Welcome to Call to Decision 

 American Minute with Bill Federer

 January 5

 Kidnapped after the Civil War, he was ransomed with a horse.

 Raised by German immigrants, Moses and Susan Carver, he left home at
 eleven and attended school in Neosho, Missouri, paying tuition by
 doing odd jobs.

 He drifted from Kansas to Iowa, working as a cook and doing laundry.

 He studied at Simpson College, then received a bachelor's and
 master's degree from Iowa State.

 Booker T. Washington recruited him to teach at Tuskegee Institute,
 where he introduced hundred of uses for the peanut, soybean and sweet
 potato, revolutionizing the South's economy.

 This was George Washington Carver, who died JANUARY 5, 1943.

 He addressed Congress, met with Presidents Teddy Roosevelt, Calvin
 Coolidge and Franklin Roosevelt, was offered jobs by Henry Ford and
 Thomas Edison, and received correspondence from world leaders,
 including Gandhi and Stalin.

 In 1928, Dr. Carver stated:

 "Human need is really a great spiritual vacuum which God seeks to
 fill...

 With one hand in the hand of a fellow man in need and the other in
 the hand of Christ, He could get across the vacuum...

 Then the passage, 'I can do all things through Christ which
 strengthens me,' came to have real meaning."