Updated Tuesday, April 08, 2008

From Highway Patrol to Damascus Road

By Susan Welch

Campbell University

BUIES CREEK - In his sleek, black and gray uniform, Greg Barnes, of Wilson, looks like any other veteran of the North Carolina Highway Patrol.

For the past eight years, Barnes has been part of a statewide team that in 2005 alone arrested over 25,000 people who were driving while impaired, seized $10 million worth of drugs and investigated 1,160 fatal collisions on North Carolina highways.

Until about three years ago, that's all Barnes wanted to do, but something changed.

"When I was in seventh grade, my best friend was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver while he was returning home from a sports banquet that we had attended together," said Barnes, who is also a graduate student in Campbell University's Divinity School. "From that point on, I knew God wanted me to be a State Trooper."

Part of being able to develop spiritually is to gain more insight into Jesus' teachings, he said.

"I felt Campbell could help me become closer to God by giving me a better understanding of what the Bible says," he said.

Since coming to Campbell in spring 2008, Barnes feels like he is already growing in his faith.

"It's a difficult curriculum, it's a challenge, but I feel like at the end of that challenge, I will have grown by leaps and bounds," he said.

For Barnes, the calling to be a State Trooper was reinforced when another of Barnes' friends was killed in a car accident at age 16.

"Benjie's death sealed the calling on my life," he said. "My blood ran black and gray after that."

After Barnes graduated from high school, he attended East Carolina University where he majored in criminal justice and received a bachelor's degree in 1999. He was 21 and finally able to apply for the North Carolina Highway Patrol.

"I enjoyed every aspect of my job," Barnes said, "but I had a special passion for nailing drunk drivers."

Barnes' tenacity and sense of duty earned him a reputation in Wake County and across the state, and he became known for winning or tying for the honor of apprehending the most drunk drivers annually.

"For the first several years, that was my passion - I was fulfilling God's plan for my life," Barnes said. "I had all intentions of retiring from the Highway Patrol as a State Trooper, but God began to work on my life."

Barnes began to feel a different calling when he and his wife Lynnette were asked to lead a youth group at their church, Saratoga Original Free Will Baptist. At first, Lynnette was the real leader and Barnes just sat in the back of the room and observed, but as time went on, he began to feel the Lord was speaking to him again.

"I felt a tug at my heart," he said.

It took two-to-three years longer for Barnes to answer that call.

"I thought I knew God's calling on my life.

"I was doing it; I was a State Trooper. But as God continued to work on me, I knew that He had a bigger calling for me, one that ran with the blood of Jesus and His cross," he said.

Ultimately, he would like to use his experience as a State Trooper to continue in youth ministry.

"I've seen numerous times through my work that youth need to know that someone loves them, and more importantly that Jesus loves them," he said.