PHOTO FINISH
Tulsa-based mission group honors retired founder
For the first summer in 26 years, Walker Moore watched as groups of student missionaries embarked on overseas mission trips without him leading the way.
It was June and retirement was an uncomfortable fit for the founder of Awe Star Missions of Tulsa.
Then, intriguing pictures began popping up on social media.
In one photo, Moore was on an airplane ride in the middle of a group of missionaries. In another picture, he was on a bus with missionaries headed to a remote village in Gambia, Africa.
In another series of photos, he sat with children in Panama a nd Gambia, or walked i n Budapest, Hungary, with Awe Star Missions leaders like Isaac Valdez and Becky Robinson.
Peggy Nunley, Awe Star Mission's current president, s ai d s he had t he Awe Star mission t eams enlarge and laminate a photo of Moore so they could take it on their trips.
It was their way of bringing their beloved president emeritus along as they spent the summer sharing the gospel.
Nunley, 45, said it was the perfect way to pay tribute to her mentor and predecessor.
“Walker's vision from the beginning was to raise up a generation of missionaries,” s he s ai d. “I t was a way t o honor him. This is his legacy. This is his vision fleshed out even beyond him.”
Moore said he was pleasantly surprised and honored by the attention.
“My Facebook just lit up,” he said. “People from all over were saying it was just a sweet thing to see.”
Inspirational man, project
Nunley said the summer project was based loosely on t he popular “Flat Stanley” literacy project, but with an obvious social media twist.
The “Flat Stanley” project is based on a children's book series. Since the series was introduced in 1995, school students across the country send a paper or cardboard — flat—Stanley character to a school, celebrity, family member, politician or anyone of interest and the recipient agrees to return the miniature character along with a completed journal and perhaps some souvenirs like postcards, photos or other special items.
Moore said he typically posted pictures from mission trips but he had resigned himself to the fact that there would be no more of those fun photos.
“I thought there had come a day where there would be no more pictures of me. Then all of a sudden on my Facebook, there's a ` Flat Walker,'” he said.
As the pictures from Africa, Panama, Romania and Slovenia flooded his social media feed, Moore got a glimpse of how much Awe Star Missions leaders and student missionaries missed him and how much they appreciated long tenure of leadership.
The Tulsa Southern Baptist said he l ed missionaries on overseas trips for the past 40 years. He was a youth pastor at a Baptist church when he created Awe Star Missions 26 years ago to help generate and sustain interest in overseas missions among young people.
Over the years, he has orchestrated mission trips involving more than 13,000 students, taking them to 52 countries around the world.
Missions became his life's work and Moore enjoyed living off the grid, sleeping in a hammock in remote places with no electricity or running water.
The opportunity to spread the gospel was always worth it, Moore said.
Panama, the Ivory Coast of Africa — “you name the place, I've slept on the ground somewhere in that country for a while,” he said.
Moore has shared details of his missionary adventures through his “Rite of Passage” column in the Baptist Messenger, the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma's official newsletter. He said he decided to retire in August 2018 — becoming Awe Star's president emeritus (which he described, jokingly, as another way of saying he's “the crotchety old missionary in residence) — to spend more time with his grand children. He said he was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer and doctors say his prognosis is good. More time to spend with his family just feels right, he said.
Still, Nunley said she could tell he was struggling with the idea of retirement and the “Flat Stanley” project seemed to fit the situation.
She said she went on her first mission trip led by Moore when she was 15 and it opened her eyes to her own life's calling for missionary work.
Nunley and her husband, who is a physician, folded their medical missions ministry into Awe Star Missions when she took the helm after Moore retired.
As Nunley envisioned, the photos of “Flat Walker” provided Walker with a virtual snapshot of how his leadership has helped transform numerous students into missionary leaders, resulting in countless people in other countries becoming connecting to Christ.
Becky Robinson was a student when she went on her first mission trip with Awe Star. Now one of the ministry's leaders, she said she took a picture of “Flat Walker” on top of a Bible open to one of Walker's favorite mission-minded Scriptures and sent it to him.
“I served with him for the past 12 years. It was interesting not going on a trip with him this year but there were lots of times we had `Flat Walker,'” Robinson said.
“It was crazy to see how people in other nations wanted to come together to take pictures with `Flat Walker.'
Moore said one picture of a young man named Isaac Valdez resonated with him. He said he first met Valdez when he was a young boy in Spain. So he was thrilled to see a picture of “Flat Walker” with Valdez, who now is an A we Star Missions leader leading missions teams in Hungary.
Perhaps Robinson had the best way of describing Moore's motivation for mission and why he has inspired so many to follow in his footsteps.
“His legacy continue son because he saw the importance of sharing the gospel not just in the United States but everywhere,” she said.