Billy Charles White

Billy Charles White was born in February, 1935, in Sanford, Texas, in the Texas panhandle. His first home was a tar paper shack. His father, Lester Larance "Bill" White, had lost his farm in Holly, Colorado, during the Great Dust Bowl of the 1930s. He moved to Texas to work for Union Carbide. He stayed with Union Carbide for the rest of his career and moved his family wherever the company sent him. Billy's mother, Maurine Reno, birthed six children. The first two, Patsy and James, were born on the Colorado farm, though Patsy died of dust pneumonia as a toddler. Billy, brother Larry, and sister Sharon were born in the Texas panhandle and youngest brother Lester Larance “Tex” was born in Kansas.

From his father, Billy learned toughness, perseverance, and an enduring love for mountain stream fly fishing and fishing on the Gulf Coast. From his mother, Billy learned compassion for others and a love for reading. Billy's mom taught him to read when he was 4 or 5 years old and he continued to read a couple of books at a time for the rest of his life.

The family was transferred to Satanta, Kansas, when Billy was in junior high, and then transferred to Aransas Pass, Texas, for his senior year in high school. Billy excelled in academics, earning straight A's and skipping two grades, and was also a high school football star. After graduating from Aransas Pass High School, Class of 1952, Billy went to Texas A&I University in Kingsville, Texas, to earn a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. While there and to help pay his way, he earned football and ROTC scholarships and worked odd jobs in the summers, including a gas station, shrimp boat, oil rig, and with his brother Jimmy on geophysical seismic crews in South Texas. Coach Steinke, A&I’s long-time winning coach, loved Billy's defensive play because Billy loved to hit! Billy received an invitation to try out for the Baltimore Colts, but had to decline due to his military obligation. At A&I, he met his future wife, Judith Scarborough, and after graduation, they eloped to Mexico in 1959.

Upon graduation, Billy went into the Signal Corps because of his degree. While attending officer training in Fort Monmouth, Billy and Judy welcomed their first child, Russell Todd, in 1961. After Fort Monmouth, Billy went to Airborne, Ranger, and Special Forces schools in Fort Bragg and Fort Benning to become a Green Beret. Judi went to Victoria, Texas, to stay with her mother, Margaret “Mimi” Scarborough. In 1962, they welcomed their second child, Julie Anna.

Upon completion of his training, Billy was stationed with the Green Berets in Okinawa, Japan, and from there, Billy was sent on short-term missions in Southeast Asia, including Vietnam and Thailand. In Okinawa, Billy and Judi welcomed their third child, Kristin Karole. Billy served five deployments to Vietnam, earning three bronze stars for valor and other medals and awards from both the US and Vietnam. He loved the Vietnamese people. As a liaison to the Montagnards, he lived among the people, sleeping as they did, eating what they ate.

Over the years, Billy was stationed at many locations throughout the United States and overseas rising to the rank of Colonel. He served as a Battalion Commander in Karlsruhe, Germany, and as Deputy Commander of Special Operations Command Europe in Stuttgart, Germany. He also worked on numerous research and development projects for the military due to his technical expertise. Wherever he lived, Billy wanted his family to experience and enjoy the history and culture of the area. We, his children, are so grateful that we got to enjoy the beauty of the mountains and waterfalls of New England, Colorado, California, and Oregon, the history of Plymouth and Salem, Massachusetts, and castles, palaces, and culture throughout Europe and Okinawa. We were truly blessed.

Billy White loved the Lord, that is his greatest legacy. He recounted a special memory that helped to bring back his relationship with God that he had started in high school when he was baptized. He was at a Green Beret dining-in in Vietnam; a dining-in is a formal occasion where officers and senior NCOs engage in multiple toasts to deceased comrades and all things American. When Billy got up to go to the bar to get another drink, a bomb went off at his table killing his comrades. One of the waiters, a Viet Cong operative, had planted the bomb under his table. Billy felt that his life had been spared to fulfill a higher calling for God.

In 1983, Jeff Norton, his nephew from his sister Sharon, developed leukemia. Billy was deeply moved and wanted to pray for Jeff but didn’t know how. He called his brother Jimmy for advice, and Jimmy instructed Billy to remove anything from his life and his home that was not pleasing to the Lord, get a Bible and start to read it, and begin to pray. In praying for Jeff, Billy re-committed his life to the Lord. From that point forward, he continued to daily read his Bible and pray for the rest of his life. In 1987, his son, Russell Todd, got married to Susan Hodge. In 1989, his daughters were married, Julianna to Tom Adams and Kristin to Masoud Edalatpour. Billy was always fond of saying that “he prayed his children and their spouses into the Kingdom.”

After 30 years of service, Billy retired from the Army. For a few years, he worked for a defense contractor in Oregon, but when the Cold War ended, the defense contractor closed down. However, this was fortuitous because Judi had developed COPD emphysema. Through the years, Billy was a compassionate caregiver to his wife and other family members, including Judi’s nephew and niece, Jack and Margaret Scarborough, his mother-in-law Mimi, his own mother, Maurine, and his brother, Jimmy, and his wife, Eline “Sissy”. Billy stated that caring for these loved ones prepared him for the mission field. While prayerfully caring for his wife, Judi was filled with the Holy Spirit and cured of lung cancer the day before her biopsy and possible surgery. Judi went to be with the Lord in January 2003 after a 17-year battle and his mother passed away in July 2003. Billy was now free to pursue the next phase of his life.

For a number of years, Billy had felt a burden for the persecuted Christian Black African majority in southern Sudan. The radical Islamic Arab government in the North had been waging a 40-year jihad against the Blacks in the South. Over two million died; hundreds of thousands were taken as slaves; and millions displaced. Every hospital, every school, every bridge, every government building - the entire infrastructure of the South was destroyed. But still the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) fought on, representing the non-Arab black ethnic groups in southern Sudan. Billy had been giving to numerous ministries trying to help this population but then felt a call on his own life to serve there.

What did God want Billy to do in southern Sudan? How could he serve Jesus there? After much prayer, the Lord gave Billy a vision to provide education to a place where there had been no schools since the British left in the late 1950s. The SPLA, founded on the old British colonial forces, was the only surviving institution in the whole country. Billy's idea was to provide primary education to military units on a rotating basis. The high achievers would receive additional secondary school instruction and the best of those would become teachers. The plan was for the soldiers to bring education back to their villages after their release from service. Billy found a Bible that had been translated into the Dinka language by British missionaries before 1950. With that, he created a Bible-based elementary and secondary curriculum, starting with the Dinka alphabet and progressing with readers. He was ready to go.

Billy contacted many of the large ministries in America that worked in Africa in order to share his vision. They all said he was too old; he was 68 at the time. Now those ministries did not know who Billy was, otherwise they would have taken him on right away. The Army does not require soldiers to take the annual physical fitness test after 40, but Billy took it every year until he retired, maxing the test every time. After retirement, Billy continued doing hundreds of push-ups and sit-ups every day; he also lifted weights and ran long distances regularly. Billy eventually found a small ministry called Global Outreach International that worked with retirees and solo missionaries, providing accounting and funds management. Billy started by using only his military pension and savings.

In December 2003, after a long farewell with his children and by then, nine grandchildren, Billy flew to Nairobi, Kenya, and then flew to Juba, South Sudan. When he arrived at the United Nations (UN) compound in Juba, the UN personnel asked who he was and what approved ministry he worked for. He told them he was flying solo and not with any ministry. The UN said he was not allowed to be there and put him on a plane back to Nairobi. In Nairobi, Billy was staying at a boarding house to save money; Nairobi's hotels are very expensive. Billy was devastated about his expulsion from South Sudan. The morning after his return, Billy prayed to the Lord, “Didn't you call me? Didn't you put it on my heart to serve the people of South Sudan?” Then he went down to breakfast and some African men were seated across from him. They asked who he was and why he was there. Billy shared about his call to South Sudan and about his vision to provide education to the people via the SPLA. The men were impressed and said they would provide him with a clearance and assistance to do so. It turns out those men were the Vice President and other ministers of the provisional government of South Sudan, staying at the same boarding house! God had answered his prayers.

After this meeting, Billy returned to South Sudan where he met the leader of the SPLA, John Garang. The two hit it off as long-time fellow soldiers. Garang approved Billy's mission and provided documents allowing him to travel throughout the country unrestricted as well as orders to the local authorities to provide Billy whatever assistance they could. Billy was a friend and trusted advisor to John Garang until his death in a helicopter crash in 2005. After Garang, Billy forged a deep bond with General Santino Deng Wol and other military leaders who kept the mission going.

Billy's program of educating the SPLA soldiers grew rapidly. While directing the program, Billy acquired other mission projects. For example, the Southern Baptist Mission Board was building a chapel and a medical clinic, and because Billy was living permanently in the country, he was engaged to oversee the construction. Over the years, Billy participated in building refugee camps, feeding centers, medical clinics and hospitals, primary and secondary schools, aid stations, water wells, and a pastor training center. He befriended many officers of the South Sudan army as well as government officials, even leading some to faith in Messiah. Seeing Billy's effectiveness, other organizations partnered with him, including Samaritan's Purse, START, Doctors without Borders, Voice of the Martyrs, Southern Baptist Mission Board, and the UN and US government agencies. He cultivated friendships with others also trying to make a difference in the area and those friendships were very dear to him; to name a few, Lee Kapetanakis, Terry and Marge Jones and their son Issac with “Light of Africa” ministry in Kenya, Rhonda Baxter, Dr. Jeff Deal, and others.

Life in South Sudan was difficult. The temperature in the dry season was always over 100°F, often soaring to 120°F. At night, it cooled to the mid to high 90s. Billy lived with the local people in his own tukel, the name for their traditional hut. He ate and drank the same as the people did. As opposed to most foreign missionaries and aid workers, Billy provided transportation to the local indigenous people whenever he had room, giving first priority to soldiers and then to pregnant women and children. In general, the people were mistrustful of most foreigners, but they loved Billy and flocked to him whenever he entered the villages. Interestingly, Billy White was the oldest person in the entire country while he lived there.

Billy hosted American medical teams that traveled to South Sudan to provide vaccinations, general surgery, and medical aid. Dr. Jeff Deal, a world-renowned surgeon and expert on tropical diseases, led many of these teams that Billy hosted. In 2007, Billy’s daughter, Julianna, and her family joined one of these visiting teams to help where they could. In the summer of 2008, his grandson, Thomas, returned for another trip.

Billy built refugee centers on the border of Sudan to receive some of the 500,000 South Sudanese, who had been slaves in the Arab Islamic North, freed as part of the peace agreement granting South Sudan Independence. He was also very concerned about the black ethnic groups that remained in North Sudan after the border was set, especially in the Nuba Mountains and Darfur. Billy crossed the newly set border between North and South Sudan to meet the Nuba peoples about providing humanitarian aid. He crossed the river into Darfur and befriended the tribal chiefs. He built a refugee center for women, children, and elderly while the Darfuri defended their homeland against the militias armed by the Khartoum government.

In 2011, South Sudan became a free and independent country. We have posted a letter from the current South Sudanese leaders of how Billy played a significant role in making that happen. His literacy program and schools have become the standard for the public education system in new South Sudan. We have also posted a letter from Daniel Odongo, the man Billy left in charge as project coordinator of the Santo Ayang church and schools that Billy initiated. Santo Ayang Secondary was the second best in the whole country in terms of academic performance overall in 2019. Failing health forced Billy to retire from South Sudan in 2015 at 80 years of age. It was now time for Billy to receive care instead of giving it.

Even though he lived in South Sudan permanently, he would return stateside every year during the wet season to be with his family. Over the years, he treated his entire family - kids and 10 grandkids - to three Caribbean cruises and one Alaskan cruise. Not only throwing his heart into South Sudan but also into his family ALWAYS. He could be miles away and would continue praying and supporting his family and be there for them in their times of need. We greatly miss him. And we know we will see him again in Glory.

Preceded in death by his wife Judi, his daughter Julianna, his granddaughter Heather, his siblings Patsy, Jimmy (and his wife Sissy), Sharon, and Tex, and his parents Bill and Maurine.

Survived by:His son Russell Todd (and Susan) and his grandkids Peleg, Patience, Mercy, Josiah, and SimchaHis daughter Kristin (and Masoud Edalatpour) and his grandkids Sara (and Phillip Blount), Emma, and AvaHis son-in-law Tom Adams (and Rosalinda) and his grandaughter, Abigail (and Raynor Patel) and their two kids (his great grandkids) Julianna and Freya, and his grandson Thomas (and Connor).His brother Larry (and Sarah Ann) and their kids, Lance and Karen, and their families

The family of his late brother Tex: their kids, Heidi and Ryder, and their mother, Nancy Rice, and their familiesThe family of his late sister Sharon: brother-in-law Mike Norton, their kids Lori and Joey, and their familiesThe family of his late brother Jimmy: daughter Janice and her familyHis brother-in-law Jack Scarborough and two kids, Jack and Margaret, and their families.His Cousins and their familiesAnd all those who claimed him as Grandpa!