Saturday, June 7, 1997

Young evangelist enjoys preaching and performing

By MARLA PIERSON / Waco Tribune-Herald

WACO, Texas - Cody Leger's voice washes over the full pews of New Hope Baptist Church and the folding chairs set in the aisle.

He asks that God empty him like a teapot. He asks that angels come down. He asks that God bless this service "real good."

Cody is an evangelist, preaching at several churches locally and in Lousiana. He is also 11 years old.

Born premature and blind, the Hallsburg boy spends hours listening to tapes of preaching and gospel music. He studies a Braille Bible and practices sermons in his room.

On Sunday morning, his words flow in quick torrents of praise, verse and warning, punctuated by the occasional "Thank you Jesus."

He talks about God plowing up the hardness of lives, how what is sown in sorrow will be reaped in joy.

On the front row, his adoptive parents wipe tears from their eyes, listening to their son's phrases and reliving what they call a miracle.

Lynn and Danny were living in Jasper, trying to adopt, when they got a call about Cody, then 9 months old.

Born premature and blind, he had problems with his lungs. He had been abused. There was a broken leg, broken arm, damaged ribs and double hernias. He had nine eye surgeries, four blood transfusions. He was on oxygen.

"We had a such a struggle with him," she said. "They said he wouldn't live. I've seen God bring him through so much."

His parents sent pictures of Cody to Oral Roberts and others asking them to pray for his health.

"We were just every day reading the word to him and praying over him," said Danny, who has preached in churches as well.

Cody recovered his health but not his sight, and at 3 or 4 years old he told his parents he wanted to be a preacher.

"I've been listening to preaching tapes ever since I was a little boy," Cody said.

He gets his messages from those tapes or his Braille Bible. He practiced Sunday's sermon in his room in Hallsburg. That's where he preaches to himself too.

"He preaches to the walls. He preaches to the dog," his father said.

Is it OK to tape those private sermons, he asks New Hope's youth minister Sunday after the service, while other children in the church play outside.

His parents are used to hearing this sort of talk.

"We go into a restaurant to eat, the first thing he's going to do is introduce himself to the waitress and ask if she knows Jesus," Danny said.

Cody, who will be a fifth grader this fall at Hallsburg Elementary, tells of witnessing to the school crowd during lunch, an effort that didn't go over that well.

"They're like mocking me, and it's the same thing they did to Jesus," he said.

A member of Church of the Open Door in Waco, Cody has preached at several local churches, including Cornerstone Baptist Church and Bible-Way Church, and some in Louisiana, where the Legers are from originally.

He enjoys performing, whether singing, playing drums or speaking. Cody appears comfortable before the New Hope congregation, easily brushing over missteps or catching his breath.

Afterward, the 11-year-old disappears into the center of a crowd that has come forward to pray with him.

Worshippers speak to him of cancer and bad backs, family relationships. The boy's voice rises above the crowd, blessing the people, cursing Satan, asking for cures and thanking God.

His family doesn't ask that Cody's blindness be healed, though they believe God in his time will take care of that. For now it, too, may be part of God's plan.

"If Cody could see, Cody wouldn't be where he is today," his mother said. "He'd be too carried away with the things of the world."

Cody holds his mother's hand during an interview. She straightens his shirt and tips his chin up. He sits between his parents through the beginning of the Sunday service.

"He's a man of God, but he's still an 11-year-old boy," his mother, Lynn, said, mulling over parental concerns.

"I just pray he doesn't lose his love for the Lord. You know sometimes you get burned out on stuff. I hope he doesn't get burned out on his love for the Lord," she said.

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Distributed by The Associated Press