David and Lorie

David serves as the director of Zambia Missions under the oversight of the Sycamore View Church of Christ (Memphis, TN) and as the President of Daybreak: Mission of Hope (DMH). Primary responsibilities include Dean of Daybreak Bible College (administration), Bible teacher, fund-raising in the USA, General Contractor (over construction at Daybreak) and as Superisior over the entire ministry in Zambia. Lorie serves as Supervisor of the Primary School, the women’s program, and as a teacher in the college. David and Lorie have lived in Zambia since 2004.

David and Lorie have been married for more than 40 years and have four children and five grandchild. Three of their four children were adopted (from Korea, Florida, and India). All four children has served in Zambia at various points. Their oldest daughter (Kerin) now married and has lived in Zambia since 2007 (after attending college in the USA). She is now working with the Children's Ministry (Kerin's Kids) and Administration (part of the Senior Staff).

Both David and Lorie attended Freed-Hardeman University where they met and were married in 1977. David graduated with a degree in Bible (B.A.) and Lorie graduated with a degree in Elementary Education (B.S.). David went on complete his Masters degree (M.Th.) at Harding University Graduate School of Religion in 1982. While living in Iowa, David did graduate work in Marriage and Family Therapy at Iowa State University (1985). He then returned to Harding Graduate School where he completed his Doctors degree in 1996 (D.Min.).

Lorie has taught Elementary School, French, and Pre-School off and on over the last twenty years. When not teaching professionally, she has been busy home-schooling her four children. After graduating from Freed-Hardeman, Lorie studied French at the University of Laval (Quebec Canada) and the University of Tennessee at Martin. She then enrolled in the Masters program at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington where she completed a Masters in Education (M.Ed.) in December of 2004.

David and Lorie's parents have both served in full-time ministry. David's father, Parker French, served as a full-time minister for more than fifty years and is now retired living in Memphis, TN. He and David's mother (Joyce) have made trips to Zambia each summer to teach Bible classes in the school.
David's family also served as missionaries in Pakistan and Australia during David's High-School years. Lorie's father, Richard Waggoner, has also labored in full-time ministry and has served as a School Principal and School Superintendent in Lincoln County, Tennessee. Although now retired, he continues to serve in ministry as a volunteer and has made several mission trips to Nigeria, Latin America, and Russia. He also has served as volunteer for Church of Christ Natural Disaster Relief. He also has made trips each year to teach in the school in Zambia and is now chairman of a new ministry begin started in Zambia called "Silent Angel's of Orphans in Zambia".

David has now served as a minister and missionary for more than forty years. In the early 1980's, he and Lorie worked as missionaries in Kenya, East Africa. Upon returning to the USA, David continued to serve as a preaching minister for churches in Iowa, Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee, Missouri, and North Carolina. And, while working on his doctorate, David also worked as a Campus Minister at the University of Tennessee at Martin (where he also taught college Bible courses for credit in Old and New Testament). In 1997, David and Lorie began making one-month trips over to Nigeria to teach in two different Bible Colleges in that country. This eventually led up to the decision to return to Africa on a full-time basis in 2003. In 2004, David and Lorie moved to Zambia to work with Daybreak Bible College.

From 1997 until 2003, David and Lorie made regular mission trips for one month each year to teach at two Bible colleges in Nigeria and one leadership training school in Kakinada, India. This renewed involvement in Africa led to the decision in 2003 to return to full-time mission work in Africa (arriving in Zambia in Nov 2004). David has now lived in Zambia long enough to obtain a Resident Permit for Zambia (which he was granted in Jan 2015). This now gives him permanent status to live and work in Zambia without having to apply for a work permit every two years. It also afford him certain rights and status in Zambia which gives credibility and permanence to our ministry in Zambia.