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'Left Behind' Author Tim LaHaye Honored at Wreath Ceremony

CBN

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Although the ceremony was intended to honor all American Veterans, special attention was paid to Christian leader and author Tim LaHaye, who died in July at the age of 90. 

Saturday was Wreaths Across America Day.  That's when more than one million wreaths are laid at the graves of veterans at over one thousand cemeteries across the United States.  The yearly event started twenty-five years ago when Maine wreath-maker Morrill Worcester had 5,000 unsold live wreaths.  Rather than throwing them away, he donated them to Arlington National Cemetery for placement on the graves of veterans.  

Tim LaHaye was honored in particular at San Diego's Miramar National Cemetery.  Commander Don Biadog and Chaplain, Major James F Linzey, ARNG (Ret.), personally laid a wreath at LaHaye's tombstone.  Christian News Wire reports LaHaye enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces in 1944, at the age of 18, after he finished night school. He served in the European Theater of Operations as a machine gunner aboard a bomber. 

LaHaye is perhaps most well-known for his blockbuster best-selling book series, Left Behind, which he co-authored with Jerry B. Jenkins.

The 16-book series sold more than 80 million copies and topped the best-selling lists of The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, and the Christian Booksellers Association. The Left Behind series is a fictional account of end-times events corresponding with the Book of Revelation in the Bible. 

For 70 years, LaHaye ministered in books such as the Left Behind series as well as non-fiction books, also from the pulpit, in the political sphere, and at home. LaHaye's family eventually settled in San Diego County, where he pastored Scott Memorial Baptist Church and Shadow Mountain Church. Dr. David Jeremiah became LaHaye's successor at Shadow Mountain. 

Upon LaHaye's passing, Jeremiah said, "Tim was one of the most godly men I have ever known."

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