GLOBAL PRAYER NETWORK: ‘Gentle Giant’ Rosey Grier, is on a mission to bring ‘love and forgiveness’ to the Middle East

Jumat, 22 April 2016

‘Gentle Giant’ Rosey Grier, is on a mission to bring ‘love and forgiveness’ to the Middle East

By Dan Wooding, Founder of ASSIST News Service

HOLLYWOOD, CA (ANS – April 20, 2016) -- On June 5, 1968, a man called Sirhan Sirhan, who was born in Jerusalem to Christian Palestinian parents, fired a .22 caliber Iver Johnson Cadet revolver into the crowd surrounding Senator Bobby Kennedy in the kitchen pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

This occurred shortly after Kennedy had finished addressing supporters in the hotel's famous main ballroom, during his 1968 Presidential Campaign, and Grier was at the event guarding the senator’s wife, Ethel Kennedy.

It was then that journalist George Plimpton, Rosey Grier (the “fearsome” NFL defensive lineman for the New York Giants for 7 years, and later, the LA Rams for 5 years, and Kennedy's close friend/bodyguard), along with Olympic gold medalist, Rafer Johnson, were among several men who subdued and disarmed Sirhan after a lengthy struggle.

Although he was unable to prevent the killing, the formidable Rosey Grier, who is 6 feet 5 inches tall, was able to disarm the infamous assassin.

“We heard shots rang out and I covered Ethel for a minute and then ran forward and there was a gentleman that was holding onto him so I grabbed him and put him up on a table and George Plimpton had the gun up to his face. I then I ripped the gun out of Sirhan’s hand and put it in my pocket,” he said.

“It was a terrible thing to happen. I think about it many time and I cry because why would someone deny a man a right to be a father for his children, and hate him so much, because that’s not what God wants. He wants us to love and forgive.”

Roosevelt “Rosey” Grier (born July 14, 1932 in Cuthbert, Georgia), has played many roles in his colorful life, but his most recent is as a “peacemaker.”

I had caught up with Rosey and his wife, Cydnee, at the recent Hollywood launch of a new book called, “ISIS, Iran and Israel: What You Need to Know about the current Mid East crisis and the coming Mid East war,” written by renowned CBN Middle East Bureau Chief, Chris Mitchell, at a star-studded event held at a studio on Sunset Blvd. It was organized by Media Fellowship International (http://www.mediafellowship.org), and I was able to interview them both for my TV show, “Inside Hollywood with Dan Wooding.”

Known as “The Gentle Giant”, Grier is an actor, singer, Christian minister, and former professional American football player. He was a notable college football player for Pennsylvania State University who earned a retrospective place in the National Collegiate Athletic Association 100th anniversary list of 100 most influential student athletes, and I began by asking why Rosey there.

He replied, “We've come here tonight to listen to a gentleman speak on what is going on the Middle East, something I’m very concerned about. There’s a lot of danger in our society today and we all need to stand together and begin to let our government know that we want to be protected.

“I’m also very concerned when people want to kill each other, as opposed to what God wants us to do -- to love and to forgive each other. We’re not doing that. That’s what we need in our society today and people need to know that.”

I asked Rosey who, although he hasn’t been to Israel, is a big supporter of the country, if he felt that things were getting worse in our world today, especially in Israel, and he replied firmly, “Yes.” He then added, “If we don’t protect Israel, who are ‘God’s Chosen People,’ that’s really dumb. He chose them and gave us gentiles a chance to be part of the Kingdom of God by accepting Him as our Lord and Savior.”

Rosey’s wife, Margie Grier, died on June 10, 2011, and he later married Wichita school teacher Cydnee Seyler on April 30, 2013, so I asked her how she and Rosey had met.

“We met by God’s wanting us to meet,” she said with a sweet smile. “I was going to a conference in Tulsa and Rosey was there getting ready to do some things at Oral Roberts University. The conference was about ‘How to be a good single mom,’ and to also learn about God’s way of doing things. And that’s how we met and our relationship increased when we found out that we were both involved with World Impact [a ministry helping the urban poor and incarcerated]. I was involved with World Impact in inner city ministry in Wichita, and he was out here in California. So that kept us in communication with each other down through the years.

“Margie, his wife of 40 years, passed in 2011 and we had not seen each other for about 15 years. “I’d been in contact with Rosie on-and-off though, during that time through World Impact, and Rosey had kind of taken my son, Brock, under his wing and had done some mentoring with him.

“He then called me one day to ask for prayer because he knew that I believed that God is still the same God as He was in Bible times and still heals today. So we prayed for Margie’s healing, but she chose to leave this earth.”

Did she know what a celebrity Rosey was?

“Actually,” Cydnee said, “I knew him as someone that ministered in the inner city and also that he had played football, but I did not really know because he did not really talk about anything much more than God and wanting to help the youth in America. So that is how I got to know Rosey Grier -- the man and his heart.”

I then asked Rosey what Christians should pray for regarding Israel, and he said, “Pray that every leader of every nation will hear of the power of Almighty God and that these leaders would make a decision that they would hear God and all change their minds and learn to love and to forgive.”

I concluded by asking Grier about whether he thought that the only way to deal with ISIS was to destroy them, and he surprisingly replied, “God doesn’t say to kill; God says to love and to forgive. So I’m saying the same thing. We need to pray that those in ISIS can also have their minds changed by the power of almighty God. We need to pray that everyone will find the Lord and learn how to love and forgive.”

Note: I would like to thank Robin Frost for transcribing this interview.

Photo captions: 1) Rosey and Cydnee Grier on a TV program. 2) Killing of Bobby Kennedy. 3) Sirhan Sirhan. 3) Rosey Grier with his wife, Margie, and Muhammad Ali. 4) Dan Wooding reporting for ANS from outside the Kurdistan Parliament in Erbil, Northern Iraq.

About the writer: Dan Wooding, 75, is an award-winning winning author, broadcaster and journalist who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, and is now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for nearly 53 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. Dan is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS), and is the author of some 45 books. He also has two TV shows and a radio show, all based in Southern California. He has reported for ANS from all over the Middle East, and his most recent trip was to Northern Iraq.