After four years preaching throughout Eastern North Carolina, evangelist Milton Martin Jr. is back home.

Born and raised in Gainesville, Martin has spent the better part of 35 years spreading the gospel in churches, camp meetings and tent revivals across North Georgia. As an itinerant minister, Martin said he also does missionary work both in this area and in the southwestern United States, where since 2003 he has been ministering to Native Americans with help from the group Southwest Indian Ministries.

Now that he's back in town, Martin said he's been providing spiritual guidance at Pleasant Acres Church in Maysville while the church looks for a new pastor.

"I made a visit down there sometime in June, and I asked them, did they have a pastor, and they said no," Martin said. "And I knew (my wife and I) were in transition. I said, ‘Well, I'd love to come and help you on Sundays until you find a full-time pastor.'"

Martin said he's an ordained bishop with the Church of God in Cleveland, Tenn., and he is also an interdenominational evangelist at large for the World Harvest Church Ministerial Fellowship based in Ohio.

At the interdenominational church in Maysville, Martin said he's simply serving as a visiting evangelist and giving members spiritual oversight.

"We're going into six weeks of, we call them the Holy Spirit in Fire Soul-Winning Miracle Camp Meetings," he said. "I've just been giving back what the Lord's been giving me all these years ... We're going to continue that through September and October."