My Friend Bill

 

My Friend Bill…An Answer to Prayer

Bob Withers, August 12, 2023

 

Today is Bill DeWorken’s birthday, he is 80 years old. This reminds me of my childhood visits to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in which I was in awe of the dinosaur exhibit. The Lord willing, I will one day take my own place in this exhibit, after all, I am not that far behind Bill, but these matters are best left to our dear Lord Jesus. As I reminded Bill the other day, Moses was 80 years old when he encountered God at the burning bush – now there is a candle that you just can’t blow out.

 

There is much I could write about Bill, and much that I could write about Bill and Mary. Vickie and I have shared many evenings of laughter, as well as poignant times, with them over the years. Bill and I have been in small groups together, and just the two of us have spent countless hours at Panera. Around 1990 Bill and I even traveled from Richmond, VA to Baltimore, MD to judge an industry competition as a two-person team, that was the first time we spent any time together, and it may have even been when we first met – though it was not the first time we talked…the first time we talked was brief…and for me it was life-changing.

 

In early 1989 Vickie and I moved from Baltimore to Richmond, we didn’t know anyone, and we didn’t have jobs. We both quickly got jobs, mine with a local multi-family management firm. God’s hand was with us in an amazing way during those first few weeks of transition – from leading us to our new house, to having our new house located just minutes from a group of people who, in Christ, who would become dear friends. We still have friends, though we have lost some, whose friendship we can trace back to my early days in the multi-family business in Richmond. We have many more friends we would not have had it not been for my first conversation, brief as it was, with Bill DeWorken.

 

Those of you who know Bill know that he prays for others. He usually carries a small notebook in his pocket in which he writes down prayer requests. He transfers these requests to a three-ring binder. When Bill takes his morning prayer walk, he takes a few pages from the three-ringer binder with him and prays over the requests. It is not unusual for Bill to pray with folks on the spot as they share their burdens and needs with him.

 

This story, however, is not about Bill praying for others; it is rather about Bill himself being an answer to prayer, to my prayer. When I decided to write something for Bill on his 80^th birthday, I decided to write something for Bill rather than about Bill – I decided to write something for Bill about how significantly God has used him in my own life, in the shared life that I have with Vickie. I decided to write to Bill about something that he probably doesn’t realize.

 

Not many months after our move to Richmond, I was in one of my satellite offices one afternoon – lonely for Christian fellowship in the marketplace, for is not the marketplace where we spend most of our lives? Is not the workplace where our spiritual formation in Christ occurs? Is not vocation that place within which our witness and worship are forged and refined?

 

In my own life, church and seminary may have taught me about God, but in the workplace God taught me about Himself.

 

As I sat at my desk in my office at the intersection of Forest Hill Avenue and Roanoke Street I prayed, “Lord Jesus, please help me to meet Christians in the workplace.”

 

A week or two later I was having lunch with Les, a vendor, at the Shoney’s restaurant in Carytown. As I turned the conversation to Christ – (for are we not called to witness to Him?) – Les said, “I think there is a Bible group that meets here that you might be interested in. Bill DeWorken knowns about it.”

 

I had never met Bill. I knew that Bill was the president of another multi-family firm in Richmond, but we had not met or spoken, our paths had not crossed. Les’s maintenance – supply firm did business with most apartment management firms in Richmond, so it was natural that he would know Bill professionally.

 

Somehow, someway, Les knew enough about Bill to know that Bill knew about the “Bible group” that met in the Carytown Shoney’s. This means that as I was witnessing to Les that Les was associating what I was saying with Bill DeWorken, which in turn means that Bill had witnessed to Les.

to be continued....