At just 7-years-old, Davon Simpson knew what he was called to do.

The 19-year-old ordained minister has been preaching at Mt. Zion-New Jerusalem since 2003 while going to school at Selma High School and now Miles College.

Simpson enjoyed going to church with his grandmother, Thomasine Morton, as a child more than the normal son or daughter, even though he never knew why.

“At the age of 7, I finally recognized that I had a call to preach,” Simpson said.

“I knew I wanted to do it before, at 4, 5 and 6 because I kept saying ‘I wanna preach, I wanna preach.’ I could barely spell preach

“I barely knew what preaching was, but I knew I wanted to preach.”

After recognizing what he wanted to do, Simpson began working hard to develop the skills and talents necessary to become a minister.

He would “preach” to the neighborhood children in his backyard, without exactly understanding what he was doing, but soon came to realize what he was being called for.

“I got into the Word of God at a young age,” Simpson said.

“I didn’t understand everything, but all that I did understand, by the power of the Holy Spirit, He opened my mind to things in the scripture and all that I didn’t get through preachers and teachers.”

Shortly after being baptized, Simpson and his grandmother moved to Mt. Zion-New Jerusalem where he quickly went to work reaching out to the community.

“We are entailed to reach out to our community,” Simpson said.

“Our pastor (Doc. Eleanor Smith) always leads us to do that, nursing homes, prison ministries, which is what I do.”

Simpson goes to school and is in the second-semester of his freshman year for business law at Miles now, hoping to further his work before moving to a Divinity school that has yet to be chosen.

But there are not always easy roads to your goals.

On March 11, while Simpson was driving home from school to get back to church, he was entering on County Road 219 and ran into a ditch to avoid another car backing up in his lane.

Simpson’s car went through the ditch, into a tree totaling the car.

“Everything that was under the hood was in my lap,” said Simpson.

“But out of 206 bones, only one (in his left leg) was broken. I was supposed to be totally demolished by the look of my car.”

With expense from medical bills piling up, Smith and Mt. Zion will hold a benefit program for Simpson to raise money for him at 6:30 p.m. tonight at 203 Hopson St., West Village Church of the Nazarene.

“He was just ordained last month,” said Smith. “No sooner had he got ordained than the Devil tempted him with this in his walk with God and his work that he has.

“It’s going to be a glorious time and people will attend. He’s going to be surprised and it’s going to be a good surprise.”