When T.L. Osborn was twelve years old, his older brother, Lonnie, got converted at an old fashioned Oklahoma brush arbor meeting. The changes that T.L. saw in his brother got his attention. He decided to attend a revival meeting in an old church down by the railroad tracks in Mannford, Oklahoma, with Lonnie. T. L. shared that he was dressed in his best country overalls and since he could play the piano, he played at the meeting. When the lady evangelist made the call for sinners to be saved, T. L. received Jesus Christ as his Savior. From then on, he loved going to that little church. Often the work on the farm kept him in the field so late that he couldn’t attend the meetings, leaving him sometimes weeping from disappointment.
T. L. said that he began discovering the truly good life when he was converted. His objectives and motives were changed immediately when he got converted. He now wanted what God wanted, and he wanted it for the reason God wanted it. Those principles were his anchor through adolescence. They guided his marriage, were the foundation of his home, and the guidelines for raising his children.
T.L. shares, “I started doing whatever I could to witness to unconverted people in my area. From that day, I wanted to be a soulwinner; I wanted to share with people what Jesus Christ meant to me.”
He began to print Bible verses with a toy press that he received as a Christmas present. He refers to these verses on scraps of paper, today as “the good life concepts.” These became his first tracts and he distributed them among the town’s people, a population of less than 300. He never dreamed that within a few years he would be publishing gospel literature in 132 languages at a rate of more than a ton per working day!
- T.L OSBORN LEGACY