Tom Willis

Tom Willis begins July 1 as OSBC Choir Director We are pleased to have Tom Willis on staff at OSBC as our new choir director.Tom was born in Atlanta , Georgia , adopted at the age of 16 months , and born again and baptized at the age of ten or eleven in Hollister , Florida.His dad was his pastor.

Tom met and married Mary while in the Air Force in Grand Forks , North Dakota.They have been married 34 years.Born in St. Louis , Missouri , Mary is the daughter of a Baptist deacon and accepted Christ at eight years of age.

Their daughter , Kim , will be 25 next Sunday , accepted Christ at the age of eleven , and teaches third grade at the International School in San Francisco.
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Tom has served as campus minister at CWU in Ellensburg , Washington , and at Green River CC.He has also served as music and education director in churches in the Puget Sound area.Tom is a self-employed consultant/field service engineer in the field of laboratory instrumentation and also works part-time at Radio Shack.

Vacation Bible School 1999Treasure Hunt Bible AdventureJuly 12-16 , 9 : 00 a.m.-noonfor children entering grades K-6featuring Bible stories and memory verses ,related crafts , songs , recreation , snacks.

EAST LIVERPOOL - Tom Willis, 77, is looking forward to his fourth trip to the Louisiana-Mississippi coastal area to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.

For the next trip, the former pastor and retired builder plans to fill his 22-foot van with books and school supplies for a school library blown away by the storm.He says he'll need some help to fulfill a promise made to a Mississippi teacher.

'When I left last Thursday evening, I talked to a schoolteacher.She was not so concerned with losing her home, but with the loss of the school library,' said Willis.

He promised he would bring her a library.

'Anybody here that has got good books, any grade level, I need them by the 20th of October,' Willis said.

He said local people may drop off books and school supplies at a church health fair Saturday at First Nazarene Church on St. Clair Avenue.The health fair is planned from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Or, people can call him on his cell phone, 304-387-1092, and he'll make arrangements to get the books, he said.He said he thinks he can use a room in the old Chester High School for temporary storage.

Willis said he'll be picking up some books in Pittsburgh, and others at State College, Pa., between now and Oct. 20.

Willis has already made three church-sponsored trips with his truck to the disaster area to deliver basic necessities like food, water and diapers.Now, he said, relief workers are starting to include materials such as 'bookbags and shoeboxes wth school supplies.'

An East Liverpool native, Willis grew up on West Eighth Street and went to the Sixth Street School.He left town at age 16 before getting his high school diploma.

He later got his GED and took some college classes.He is an ordained minister in the Church of God.

He and his wife Autumn are now residents of Pisgah Forest, N.C.They also have a little house between Newell and Chester, and spend considerable time in the East Liverpool area .

Last November the couple was part of a church-building mission to Peru, South America, led by East Liverpool's Delmas Sanford.

After Hurricane Katrina hit, Willis was asked to haul supplies in his truck on behalf of Anchor Baptist World Ministries, a mission group affiliated with his home church in Pisgah Forest.

'They are a Second Harvest recipient and associated with Manna food banks.They like to get there first.They were there in less than 72 hours on this particular disaster,' Willis said.
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The location was a former gated community, but house foundations and debris are all that's left, said Willis.

'When we left there last Thursday there were many needs,' he said. 'You cannot imagine the devastation.'

During the two four-day stays, Willis spent much of his time babysitting.He said he enjoyed watching children for relief workers and residents trying to get work done.

He did not stay over on his last trip to D'Iberville.He hauled in supplies and returned to North Carolina.

He said the ministry funneled $280,000 in cash to disaster victims, plus tons of supplies brought in by truck and car.

Willis likes volunteering for this ministry because everything that's donated gets to those who need it. 'Randy Barton, pastor of the church, he's an honest man.If you give a dollar for milk, they get a dollar's worth of milk,' he said.

Other volunteers helped Willis with the driving: Scott Powell on the first trip and Tony Thompson on the second.
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Willis said the church organization had used his truck before, but this was his first time to go out on a disaster relief mission.His son Mark, who has driven the truck for the church, also went with the Sanford group on last year's Peru mission.