- Slices of Life: Jazz Professor Chip McNeill throws himself into his work
- Slices of Life: Jessie’s first fight
- Slices of Life: The longings of … a beautiful boy
- Slices of Life: Former pastor now hand-crafting beautiful furniture
- Slices of Life: Bishop seeks life for his church despite bleakness of neighborhood
- Slices of Life: Still missing his wife of 36 years, man keeps himself occupied at Champaign laundromat
- Slices of Life: Iraqi woman relates tale of her ‘rebirth’ in America
- Slices of Life: After meeting on dance floor, Harrises waltzing through life
- Slices of Life: Entrepreneur has spent much of his adult life belying a label from his high school days
- Slices of Life: Danville woman adores her flock of feathered friends
- Slices of Life: A sacred fire: The last of a farming line, a father soldiers on
- Slices of Life: University of Illinois student grateful for his journey to belief
- Slices of Life: Dave’s Firearms is a place for camaraderie — and camouflage
- Slices of Life: Never give up: The constant message at Restoration Urban Ministries
- Slices of Life: Area families struggle to find life after a soldier’s death
- Slices of Life: Missing the music
- Slices of Life: Willie Summerville: “Somebody say ‘Amen'”
- Slices of Life: Longtime local rabbi remains forever grateful for ‘sparks of holiness’ during a dark time
By Candice Norwood — The Rev. Ervin Williams loves Sunday night, the rare time when he can stop, relax and listen. As the founder of Champaign’s Restoration Urban Ministries, his work week is long and often divided among preaching three church services, running staff meetings and teaching classes aimed at helping the 120 homeless residents the ministry has on average in its Transitional Housing Program.
Yet each Sunday, he and a handful of congregants gather inside Restoration’s sanctuary for worship and testimony. During the morning service, the sanctuary’s 60 chairs might be full. Tonight, there are 14 people.
Sitting in the front row near the center aisle, Williams wears a navy blue suit, V-neck dress shirt and worn, black leather shoes. A strikingly calm, soft-spoken man, he often appears tired and older than his 62 years. He sits quietly, in concentration, with his head tilted toward the sky, his eyes squinting.
This story was written by a University of Illinois journalism student in Professor Walt Harrington’s Literary Feature Writing class taught in collaboration with The News-Gazette. Funding for the class, which was taught at the newspaper’s headquarters in downtown Champaign, came from the Marajen Stevick Foundation. The story was part of an occasional series titled “Slices of Life” that ran in the newspaper’s Sunday Living section. All the stories in the series are also collected in the book “Slices of Life.”
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