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Updated: 18 Mar 2013
Created: 17 Mar 2013


 Oklahoman Archives
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma County, Oklahoma
January 24, 2007

EDMOND - Adam Langford , 28, will be buried in Edmond this morning.

Before he went to Africa for missionary work and before he was a soccer star at Oklahoma Christian University, he was a student at Santa Fe High School. He was one of my classmates.

Adam died Jan. 16 in a car accident in Uganda, where he worked with Jinja Missions.  He was a nice guy and friendly with me, but I'd rather let the people that knew him best tell you what he was like.

Kathy Langford , Adam 's mother, remembers him as a great storyteller. Friends and family gathered at their home recently and shared stories about his stories, she said.

"He could tell a story and have everyone laughing or crying," she said.

Once, Adam and his brother Ben and some friends were coming down Mount St. Helens by sliding on the glaciers - much faster than they could walk - until they came to a section where they couldn't see very far ahead.

Adam volunteered to go first, and about halfway down he hit a bump that shot him into the air over a huge crevasse filled with sharp rocks made by the volcano.

Everyone called out asking if it was OK to come down.

"Dudes," he yelled back to them, "do NOT come this way!"

So how did a financial whiz, a soccer star and a ski bum decide to sell all his worldly goods (save his skis) and move to Uganda?

"He really enjoyed his job, but he was at a point where he was going to get locked into it," Ben Langford said. "He asked himself, 'Do I want to make this my career now?' It was a good job, but he had a heart for working with poor people."

So he took his business talents and put them to work for those who really needed it. He helped with micro-loans and taught people the basics of operating a small business. He began a project to restore the muvule tree population. He counseled people with AIDS. He helped run a nonprofit cafe that funded schools.

He was on his way back with Moses Kimeze, the Ugandan in charge of the cafe, carrying four tons of coffee, when the vehicle they were in blew a tire and sent them over a cliff.

"He lived life to the fullest," his mother said. "And he lived it mostly for other people. He was always ready to help someone else."

In a world where people often think only of themselves, it's nice to know there are people like Adam , and I wish I'd known him better. He leaves behind his parents, Terry and Kathy, brothers Jonathan and Ben, sister-in-law Kym and nephew Elijah.

If you'd like to know more about Adam 's work, go www.jinjamissions.org , or if you'd like to give, an Oklahoma Christian University group has set up a scholarship fund in honor of Adam 's impact on campus and in the world.

The $1,000 scholarship, which will be known as the AdamLangford Memorial Leadership Scholarship, will be given each year to a senior men's soccer student-athlete who has displayed Christian leadership.

To contribute to the Adam Langford Memorial Leadership Scholarship, send your contribution to Oklahoma Christian University, Office of Advancement, P.O. Box 11000, Oklahoma City, OK 73136 or call 425-5094.

His funeral will be at 10 a.m. today at the Memorial Road Church of Christ, 2221 E Memorial Road. Burial Memorial Park Cemetery

 

 

 

http://www.christianchronicle.org

The Christian Chronicle

January 21, 2007

Uganda wreck claims missionary Adam Langford, church leader Moses Kimezi

http://www.christianchronicle.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2001&g2_serialNumber=4 - photo

 

Comforting a grieving woman who lost her sister to AIDS, Adam Langford could only say "nga kitalo," a phrase in the Lusoga language that roughly translates as "oh, it’s terrible." It’s an expression of deep sympathy used only at a time of death.

"My illusions of solving the problems of this country have long ago left me," Langford wrote in an account of the funeral. "They have been replaced with the hope of a risen savior who understands what it means to suffer in this world."

Now, a tragedy has claimed Langford.

The 28-year-old missionary died Jan. 16 when the truck in which he was riding went over the edge of a mountain road in eastern Uganda.

Another passenger, church leader Moses Kimezi, 36, died in a Mbale hospital from injuries suffered in the wreck.

The two men and a hired driver were taking coffee from Mount Elgon to Jinja for The Source Cafe, an Internet cafe and coffee shop in the city of more than 50,000 people, missionary Clint Davis said. Profits from The Source help support many church-related needs for the 70-plus congregations in the area, including care for victims of HIV and AIDS. Kimezi served as the cafe’s manager.

The brakes on the truck apparently failed as the driver attempted to navigate the hairpin turns of Mount Elgon, said John Barton, a former missionary to Uganda. The driver lost control of the truck, which left the road, went airborne briefly and rolled down an embankment. The driver, who also was taken to the hospital, is expected to survive.

"Adam and Moses were an amazing pair," said Davis, former director of the cafe who now heads The Kibo Group ministry in Uganda, "and now we’ve had a one-two leadership loss at a time when they were doing so many good, kingdom-building projects together."

Langford grew up in Oklahoma City and became interested in missions during a two-week high school trip to the Central American country of Honduras. While studying business management at Oklahoma Christian University, he spent two months in Uganda and met a group of missionaries in Jinja.

"I was amazed at how the team was able to spread the gospel, not only through preaching and teaching, but also through redemptive business and social entrepreneurship," Langford said.

After working as a financial adviser in Gresham, Ore., Langford joined the Jinja team. His brother and sister-in-law, Ben and Kym Langford, also serve on the team as church planters.

Kimezi, an accomplished carpenter and businessman, left behind a wife, Irene, and three children. Kimezi and his family helped a young man with a cleft palate to get reconstructive surgery and nursed him back to health. Kimezi taught him carpentry. The day of the accident, the young man pledged to take care of Kimezi’s children, Davis said.

Kimezi was buried at his home in Uganda on Jan. 18. Langford’s funeral was held Jan. 24 at the Memorial Road church in Oklahoma City.

At the team’s Web site, www.jinjamissions.org, Langford’s final report became a memorial for the missionary. Friends and supporters posted dozens of comments to the report.

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 

 

... ||| Revised: 18 Mar 2013