Ambassador Tony Hall Headlines Prayer Breakfasts in Montana

I first heard about what a great guy Ambassador Tony Hall was over 20 years ago through some friends in Missoula that attend the National Prayer Breakfast every year in Washington, D.C.

He was a longtime Democrat Congressman from Ohio who was later nominated by President George W. Bush to serve as the US Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture Programs.

Ambassador Hall was the keynote speaker at the community prayer breakfast in Billings Tuesday morning. He speaks Wednesday morning in Great Falls.

On the radio Wednesday, I asked him about when he got to meet with Mother Theresa as she was helping people dealing with severe poverty. 

Ambassador Hall: "She said look, not everybody can come to Calcutta like you. You need to go back, Congressman, to America- and tell people to do the thing that's in front of them. And that's always stayed with me. Do the thing that's in front of you. What she was saying was that- if we would, if everybody would do the thing that's in front of them- feed people, give them money, smile, help their next door neighbor- probably half the stuff we do in the government we wouldn't need to do because everybody would be taking care of the problem that's in front of them.

At the prayer breakfast in Billings Tuesday, he talked about the importance of praying for our leaders. He shared a great line that he heard in Africa: "When the elephants fight, the grass dies."

Ambassador Hall: "When I was in Congress my best friend- I'm a Democrat, he's a Republican- Congressman Frank Wolfe, we met together every week. We traveled together. Our wives were good friends. We prayed together. We read Scripture. And we were best friends. And we never got in an argument. And there are some members of Congress that are really praying together and doing that, and you don't hear about it very, very much. But we need a lot more of that. We really do. And, we need leaders led by God, we really do. 

Here's the full audio from our conversation with Ambassador Hall: