Champion for Christ – Vernon Brewer

Vernon Brewer was the first graduate of Liberty University in 1973. There were eight transfer students eligible for graduation that year, which was the year before the first full graduating class. Liberty decided to have a commencement for those eight students, including Vernon, where his name was the first called. While a student, he majored in Religion/Youth Ministry, since he was actually the senior high school youth pastor on staff at the church at the time of finishing his degree. After graduating from Liberty, Vernon served five years as the associate director of Life Action Ministries, five years as the director of Light ministries, and ten years on staff at Liberty University as Dean of Students, Campus Pastor, and later VP of student affairs. In 1991, he left Liberty to start World Help, where he has been the president for the past 30 years, and now serves as the Founder of World Help, which is a Christian humanitarian organization serving the physical and spiritual needs of people in impoverished communities around the world. In 2009, he was named Liberty University Alumnus of the Year. In 2015, he was also inducted into his public high school’s hall of fame, where they had previously thought he would be the least likely to succeed. Since then, he’s gone on to do incredible things as noted above, plus so much more. Vernon now resides in Forest, Virginia with his wife, Patty and they have three daughters together as well as eight grandchildren.

 

Some of his fondest memories at LU include having many opportunities to travel with Dr. Falwell, such as speaking engagements, conferences, Romania, the Philippines, and Russia. The lessons learned while traveling were valuable education in themselves, he believes. The second memory that stands out was in 1985, when he had just been diagnosed with cancer – stage four Hodgkins Disease. His doctors even told him that he would not survive. With this diagnosis, he underwent eighteen surgeries and two years of chemo/radiation treatment. On November 3, 1985, Vernon’s good friend Dwayne Carson, who was also on staff at LU, organized an around-the-clock prayer for students titled, ‘The Miracle Day of Prayer’. Students signed up for one-hour slots throughout the twenty-four hours, where the prayer chapel was full of students praying for his healing. The largest attendance was from 2:00-5:00 a.m., in which 2,400 students signed up to pray (at the time, that was nearly the entire student body). He believes that God healed him from cancer in part to give those students a tangible example of answered prayer. He will forever be indebted to and grateful for the students who helped to save his life.

 

Some advice he would love to give to future students and/or even other alumni is, “When you leave Liberty, dare to dream big.” He recalls, “I got to witness firsthand Dr. Falwell’s vision of a world-class university. When I was a student, class was held in the old Thomas Road building, and it was difficult to envision Liberty becoming what it is today, but Dr. Falwell saw it. His vision has become a reality. Every time I drive on campus, I am reminded that we serve a God of the impossible.”