About the Author

Today, Wayne Smith is a published author, speaker, minister and small business owner. But, it didn’t start that way. As a young boy through young adulthood, Wayne was a stutterer and in his words – “I stuttered so bad, I couldn’t lead a silent prayer.” But in August 1989, Wayne had an encounter with God that would forever alter the course of his life and ultimately the lives of countless others through his book, Turn the Heart.

As an elementary school student, Wayne discovered that he had a gift for writing and his teachers recognized it as well. He won awards in school for his writing and these accomplishments provided the fuel Wayne needed to concentrate on writing more than on his stutter. Although Wayne could not express himself verbally to his satisfaction, he learned to convey thoughts and feelings through writing which stirred his creative juices. Wayne began to write poetry as a teenager and allowed two trusted friends to read his writings. They encouraged him to keep writing.

In spite of his speech impediment hindering his ability to communicate with people, Wayne somehow landed a job in retail sales at age 20. God was preparing him for his future. Customers would often wait for him to serve them because they liked Wayne and knew he’d take care of their needs. In order to ease his stuttering burden, Wayne began using his middle name, Wayne, rather than his first name, Kerry, because he couldn’t say his first name without severely stuttering. God was giving him a new identity in his own mind not long before Wayne had an encounter with God that resulted in a new identity in God. It wasn’t long until God promoted Wayne into his own business – a sales based endeavor – where Wayne would make his living basically talking on the phone to clients. Anyone who struggled with a stutter was petrified of the phone. People referred to Wayne as “that guy in Arkansas who stutters”, but God blessed the business, bolstered Wayne’s confidence and his faith in God was deeply cultivated. Wayne knew that he could not have accomplished these things without God’s help. But that was only the beginning.

Although his professional life had trappings of success by the world’s standards, Wayne’s inner man – his spirit – was sensing the pull of God toward an assignment far greater than his mind could initially grasp. God had placed a call on Wayne to write and minister to hurting people. That divine call would ultimately include public speaking which terrified Wayne the stutterer, but inspired Wayne the writer. Having read about Moses, the stutterer, in Exodus 4:10-12, Wayne believed that if God could use Moses for His purposes that God could do the same with a guy from Arkansas. Over the course of a few months, friends began to share books with Wayne about men of faith like Oral Roberts and Benny Hinn, both of whom had been stutterers, and how God used them to minister to people.

During a time of his own heart-wrenching pain as a father, Wayne sensed the still, small voice of God directing him to use his writing gift to encourage himself, and eventually many others, by writing a book to address a need and point the way to God for hearts to be turned.