Randy Willis

The Apostle to the Opelousas Randy Willis

The son of a white man and Cherokee slave, Joseph Willis gains his freedom and swims the mighty Mississippi, in 1798, riding only a mule . In the Louisiana Territory he preaches the first Gospel sermon by an Evangelical west of the Mississippi River. Joseph Willis's life is a story of triumph over tragedy and victory over adversity! * He was born into slavery. His mother was Cherokee and his father a wealthy English plantation owner. * His family took him to court to deprive him of his inheritance (which would have made him the wealthiest plantation owner in all of Bladen County, North Carolina in 1776). *He crossed the mighty Mississippi River at Natchez at the peril of his own life, riding a mule!