on a camping safari out on the Usangu plains of his beloved Africa and then arguing with a determined lioness in the middle of the night when she wanted it more than he did was a heart stopper for those of us who loved to hear his old Africa stories around the dinner table at Neema Village. Stopping to cool off at a lake after a long, dusty preaching trip and wading into the water only to learn later it was Crocodile lake or answering the call from a frantic mother to come talk down her boy out in the field with a gun, Michael didn’t live the calm life of a country preacher.

But I must say looking back on it all, I always felt safe with him.

He had an uncanny sense of direction and always knew where we were. He was never lost, and he was solid in his chosen path of life, too, never wavering, always heading toward Jesus.

Always ready for adventure and when I said, Honey lets retire and go help those babies in Africa, he said I’ll buy the tickets. When he saw a young, desperate mom being dragged off to jail for abandoning her baby, he said let’s help these African moms too and then later he said let’s do something for all these handicap babies here and then when an Aggie said men are the problem here, he said let’s do something. It was to be his last but unfulfilled dream to build a trade school for men in Africa. He figured we might do our most lasting work for that beautiful country with that dream.

Yes, sweet granddaughter, he was a worker man but he knew a lot about a lot of other things, too. He knew how to listen and was a good counselor and always told our kids, “you do the next right thing and it will be ok.”

He was my walking Bible concordance and could always tell me where a scripture was, he loved devos and mission trips and building houses in Mexico and he loved Monday Chicken n’ Dumplins’ at the Yellow House in Nacogdoches and he loved…

Behind the great sadness of this day, I have a song and a sweet picture in my heart.

“When all of life is over and my work on earth is done
And the morning breaks eternal bright and fair
When the saved of earth shall gather over on that other shore
And the role is called up yonder, I’ll be there.”

I can see his sweet mom who kept him going to church waiting there for him there and Joanna, Matt’s wife newly arrived there and our little Merritt we never got to meet. I can see him and Dr. Ron and Bob sittin’ around and talkin’ Bible and I see our Neema babies who went on first; baby Christina, Loitapuaki, and tiny Olivia and all the others we have loved all gathered there, waiting and in front of them all, there is the one he was most anxious to see, Jesus.

I’ve told him, save me a seat hon, I’ll be there as soon as He calls.

And right now if you know him, you know he would not want you to send flowers, he’d say send something to Neema Village to help them instead. www.neemavillage.org.

Love you all so much and cannot say Thank You enough for the prayers and love and food that you have showered on us.

dorris