July 14. Dave Rudenis. Dave was a young deacon in a local church in Florida. One evening at the church’s board meeting, the pastor challenged his team “to make a difference; to get out there and do something.”
After the meeting, Dave told his pastor he didn’t think he should be “doing something” because he was “just a young deacon who liked to race cars.” Pastor Pitts assured him, “We need young men who like to race cars.” Four days later is when today’s story begins. On this date in 1960, Dave rescued a boy named Bill Wilson.
One act of kindness can feed a boy or save a generation.
Dave tinkered under the hood of the old race car, hopped inside, revved the engine, and listened. He slid out and grabbed another tool. A skinny, blond kid watched from across the road. As Dave tuned the car, the boy inched closer. Pretty soon, Dave introduced himself. The kid said his name was Bill, and he was twelve.
After a while the boy moved on, and Dave watched him disappear down the street.
It was some time before Dave saw Bill again. Ordinary life went on. Dave worked at the machine shop he owned. Raced cars. Performed his duties as a deacon at church.
But then life’s challenges got seriously more challenging. Dave’s son was hospitalized with leukemia. Finances shrank. One day in 1960, as Dave drove down Park Boulevard in the stifling Florida heat, Dave felt as if he were suffocating.
But then a lone figure on the corner caught his eye. He slowed. It was the boy—Bill. He sat on a concrete slab near a drainage ditch. The blazing sun beat on his hunched shoulders. Dave stopped the car, slipped out, and jogged toward the culvert. But Bill didn’t move.
Dave stepped closer and put his hand on Bill’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Bill lifted bleary eyes. “I’m just hungry.”
When had the kid had last eaten—or slept? Bill put on a brave front, but there was desperation beneath it. The guys talked some. Dave learned that Bill had waited in that concrete culvert for three days. It was the last place he had seen his mother. She had told him, “I can’t do this anymore. You wait here. I will be back.” Only she never returned.
There was no way Dave was leaving Bill there alone. “How would you like to go to youth camp?” Dave asked.
“What’s that?” The boy cocked his head.
“Oh, you would love it. Lots of kids your age will be there. They have softball, swimming, and great services.”
When Bill agreed to go, Dave’s heart lifted. Dave didn’t have $17.50 to pay the camp fee, but he borrowed it, fed Bill, and five hours later Bill was on his way—riding in the church van.
At summer camp, Bill met Jesus. And everything changed for Bill—and he and Dave remained friends.
In the middle of Dave’s overwhelming circumstances, God had called him to reach out to Bill.
“For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints” (Hebrews 6:10 NASB).
Years later, Bill invited Dave to New York City to see the ripple effects of Dave’s acts of kindness. He thanked Dave—again—for stopping that day in 1960 when hundreds of others had driven past. Then Bill gave Dave a tour of Metro World Child, the inner-city Sunday school ministry Bill started for kids like him.
He showed Dave fifty buses that transported children to Sunday school—each staffed by a caring adult, who served as pastor to the children on the bus. He showed Dave twenty trucks equipped with traveling Sunday schools that brought church to the children of New York. He told Dave that without his one act of kindness, tens of thousands of kids wouldn’t be meeting Jesus that weekend.
Dave nodded. He would do it all over again, just the same way.
This is a legacy story. Pastor Pitts did his part; Dave Rudenis did his part; then Bill Wilson did his part. You have a part in someone’s legacy, too. One act of kindness can feed a boy or save a generation.
You can find Metro World Child at https://www.metroworldchild.org/.
This story is based on an interview with Bill Wilson, 2019.
Wilson, Bill. Whose Child Is This? Brooklyn: Metro World Child, 2015.
Tommy Barnett. Dream Again. Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House, 1998. pp. 76–80.
Story read by: Chuck Stecker
Introduction read by: Daniel Carpenter
Audio production: Joel Carpenter
Editor: Teresa Crumpton, https://authorspark.org/
Project manager: Blake Mattocks
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