By Howard Wilkinson
The Cincinnati Enquirer

A year ago while preaching to crowds at Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati, Billy Graham was so frail that he nearly fainted on stage and was suggesting that Cincinnati might be a good place for his mortal life to end.

Many of the 206,000 people who attended the four nights of preaching, prayer and song believed they were there for the famed preacher's 411th and final mission.

But they were wrong.

Since then, Graham, 84, has held two more missions that drew large crowds to sports stadiums and resulted in tens of thousands committing their lives to Jesus Christ. In October, Graham's Dallas-Fort Worth mission drew 255,000 people over four nights; a mission completed last month in San Diego brought 270,000 to Quallcom Stadium.

This month, Graham goes to Oklahoma City for yet another four-day mission.

His friends and supporters here say they believe the experience of preaching in Cincinnati - a place he felt drawn to because of its racial tensions and distrust - energized the revivalist, who has, in recent years, suffered from Parkinson's Disease and other medical problems.

"His passion was always there - that never diminished - but he seems to have gotten back some of his physical strength to carry on," says the Rev. Larry Davis, a co-chairman of the Graham mission here and pastor of the First Baptist Church of Cold Spring, Ky.

Some who have seen Graham recently agree.

The Rev. Damon Lynch Jr., who also was a co-chairman of the Cincinnati mission, says he recently visited Graham at his mountain home near Asheville, N.C.

"He seemed to me to be a lot better; he had his old energy back," says Lynch, pastor of the New Jerusalem Baptist Church in Carthage.

"He shows no sign of quitting," Lynch says. "The spirit is in him."

E-mail hwilkinson@enquirer.com