SID: Diane, you have been helping little people for over 40 years. I’m just curious. Did you always have this heart to help little people?
DIAN: No.
SID: No?
DIAN: No, no. They saw me as an energetic, on-fire, brand new Christian. I had been a Christian for just over a year by then and they said, “Why don’t you work with the kids?” I said, “Kids bother me. They irritate me and they get on my nerves, but okay.” I gave my life to Jesus. I’m going to be a servant. I ended up working with the kids and I found that I had such love in my heart for them. They nicknamed me Hugga Wugga. I would hug them and I thought because I had no training or anything in children’s ministry, I thought my job was to make sure that Children’s Church was fun. But one night that changed my life, we were talking to the children about Jesus is our Shepherd, we are the sheep. The Bible says that the sheep know the shepherd’s voice. We had been acting out sheep and shepherd stories from the Bible.
DIAN: We had some time and I said, “How about if we listen to God? Bible says we know His voice. Why don’t we listen to God?” It was a whole new thought for me and I thought, “Okay, I think when we listen to God, these kids are going to have prayer requests or testimonies.” It never entered into my mind or my heart that He would actually speak to them. I said, “Let’s listen. Let’s go really quiet and listen.” In my mind, I’m thinking, “This is going to be so cute.” I let a minute pass or so and then I said, “Okay, did anybody hear God speak to you?” All these hands went up and I thought, “Okay, it’s going to be so cute.” One little girl at the back of the room was waving, waving her hand, little girl named Karen. I said, “Karen, come up and tell us what God said to you,” thinking it’s going to be cute.
DIAN: I can still remember her walking up that aisle. She had long ringlets and they were bobbing and she walked up to the front with such determination and she said, “The Lord just told me that my spirit is just as big as an adult’s.” She went and sat back down. I was like, “That’s not just cute.” Then I thought, “My job is not just fun, my job is to feed them spiritually.” I want those spiritual meals to be bright and interesting and nutritious. We don’t want to just give porridge, right? There’s still an element of fun and enjoyment, but a richness. I started to pray. I said, “Lord, please give me ideas for how to teach the children how amazing you are, how awesome and exciting you are. Help me to teach them about your kingdom.” He started to give me downloads.
SID: This is what I find so fascinating. Speaking of downloads, your book, “Soldiers With Little Feet,” how’d you get that title?
DIAN: Okay, well, I used to do a lot of speaking at camps. People would bring me in for summer camps. Every morning, they would have, I think it was, 6:00 a.m. prayer. I’m not a 6:00 a.m. kind of girl, but I would get up at 6:00 a.m. to go and be prayed for. There was a beautiful, beautiful woman in that church. Her name was Sister Overall. I loved it. She was overall amazing. I would get my coffee and be rubbing my eyes and I’d go kneel down and Sister Overall would come and put her arms around me and pray for the children and pray for the anointing and pray. It was just so awesome.
DIAN: One of the mornings when she was praying for me, I heard footsteps marching, marching, and not just a few, dozens and then hundreds. I knew from the sound of the footsteps that it wasn’t adults, it was children. It was an army of children. I listened to it for a few minutes and then, in my mind, in my heart, the Lord sang this song to me. “I hear the sound of an army of soldiers with little feet, and they are marching into battle in the name of the King of Kings.” Then there’s verses and stuff. I was like, “Oh, I like it! I like it.”
SID: You know, you have to understand, she is getting these downloads from Heaven because it’s God’s greatest desire for young people to not just play games in church–
DIAN: Right.
SID: ..but to do the most exciting things possible. We’ll be right back.
