We are posting the following three articles about Wayne Smith.

Friendship Force Mourns Death of Wayne Smith

Dear friends,

It is with great sadness that I write to tell you of the death of our founder and longtime leader, Wayne Smith, Wednesday night (June 16, 2004) at his home in Big Canoe, Georgia. He was 69 years old. I know each member of the global Friendship Force family joins me in expressing our deepest sympathy to Wayne's wife, Carolyn, his daughter and our former President, Susie Smith, and all the members of their family. 

I spoke with Wayne several weeks ago. As always, he was energetically pursuing new ways to fulfill his lifelong passion for bringing people together in friendship. As many of you know, Wayne's most recent activity with the Friendship Force was last December when he led a delegation to Jordan, with home stays he arranged with Iraqi families in Jordan. Wayne created the Friendship Force and led it for its first 24 years, leaving us a wonderful legacy. 

Our greatest tribute to this giant of a man will be to rededicate ourselves to the task he began. Let us make his dream our dream, knowing that he never tired of telling us, "a world of friends is a world of peace." 

A memorial service will be held for Wayne at the Big Canoe Chapel on Monday, June 21 at 2:00 p.m. If you would like to send any messages to the family, you may send them to Carolyn Smith at: 9003 Trotter's Lane, 10173 Big Canoe, Big Canoe, Georgia 30143. Next week we will put an appropriate tribute to Wayne on the FFI website.

In friendship, 

George Brown
President

Friendship Force founder Smith dies
By Derrick Henry, Atlanta Constitution

Friendship Force founder Wayne Smith, who grew up in a bar and integrated a black college, devoted his life to bringing people from different countries and cultures together.

"Wayne had a wonderful vision and the means for achieving it," said George Brown of Atlanta, president of Friendship Force International, which was founded in 1977 and is headquartered in Atlanta. "That means was the idea of having people with very different cultures, languages, religions and politics spend a few days in each other's homes. They start as strangers and end up as friends."

The Rev. Smith, 69, who had myasthenia gravis, a nerve disease, took his own life Wednesday at his residence in Big Canoe. The memorial service will be at 2 p.m. Monday at Big Canoe Chapel. Cagle Funeral Home of Jasper is in charge of arrangements.

The Rev. Smith led groups of volunteer "ambassadors" in exchanges all over the world, including war-torn and Cold War countries. In 1990, he oversaw a two-week trip by 300 Americans to visit Soviet Georgians in Atlanta's sister city, Tbilisi.

"The Friendship Force became the first group to organize home stays in the Soviet Union," said his daughter, Susan Smith of Claremont, Calif., a former Friendship Force president.

"What we fear most is the unknown," the Rev. Smith said in a 1985 Atlanta Journal-Constitution story. "If we learn these people and if they learn us, then maybe we can begin to stop being afraid of one another and begin building bridges of friendship."

The Rev. Smith forged friendships with boxer Muhammad Ali, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and many others, including former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, who became influential supporters of the Friendship Force from its inception.

By the time the Rev. Smith retired as Friendship Force president in 2000, the nonprofit organization had grown enormously.

"Wayne never set out to form a global institution, but today we have 350 chapters in more than 50 countries,' Mr. Brown said. 'We will have about 4,000 citizen ambassadors going out this year."

"Wayne Smith was the best I've ever seen at putting relationships together," said Boyd Lyons of Atlanta, former executive director of Friendship Force. "He had the ability to go into a strange city, ride from the airport with the taxi driver, and the next thing you know he was sitting in the mayor's office, saying, 'Why don't you have a Friendship Force here?' "

Sometimes the Rev. Smith used unorthodox methods to achieve his ends. In 1992, he brought a Russian, a Pole, two Latvians and a Soviet Georgian together at his Big Canoe home and told them to disrobe and enter the outdoor hot tub naked. "What better way to get rid of the barriers that divide us?" he asked in a 1992 Journal-Constitution story.

The Rev. Smith grew up poor in Charleston, W.Va., living with his maternal grandmother and step-grandfather upstairs from the bar and pool hall they ran. His high school girlfriend, Carolyn Heaster, began taking him to her Presbyterian church, and he underwent a religious conversion. The couple married two years later, when he was 19.

He chose to enroll in nearby West Virginia State College "because they had fantastic teachers and it was cheaper," said his daughter. It didn't concern him that he was the first white person to attend the all-black institution. "He never saw barriers," his daughter said.

He eventually became a Presbyterian minister, and he served as a missionary in Brazil from 1963 to 1970. His work there so impressed the Rev. Vernon Broyles of Atlanta's North Avenue Presbyterian Church that he invited the Rev. Smith to become his director of community ministries.

His efforts included programs for the area's street people, said Tom Roddy of Atlanta, who succeeded him as the church's community minister.

Once, a barefoot homeless man approached the Rev. Smith and asked for help. He took off his shoes and gave them to the man. "That's the kind of guy he was," Mr. Lyons said.

Life hardly slowed after the Rev. Smith retired from the Friendship Force.. In 2002, he led a group of 45 Atlanta religious leaders --- Christians, Jews and Muslims --- on a "World Pilgrims" trip to Turkey.

"We rode across Turkey on a bus and spent 10 days together. It was designed so that every three days we would room with someone of a different faith," said Plemon El-Amin of Atlanta, imam of the Atlanta Masjid and the Islamic leader of the group. "Wayne felt that if we got to know each other we could find friendships for peace, and that's exactly what happened. The 45 of us became true friends, and since coming back we have done over 100 different events in Atlanta."

"Dad wanted to get people together," Susan Smith said. "He was a natural matchmaker, the matchmaker supreme."

Survivors also include his wife, Carolyn Smith; three sons, David Smith of Hilton Head Island, S.C., Stephen Smith of Marietta and Andrew Smith of Raleigh; a brother, James Smith of Big Canoe; a sister, Barbara Peggs of Charleston, W.Va.; and five grandchildren.


© 2004 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on 6/20/2004. 

Wayne Smith Remembered

By Jimmy R. Allen,

Chaplain Emeritus,

Big Canoe Chapel

An Internet Search reveals 38,700,000 Smith references. It is one of humanity's most common names. Since names often came from relationship to vocations, "Smith" names multiplied. However the Smith whose death we are mourning these days was no ordinary man. Wayne Smith impacted thousands of lives all over the world in his almost seventy years of living.

Long before becoming one of the first residents of Big Canoe, Wayne Smith had risen from an unlikely beginning as a West Virginia boy reared in rooms over a pool hall. Cared for by his grandmother and her Italian immigrant husband, he had lived with them from early childhood. He ran errands, swept out the little town's one picture show and learned to run the projector. He also learned to play pool so well that he "hustled" as the kid who was put up against the newcomer.

Endowed with a bright mind and an engaging personality, he came early to his religious experience. Helped by Carolyn, the person who was to become his life's companion, he came to the Presbyterian Church where he eventually entered the ministry. He began early also in penetrating racial barriers. He decided to attend the nearest good college to him. It was an African-American campus. He became its first Anglo student and was later honored as its outstanding alumnus.

Graduating from Columbia Theological Seminary, he and Carolyn went as missionaries to Brazil. Wayne discovered that he had an ear for languages. His Portuguese came easy and early to him. He became so fluent that he matched the best of natives in his mastering of the language. This equipped him for service in Brasilia, the nation's .new capitol, as he organized English classes for legislators and officials. He also taught Bible classes and fathered the Prayer Breakfast movement in that nation about the same time the Washington Prayer Breakfast movement was getting under way.

It was this experience and these relationships that equipped him, after moving to Atlanta, to set up Governor Jimmy Carter's visit to Brazil. He arranged for the governor to stay in the home of the vice president of Brazil. There new vistas for opening avenues between the two areas emerged. The seed of the idea of Friendship Force came from that experience.

Returning to the United States at the invitation of Vernon Broyles, he became Community Minister for North Avenue Presbyterian Church. Few men were better equipped by disposition, ability, and experience. He began a weekly Bible study for business and professional leaders, became chaplain for the Atlanta Hawks, and ministered to many of the pace setting leaders of the city.

After a stint as pastor of Decatur Presbyterian Church, he conceived of and carried through with an historic exchange of the people of Atlanta with the people of Georgia Soviet Union. This was in the days before Glasnost. More than 300 persons stayed in homes in Soviet Union and opened their homes to Soviet persons in exchange. The principle of home-to-home visitation as a means of forming friendship and contributing to peace through understanding was born. Friendship Force was formed. Today there are chapters in countries all over the world.

The Smiths moved to Big Canoe in the early days as Vernon Broyles came to live and start the Chapel. Wayne Smith opened the community to international contacts that contributed greatly to its world awareness and ministry participation. He became a volunteer assistant chaplain and retained that role and activity through the years.

I was first introduced to Wayne by a mutual friend. I was establishing a new cable network to be accessed by local churches and fed by satellite. He liked the idea and assisted me by introducing a number of his friends to the process. We became close friends. I spoke for his international meeting in Hong Kong. Later I served on his board and chaired its executive committee. He invited me to his home in Big Canoe. I remember that we detoured about 75 miles that day for him to visit a friend in a rest home. It was typical Wayne Smith personal ministry.

He persuaded me to preach in Chapel that Sunday. It was the beginning of one of the most satisfying portions of our life ministry as a prelude for our moving to Big Canoe Chapel.

Wayne was a visionary and a plunger. He threw himself into causes that caught his attention. He moved to Moscow for a year to implement his work. He had an apartment in the East Lake area, as he helped in personal ways in that inner city project that has received so many accolades in recent years. He conceived of and helped launch the Friend-to-Friend project in Atlanta. It is still being carried out by Faith in the City. It has helped several hundred Atlanta families open their homes and participate in weekend exchanges across racial lines with families of their comparable economic and educational background.

He founded World Pilgrims in which Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders traveled to Turkey and became colleagues in common causes in a world torn by strife and hatred: He has raised thousands of dollars for the children's hospital in Recife that has had such an amazing record in helping children with leukemia, AIDS and other blood diseases. Dr. Sylvia Brandelise, founder of Boldrini Hospital, has been a frequent guest in Big Canoe.

We often joked with Wayne about the proliferation of ideas that he regularly produced. They went in so many directions and were so numerous that the flow was overwhelming: However a surprising number of them worked and were worked. For instance, he produced a children's book based on a Russian bear story, a best selling record in Brazil as he sang with a chorus of nuns, a major milk and pharmaceutical effort through a British Foundation and handled by the Red Crescent to help hospitalized children in Iraq, assistance to a large camp of outcasts in the Morocco desert. If it helped the weak, broke down barriers of hatred and lifted the fallen, look around you would find Wayne Smith somewhere in the picture.

When the Mycenae gravis began to take its toll on his speech and swallowing, he kept driving himself. Physical problems had mounted but he moved with almost a frenzy of determination not to let them stop him. Projects piled up that could not work without a healthy Wayne Smith. Discouragement was masked in determination. This gregarious, persuasive, personable man in his public persona had a very private side which was unrevealed. He faced multiplied physical, financial and emotional pressures. His own words conceded that his greatest problem was dealing with his pride. He simply could not bring himself to think he could not deal with any challenge without help.

Those of us who grieve know that we are doing so with the privilege of having been touched by an extraordinary man with an ordinary name.

Published in Smoke Signals, News from Big Canoe (Georgia)

July 2004

July 19, 1934 – June 16, 2004

Rev. Wayne Smith dies on June 16

Founder of Friendship Force; Big Canoe Chapel Associate Chaplain

By Charlene Terrell, Smoke Signals, Big Canoe, Georgia

Wayne Smith died on June 16, 2004 at his home in Big Canoe following a lengthy battle against the debilitating, chronic, autoimmune neuromuscular disease called myasthenia gravis. This disease often affects muscles that control eye and eyelid movement, facial expression, chewing, talking and swallowing. Wayne also suffered from macular degeneration, which had significantly diminished his sight.

Wayne Smith was born in South Charleston, West Virginia on July 19, 1934 to Myree Cobb and Carl Smith. Due to family circumstances, he was raised by his grandmother, Myrtle McGill Smith, whom he called “Mee-Maw,” and her second husband, an Italian immigrant named Vincent Tiago “Jimmy” Muscatello, who Wayne called “Pee Paw.” He dearly loved his grandparents and called them the “mother and father of my heart.

During his high school days he met and fell in love with Carolyn Heaster, the pretty girl who would become his wife when he was 19 and she was only 18. Carolyn attended the Presbyterian Church and she invited Wayne to her church. It was there that he experienced a religious conversion and felt the call to be a minister.

Wayne later attended Morris Harvey College and graduated from West Virginia State College and Union Theological Seminary of Virginia.

From 1963-1970 he served as a Presbyterian Missionary in Brazil. He lived there with his wife and their four small children. In 1971 he and his family returned to tie United States from Brazilia, the capital of Brazil.

Wayne attended West Virginia State because it was near his workplace. He was the only white student. The school soon found that their new student was colorblind - he didn't pay attention to externals like skin color. In 1993, the school voted Wayne as the "outstanding .black alumnae of the year." Wayne was Caucasian, but because he was colorblind, the leaders of the college showed that they could be colorblind also! Wayne received the award for his mission of global understanding and friendship.

From 1971-1975 he served as Minister to the Community of the North Avenue Presbyterian Church of Atlanta. In 1977 he assumed the responsibility as the Senior Minster of the Decatur Presbyterian Church. In 1979 he became President of the Friendship Force, which he founded in 1977 with participation from then-President Jimmy Carter and Mrs. Rosalyn Carter. The very first Friendship Force exchange was between Atlanta and Newcastle Upon Tyne on July 4, 1977.

Wayne Smith didn't invent friendship but it could be argued that he perfected the art of making friends and of being a friend to others. After serving as a missionary to Brazil, Wayne's fertile mind came up with the idea of the Friendship Force in 1977.

Today the Friendship Force is an organization that promotes friendship and understanding between people in more than 50 countries around the world. The motto of the organization is "A World of Friends is a World of Peace."

The idea is simple. Through home stays, people get to know each other around kitchen tables. instead of conference tables. They live together with their hosts for a week or two, and during this time they are part of the same family. Does it work? It does indeed. In fact, it works so well that it's called “Friendship Force magic.”

This year about 4000 people will make friends through home stays and the best thing about these friendships is that they typically last and grow strong across the years. This "magic" thrilled Wayne, Smith because he started the Friendship Force to provide ordinary citi­zens of the world\ the opportunity to establish personal friendships in other countries to see for themselves how wonderful and life‑enriching the experi­ence could be.

After Wayne retired from the Friendship Force in 2000, he continued to promote understanding through friend­ship. In October 2002, Smith organized World Pilgrims and led a delegation of Christian, Jewish and Muslim clergy on an interfaith pilgrimage to Turkey. The members of this delegation made lasting friendships on their journey and they, still work on interfaith understanding in Atlanta.

In December 2003, Wayne Smith led, a delegation for the Friendship Force to the Middle East with home stays that he arranged with Iraqi families in Jordan. Few people could have planned and executed this journey at such a difficult time in history.

Wayne Smith's daughter, Susan Smith, agreed to take over the leadership of the Friendship Force in January 2003, following the resignation of Chip Carter in November 2002. The organization was in a state of disarray when Susan took the job but she did a remarkable job of guiding the Friendship Force to a successful year despite the war with Iraq and the scare from SARS.

Wayne Smith was immensely proud of his daughter's accomplishments for the Friendship Force. (Susan resigned from the Friendship Force as of April 1, 2004 and moved back to California in preparation for her upcoming marriage to Bob Bennitt.)

A private graveside service was held on Saturday, June 19 at Big Canoe Chapel Cemetery. A memorial service was held on Monday, June 21 at Big Canoe Chapel with a reception following in the Broyles Community Center. The Chapel was filled to overflow capacity and about 45 choir members were seated on the altar platform.

Officiating at the service was Dr. Jim McCormick and Dr. Jimmy R. Allen. Other speakers included Susan, Andy and Steve Smith, children of Wayne and Carolyn; Bill Hagan, former member of the Board of Trustees of Friendship Force International; George Brown, president of Friendship Force International; Thomas G. Cousins, the original developer of Big Canoe and an old friend of the family; Levy Tavares, former member of the Congress of Brazil and a dear family friend of 40 years; Sam Rothermel, Chapel Youth leader; Imam Plemon El Amin, a participant in World Pilgrims and former President Jimmy Carter.

Frank Boggs, well-known soloist and choral director, sang "His Eye Is on the Sparrow." Under the direction of Lamar Helms, the Big Canoe Chapel Choir sang "Creation Will Be at Peace."

Imam Plemon El Amin of Atlanta Masjid of Xl-Islam said, "Wayne Smith dreamed no small dreams and thought no small thoughts." He added, "We must keep Wayne's dream alive so that his work will survive and inspire others for years to come."

George Brown, president of Friendship Force International, said, "Wayne believed passionately in the basic goodness of men and women, regardless of their nationality, background, religion or any of the other differences that so often separate us. Wayne Smith believed that if people could just spend a few days in each other's homes they could become friends - and that if enough people did this, the world would gradually become more peaceful. The single-minded energy with which Wayne pursued his dreams set him apart."

In 1992, the Friendship Force was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Ed Jenkins, Georgia's Ninth District Congressman, made the nomination. In presenting the nomination, Jenkins said, "There is evidence and testimony that the Friendship Force, while devoid of actual political activity, has had an influence on the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the advance of democracy in the former Soviet Union and the promotion of peaceful solutions to problems in the Middle East and China."

Tom Cousins told of the time when Wayne was Minister to the Community at Atlanta's North Avenue Presbyterian Church and decided to seek out those who needed to find God the most. One of those Wayne called on was Mike Thevis, known as the Porn King of Atlanta. Tom said he asked Wayne how he could call on such a man as Thevis. Wayne calmly replied, "He's a child of God, Tom."

Levy Tavares asked his daughter Angelica to read his prepared remarks. "I have a big lump in my throat," he said. Levy said that he and Wayne were like brothers and that they were also best friends. He spoke of the Friendship Force program in Brazil and noted that it had been very successful.

Bill Hagan of Dayton, Ohio, spoke warmly of Wayne Smith, his friend of 24 years. He talked of the special tie that Wayne felt for Big Canoe and for the Chapel. Bill then read a poem he composed called "A Special Man in A Special Place.”

Former President Jimmy Carter said that he and Wayne Smith met while Carter was governor of Georgia. First Wayne took Governor Carter and Mrs. Rosalyn Carter on a trip to Brazil to meet members of the Brazilian Congress. Fluent in Portuguese, Wayne acted as their guide and interpreter. They had a very successful visit.

"But," said President Carter, "This was not the last time we would travel with Wayne. Following our successful visit to Brazil, Wayne talked about his idea of people-to-people diplomacy. In 1973, Wayne arranged for a chartered jet to take 200 Georgians to Brazil to live in private homes and 200 Brazilians to come to Georgia to live in our homes. Rosalyn traveled to Pernambuco, Brazil on this exchange and I hosted Brazilians back at the Governor's Mansion. Little did we know what Wayne Smith had in store for us after that exchange."

Dr. Jimmy Allen described Wayne Smith as one who "stood beside the door." He said Wayne knew there were people searching for God, but they, did not know how to find Him. Wayne stood by the door to God and helped others find that door.

Wayne Smith is survived by his wife, Carolyn; sons, David, Stephen and Andrew; and daughter, Susan; brother and sister-in-law, James and Grace Smith; sister, Barbara Peggs; daughter-in-laws, Manuela Smith and Dirce Smith, and soon to be son-in-law, Bob Bennitt, grandchildren, James, Jessica, Nicole, Lukas and Anna Smith.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Big Canoe Chapel Benevolence Fund or to Boldrini Children's Hospital, c/o Big Canoe Chapel, 10455 Big Canoe, Big Canoe, Georgia 30143.

Published in Smoke Signals, News from Big Canoe (Georgia)

July 2004

Vol XVI No 7