Ryan Gillis was active in the SHINE Club, which I sponsored, as he attended Newton County High School. Since then he has “fixed” my computer, and this week I enjoyed his visit to learn of his life and testimony as a young preacher from Decatur.
On March 26, 1991, Ryan Tanner Gillis was born to Norman Gillis, Jr., and Nioka Massey Gillis. His older brother is Drew Gillis, an EMT for the Union ambulance company. Ryan’s father was employed as an accountant at La-Z-Boy for 18 years, then at East Central Community College for 16 years, and is soon to retire. His mother worked at Peavey Electronics 24 years before she became an R.N. She has worked as a nurse for Choctaw Health Systems for about seven years.
We talked about how his parents were shocked to learn that their baby had been born an albino. The primary difficulty, they soon learned, was that he was born with less cones and rods in his eyes, which causes him to not be able to see details as well. School was hard for years. He would go up to the board in order to read what was written there and hold books up close to his eyes to read better. The school provided very large textbooks, but they were awkward to use.
In high school, he learned about computer technology. He shared, “It was something I knew I could do…I could adapt and find a way to do what I have to do.” He finished Business and Computer Technology training offered there. He recalled, “Band was a very big part of my high school experience.” He played tuba and was also active in FBLA, SHINE, and Model U.N.
There was a lack of information to help his parents with their child, and they were told that he would never be able to drive a car. Ryan told me, “I didn’t want to have to hire someone to drive me to work. I didn’t want to be considered disabled, as I didn’t feel disabled.” He discovered a Facebook group for albinos, where he learned how to get the help he needed. He was told to go to a low-vision specialist in the state, where he could be fitted with “bioptic lenses.” He received help from Mississippi Vocational Rehabilitation and was finally able to drive at the age of 20.
In the early 2000s, Ryan’s mother learned of a family who had just moved nearby which had a baby girl also named Ryan, and who was also albino! Mrs. Gillis went to visit and shared with that mother anything she had learned that would be helpful. Then the Gillises moved into a house between Decatur and Union, where they still live. After college, Ryan was in Little Rock and met Ginger Burns, the girl’s mother, who told him her teenaged daughter had been told she could never drive. Ryan gladly shared with her the information he had learned that enabled him to drive. He declared, “Paying it forward is like a huge blessing!”
After Ryan graduated from NCHS in 2009, he got his A.A. degree at ECCC and a Career-Technical certification as well. In 2014, he earned a B.S. in Management Information Systems from Mississippi State. After college, Ryan was the computer tech for Neshoba Central School District for two years. He and his brother shared a home for a couple years about that time. From 2016-2018, he worked at Anderson Hospital for 2½ years. He has now been working at Neshoba General Hospital since October 2018.
At eight years old, Ryan had what he calls a “false” profession, but at age thirteen, after a Vacation Bible School devotion and a sermon by Pastor Gene Higginbotham, he recalled, “That day, after that service, I knew God was dealing with me. I couldn’t sleep that night. I got up and fell on my knees and confessed to be saved and knew I was saved. But my life did not really reflect that experience from the age of 13 to 23. I was going through the motions.”
When he was 22, he continued, “God really got my attention when the pastor, in a sermon, called out, ‘Someone in this congregation will be called to the ministry.’ I remember thinking, ‘It’s a good thing he’s not talking about me.’” But after he met his wife Kelly, he told me that he felt more responsible, wanting to be the Christian man he knew he needed to be. He realized he needed to be baptized again, saying, “That should be your first act of faith, to follow the Lord in scriptural baptism. I felt like God couldn’t bless me until I had done that. One Sunday morning, I went forward and explained the entire thing to the church. The church accepted me to be a candidate for baptism and I was baptized.”
He struggled with the call to preach, but his pastor encouraged him. He began preaching in 2015, when the church scheduled him on a Sunday night. Ryan told me, “I was terrified, so I prayed, ‘Lord, I don’t know what I’m doing. You show me how to do this.’” He preached for a solid hour and was told afterward that the sermon was very well delivered. He sounded still amazed as he said, “That was as close to an out-of-body experience as I have ever had. It felt like five minutes!”
He and Kelly were married October 1, 2016. Kelly Mashelle Williamson, daughter of Barry and Nancy Walker Williamson of Bethsaida, is his wife and mother of their daughter Lucy Morgan Gillis, born March 6, 2019. Her father is deceased and her mother is now married to Tim Hardy, who has played a very large role as father to Kelly. Kelly graduated from the Mississippi State branch in Meridian Spring 2016, with a B.S. in Secondary English, and now teaches 9th grade English at Neshoba Central High School. The family currently resides in Bethsaida.
Though Kelly and Ryan thought her salvation was secure, one Sunday she got Ryan and Pastor Higginbotham to pray with her, after which she received peace and assurance of her salvation. Ryan told me, “God said, ‘This would not have happened if you had not gotten baptized—gotten serious with Me.’”
Ryan has always attended Little Rock Baptist Church, with the pastor being “like a grandfather to me,” and the family continues there. He serves as Song Director and Youth Sunday School teacher. He has not pastored yet, but preaches when called upon by churches in surrounding areas.
Ryan began the hobby of leather working in 2019. He showed me pictures of the beautiful work he does. Recently, he has been asked to make an alligator hide purse for a lady who killed the animal.
But Ryan’s calling, his preaching the gospel, is the most important thing he does to “pay it forward.” He proclaimed, “You are not saved just to go to Heaven. We’re left here to do God’s work, to have fellowship and a relationship with Him, and so we can worship Him.”
Live for Jesus! He’s coming soon!
You may contact me at lagnesrussell@gmail.com or 601-635-3282.
Live for Jesus! He’s coming soon! You may contact me at lagnesrussell@gmail.com or 601-635-3282.
