Ministry group restores Camaro for racer with Lou Gehrig's disease


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By Glenn Evans, Cox East Texas

Sunday, June 01, 2008

KILGORE — A muscle car in Kilgore is becoming a vehicle for ministry thanks to the good works of volunteers.

When finished, hopefully by July, the 1976 Camaro with its newly installed 391-cubic-inch small-block Chevrolet stroker engine will open doors for dirt track racer Tom Wills to share his faith. Meanwhile, the car is a ministry aimed at him, with some 25 friends helping Wills, who has Lou Gehrig's disease, keep his fingernails dirty.

They call it Project Compassion.

"There's been nothing in this project that God hasn't provided," Terry Brewer said Sunday in the Kilgore College paint and body shop where he is program director for the collision repair program. Nearby, about a dozen of the 25 volunteers who have been involved in Project Compassion, all but a few of them members of Calvary Baptist Church, neared the end of the second weekend of restoration.

"It's just been amazing," Brewer said. "These men are working hard. We've accomplished, in two weekends, better than 300 hours of work."

The work is for Wills, 44, a former LeTourneau Technologies steel mill worker who was diagnosed in August with Lou Gehrig's disease, the common name for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS. The incurable disease attacks the nerves through which the mind communicates with muscle groups, gradually destroying the brain's ability to control movement.

A 20-year local dirt track racer and married father of three, Wills retains his ability to move and can drive and walk, though his friends say he has lost weight.

"He's not the physical man he used to be," Brewer said of Wills. "But he's every bit of the man he used to be. He's got God in his heart — it's awesome. We're building a car for a fellow, but we're doing way more than building a car. We're ministering to him, and his whole family, and he's ministering to us."

And when they're done, Wills plans to take his ministry on the road.

"Am I going to be happy with this car? Absolutely," Wills said of the restoration, which he envisioned as a project for himself and his children when he bought the car in March. Wills already had sold his racers, as well as horses he kept at his West Mountain home, when he and fellow dirt track driver Jody Gooch picked up the car from an acquaintance at a local dealership.

"I'm going to love it," he said. "But my true desire for this car, upon completion, is to reach people for the Lord. There are a lot of muscle-heads in the world. With this, I will be able to minister to so many people that, without it, I wouldn't get a chance to talk to."



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