I thank God I was born into, not only a godly home, but a praying home, a prophetic home, and a faith-filled home. My parents are world wide evangelists, Gene and Lorene Wiseman, and our home, (and our many “homes away from home,”) have always been full of joy, full of love, and full of miracles.
While Mother was expecting me, my parents attended a concert where a family group called The Singing Hemphills was performing. Mother was always the best singer, but she was dazzled that day by the powerful voice of the mom in that group, LaBreeska Hemphill. She patted her big, round belly full of me and looked up at Daddy saying, “This baby is going to sing, and I’m naming her LaBreeska!” The truth is, music was so important to Mother, she had all four of her children up singing with her in church by the time we could hold a microphone in our little hands. It’s sort of a requirement to sing in this family!
I come from a long line of Gospel preachers. My mom‘s dad was one of those fiery, pew walking Baptist preachers, who discovered he fit in best with the enthusiastic African-American congregations. His mother and grandmother were both lay ministers in the Methodist Church. Thank God for a denomination in the 1800s that recognized the biblical validity of women in ministry. My mom‘s grandfather on her mother‘s side was a circuit rider preacher and pastor for the Church of the Brethren. My daddy’s great-grandfather on his dad’s side was a Baptist evangelist. Then, not only was my dad’s mother a Bible teacher and prophetic prayer warrior, but both of her parents were ordained ministers and Pentecostal church planters. It appears, not only must you be a singer in this bloodline, but you must also preach the Word!
My daddy received the call to preach the year I was born and has been a full-time evangelist for most of my life. He took our family on our first mission trip together when I was just five or six years old, and we traveled deep into the blue mountains of Jamaica. I remember one night out in those mountains, our vehicle was pulled over by half a dozen gunman. With guns and knives pointed at me as a young child, I distinctly remember watching my parents who were absolutely fearless, and feeling perfect peace within myself, because of their great faith. I suppose I have been addicted to international evangelism ever since.
Daddy always taught us, “If you see a need, fill it!” and “Bloom where you’re planted!” So from a very young age I was always volunteering for anything and everything the pastors and preachers and church leaders needed help with. That meant leading praise and worship, playing the piano, writing and directing Christmas programs and vacation Bible schools, and teaching classes for every single age group from toddlers to senior citizens. I also took care of the babies in the nursery, changed plenty of diapers and was even set in place as youth pastor over kids who were mostly older than me until an adult could be secured for the position. Let’s not forget the scrubbing of toilets. I’ve actually wondered if it’s even possible for anyone to be called into ministry who has not dutifully served their elders in the humble ministry of toilet cleaning! Somebody has to do it! Why not me and you?
My spiritual father, Rev. H. Richard Hall, ordained me for ministry during one of his revivals when I was just fourteen years old. He caught me by surprise when he suddenly called for a bottle of olive oil and poured almost the entire contents all over my head while he declared, “I anoint you to be a prophetess and an evangelist!“ When I was sixteen years old, he shed more light on my calling by telling me that my anointing was like what he had seen on a particular woman evangelist from generations past. God had used her mightily, albeit uniquely, to bring an abundant harvest of souls into the Kingdom. He also told me that I would fly on “plane after plane across the sea to minister to people who are not my color.” He very specifically named the continent of Africa.
I had already traveled with my mom and dad, and my siblings into many nations, and sure enough, two years after that prophecy, we were called into Africa together. That was also the year, after graduating high school, that I filled out the necessary paperwork for my minister‘s license through Bro. Hall’s ministry. When I was twenty years old, he surprised me again by quietly exchanging my standard minister’s license for a certificate of ordination. I am blessed to have had some elders in my life who have believed in me, encouraged me, and even pushed me forward! You better believe I am honored to have been one of Bro. Hall’s toilet scrubbers!
It was also at the age of twenty that I married a young evangelist named Shawn Patton. We served our local church and also traveled for evangelism assignments until 2003 when we moved to Shawn’s hometown so he could pastor the church he was raised in. Our evangelistic work remained local for the next several years, but while I was not traveling out into the nations, I worked hard at sending many others, including my own children, and praying constantly for world missions.
I would often gather my three kids with me around a globe, a world map, or a newsletter from missionaries, and we would lay our hands on these things praying together for the nations. I frequently had dreams and visions concerning the need for laborers in Father’s harvest fields. While I stayed at home working with them in prayer, I sent my children into far reaching evangelistic opportunities across the United States, and into Mexico, Peru, Panama, Brazil, Nepal, Uganda, South Africa, and England.
In 2014 we were having a home prayer meeting at my parents house, and I asked for a basin to be brought so I could wash my husband‘s feet. As I knelt before him, he laid his hands on my head and prayed for God to open the doors of the nations to me. He blessed me to go forward in the calling and anointing God had placed upon my life for international evangelism, just a couple of weeks before he departed for his eternal home in Glory.
Within the year after Shawn’s departure, I founded Freedom International Evangelism, and the Lord quickly began opening doors to me on continents where I had never worked before. God has brought me into many nations across Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America, and while I also travel extensively throughout the United States, I maintain a commitment to serve my pastors in my home church, and work in local evangelism, singing and preaching in the nursing homes, jails, and prisons around my city.
The vision God has given me for worldwide evangelism burns, as the prophet Jeremiah said, like fire in my bones. I’ve carried the Gospel into dozens of nations and I’m going into dozens more. I have more wells to help dig, more churches and houses to help build, more orphans to feed, more prisons to preach in, more books to write, more albums to record, more - more - more - for the Glory of my Savior and Lord. This is what I live for