It’s not unusual for a young couple to get engaged at the Billy Graham Library. But last month, the Library got to be part of the flip side of marriage when a couple in their 80s paid a special visit on their honeymoon.
David Nystedt never thought he’d marry again. After 62 years of marriage to the same woman, he assumed that part of his life was over when his wife passed away.
Things changed last fall when he attended a senior meal hosted by the local Lions Club.
“There was an empty seat beside me and this lady came by and asked me if this seat was taken,” he said. “I said, ‘No, but it is now.’”
That lady was Florence Shealy.
The pair soon learned that they lived only a couple of streets apart. They had attended the same Christian college years before—he was graduating as she was getting started—and there was one other thing they had in common. A woman Florence had worked with at a New Jersey church turned out to be Dave’s sister.
“Little did we know that one day we were going to be family,” Florence said.
Dave and Florence were married on April 11 at a church in New Hampshire, just six months after they met. A week later, they wrapped up their honeymoon with a trip to the Billy Graham Library. It was Dave’s first time in North Carolina.
As a college student, Dave was in a Christian concert band that played at Billy Graham’s 1950 Crusade in Boston. He said he was “amazed” to go through the Library’s Journey of Faith tour and see Crusades like that come to life through its many exhibits.
The tour follows the ministry of Billy Graham and highlights how God has used him to reach millions around the world.
Florence first heard of the Library from a friend.
“She came back raving about it. And she said, ‘Florence, you gotta go there!’”
That was before Florence met Dave, but both agreed it would be a great pit stop on their honeymoon. It brought back memories for Florence who sang in the choir and counseled new Christians at some of Billy Graham’s earliest Crusades around New York and New Jersey. She remembers one day in particular when she was going through training to be a counselor. Billy Graham stopped by.
“I was so ecstatic because he stopped to shake hands with me,” she remembers.
While Dave grew up as a pastor’s kid, Florence came from a non-Christian home. In high school, she walked around with her Bible, thinking she’d get “brownie points with God,” but when a friend invited her to a Christian youth meeting at age 16, that Bible became truth and she acknowledged Jesus as her Savior.
She walked a couple miles home that day and “it was like walking on cloud nine.” She told her alcoholic mother about her decision when she got home and eventually, her mother and most of her family committed their lives to Christ, too.
Fast forward several decades and Florence said her relationship with Christ is still growing. Throughout 30 years of singleness following her first marriage, she said she developed “a wonderful relationship with the Lord.” And after two back surgeries forced her to look for a more manageable home, God led her straight to Tamworth, New Hampshire—population under 3,000.
“Tamworth is way up north in the sticks and I wasn’t too happy about that,” she said, but God had it all figured out. That’s where Florence met Dave.
“God uses bad circumstances to bless us,” she said.
That’s the kind of hope other Library visitors experience day in and day out as the Journey of Faith tour leads more and more people to Christ—just like those Crusades Dave and Florence remember from years ago.
“Throughout his ministry, so many souls came to know about the Lord,” Florence said, “and yet even at the Library, they’re still continuing to bring souls to Christ.”
The newlyweds hope to return soon.
