Newsmakers 2015: Jimmy Wilferth

Jimmy Wilferth's most recent career venture started with an ATV accident and a 300-foot fall in Swaziland, Africa.

"I thought I was going to die on that mountain," says Wilferth, who was president of U.S. operations for Heart for Africa at the time.

By the time he made it back to Missouri and recovered from his injuries, Wilferth felt it was time for a career change. When he found an opening for executive director of the foundation at Saint Francis Medical Center, he decided to apply. At first, he didn't see himself in this type of position -- he thought he'd work in ministry, as he had for Heart for Africa and, before that, Men at the Cross -- but he soon found a different way to minister.

"It's not the uniform you wear or the environment you're in. There are just as many hurting people walking the halls here. This is my mission field," he says.

Now, working at the foundation for the past year, Wilferth strives to help others every day, whether defraying patients' medical costs or setting up The Friends Cafe by My Daddy's Cheesecake as a place of comfort and relaxation for their families.

Jimmy Wilferth (Glenn Landberg)

"I found a passion there that I didn't know I would find," Wilferth says.

It did require some changes, though: "I had to buy a few suits," he says.

In September, Saint Francis will take its first-ever medical mission to Haiti. Thirteen people, half of them with medical backgrounds, will see 500 patients at Respire Haiti, a mission serving child slaves and orphans.

Wilferth hopes this will be the first trip of many, and he also plans to return to Swaziland, where he is in touch with friends and mission contacts daily.

"I love to be there in the trenches where people are hurting the most -- to get filthy with them and let them know God loves them, that they have a purpose and they have value," he says.

Wilferth, a husband and a father of two, also is a Leadership Cape graduate, a member and preschool teacher at Lynwood Baptist Church, on the board of Prodigy Leadership Academy and a Mission Fest volunteer.

Though he admits he "doesn't get it right all the time," Wilferth says he believes we all are "asset managers" for God's gifts, and putting those gifts to work is what gets him going every day.

"God is asking, 'What are you doing with what I gave you, what I entrusted to you?" he says.