God is in the business of building real character into real characters. And he can do that with the most unlikely candidates. Doug Nichols was certainly a character. If they gave out 'Most Likely to Fail' awards in high school, he would have been handed his prize even before the vote.

Born in 1942 - the same year his father left home for another woman - Nichols was raised by his mother and grandfather. In high school, he was known as a trouble-maker - which earned him a diploma six months earlier than his classmates.

"Hey Doug," said the principal one day, "Have I got a deal for you!"

The tall skinny teen stood before his superior uneasily, wondering if the deal included a firing squad.

"Promise not to come back after Christmas, and I'll give you your diploma now." Nichols laughed - and eagerly accepted.

In college, Nichols majored in two subjects: women and alcohol. His late night exploits were well known, his reputation widespread.

One night during finals week, he returned to his room from a night on the town. He stumbled down a long, shifting hallway; there stood a classmate, Hank Jaegers. "Hey Doug," he said, "how about some coffee?"

In Jaegers' room, between long sips of thick liquid, Nichols listened as his new friend told him an old, old story. The story of someone who would rather die than live without him.

The coffee sobered Nichols. He sat in a folding chair, shaking his head. "Jesus loves me?"

At 4:30 in the morning in a small dorm room in California, Nichols got on his knees and asked God to change him for good. "I was full of coffee," he recalls, "but I understood that Jesus died so I could live with him. So I trusted Christ."

For the first time in his life, Nichols had a Father.

Next morning, the new convert armed himself with a huge black Thompson Chain Reference Bible. But he soon discovered a problem: he couldn't read a paragraph.

One year later a letter arrived from Jaegers. He was studying at Prairie Bible College in Canada, and invited Nichols to join him. Jaegers had no idea what it would cost his friend.

"My fiancee's father told me to make a choice," says Nichols. "I could stay in California [with] a brand-new Cadillac, a fancy house and a prosperous business. Or I could go to Bible college up with the polar bears." When Nichols decided on the latter, his fiancee dumped him. "That Cadillac's in a junk yard somewhere," he laughs. "And I don't know about the girl."

His poor reading and writing skills nearly did him in at Bible college. But in 1966, he somehow graduated. He set his determined face toward the mission field - and ran smack into a major barrier. His soiled past and poor marks in school caused 30 mission agencies to turn him down. Finally Operation Mobilization said yes. "OM accepts anyone," jokes Nichols.

While learning the Tagalog language, the frustration continued. "Doug," said a teacher after hours of frustration, "do you know what walang utak means?"

"No."

"I didn't think so. It means no brains!"

But Nichols was smart enough to not quit. During 20 years in the Philippines, together with his Bible college sweetheart, Margaret, he learned a new language, started churches - and founded a new mission, Action International. Today its 130 missionaries feed, clothe and love thousands of street children around the world.

While preaching in India many years ago, Nichols began to cough. A doctor diagnosed him with acute tuberculosis, and sent him to a sanitarium to recuperate. Nichols offered his fellow patients gospel booklets. All of them refused. Dejected, the young preacher began to despair.

One night as he lay awake, unable to sleep because of a raspy cough, he noticed an old man trying to leave his bed - only to fall back, exhausted and crying. The stench from the man's bed next morning brought loud insults from fellow patients.

He had failed in getting up and going to the rest room. Nurses roughly changed his bedding. One slapped him. Nichols watched as the old man curled up in a ball and wept.

The next morning about 2 am, Nichols awoke again. The old man was trying to get out of bed. This time, without thinking, Nichols left his bed, lifted the frail patient and carried him to the bathroom. When he had finished, Nichols carried him back to bed. Jabbering in a language Nichols did not understand, the old man smiled profusely, then kissed him gently on the cheek.

In the morning, Nichols awakened to a steaming cup of tea served to him by another patient who spoke no English. The patient motioned to Nichols that he would like a booklet.

"Throughout the day," says Nichols, "people came to me, asking for gospel booklets." There were nurses. Doctors. Hospital interns. Over the next few days, several came by to tell Nichols that they had made the same decision he had one coffee-soaked night in California. "I simply took an old man to the bathroom," smiles Nichols. "Anyone can do that."

Six years ago, Nichols listened again to a doctor's prognosis. "You have colon cancer, Doug. After radiation and chemotherapy you have a 30 percent chance of recovery."

"You mean I have a 70 percent chance of dying?" Nichols corrected him.

"Uh . . . I wouldn't put it that way," replied the doctor.

Today Nichols is more alive than ever. But he's hard to find. We stay in touch by email. If he's not praying over squatters on a garbage dump in Manila, he might be hugging a dying child in a refugee camp. If he's not visiting his adopted Filipino children, he may be celebrating the fact that doctors are shaking their heads. The cancer seems to have vanished.

As the body of celebrated missionary David Livingstone was carried through the streets of London past thousands of mourners, one man in particular was seen weeping openly.

A friend gently consoled him, asking if he had known Livingstone personally.

"I weep not for Livingstone, but for myself," the man said. "He lived and died for something. I have lived for nothing."

Livingstone's life motto was this: "I will place no value on anything I have or possess, except in its relationship to the kingdom of God." He lived that way. So does Doug Nichols.

Nichols knows the future is cloudy. The cancer could return at any time. But this fireball - whom God transformed from an out-of-control kid to a mission leader - still believes what he told the doctor the day cancer first stared him in the face.

"I may have a 70 percent chance of dying," he said with a broad smile. "But whatever happens, I have a 100 percent chance of going to heaven."

And when he gets there, a report card will be waiting. It may be the first one he's ever received with these two words: "Well done."

Phil Callaway is an award-winning author and speaker who lives in Alberta. Visit him online at www.laughagain.org

Mission Fields Spring 2007