I was on a call from my home office with a couple of my Lockheed Martin colleagues on Sept. 16, 2019, when our house phone rang (yes, we still have a landline).

The caller ID indicated the Sterling Presbyterian Manor in Kansas. As their main contact for the care of my elderly mother, Irena Kilgore, I would normally get two to three calls a week from the manor. These calls were often to report changes in medicine or physical therapy, or sometimes they would report on Mom not getting any sleep.

The thing about getting these calls from the manor was that I was consciously hoping that at some point, and hopefully soon, I would get the call informing me that Mom had gone to be with the Lord. As a family (my wife, Andrea, and kids) and as an extended family (my four sisters and their families), we had all been praying for months that the Lord would grant mercy on Mom and relieve her from the dense, ever present, and unrelenting fog in her mind. Dementia is such a terrible experience for the victim, and it is such an emotional drain on the family.

I excused myself briefly from my work call and took the call on the other phone. Finally, this was “the call.” Tonya, a registered nurse from the manor, informed me that Mom had passed away in her wheelchair as she was being taken from lunch back to her room. I thanked her for calling and told her Andrea and I would come soon. I rejoined the work call in order to excuse myself.

Then I went from the office to the other part of the house and found Andrea. We wept, hugged, and wept some more, thanking God for His act of mercy.

Our family had gone through a similar experience in July 2015, as our father succumbed to the effects of Parkinsonism, which by the end had eroded any functionality of his body and mind. God’s mercy was seen there as well.

Back to 2007

Backing up a bit, Andrea and I were in our third year of married life, living in the Denver suburb of Thornton, Colo. I was in year 23 of my career at Lockheed Martin. Our first child, Olivia, was just nine months old. My work in IT was such that I could do a lot from home, and from time to time I would obtain permission to work remotely. By the first of the year I asked for, and was granted, the opportunity to work from home full-time. So now, as a full-time telecommuter, I was set up with a cozy little home office. As a family, we were loving life, and we were enjoying the fellowship of a loving church family at the Westminster, Colo., RPC.

By March 2008, our family expanded with the birth of our second child, Julia. Andrea was filling the role of church secretary, and around that time I was elected to be a deacon.

As months and years passed, we would often take trips to Sterling to visit the Kilgore side of the family, or to Beaver Falls, Pa., to visit the Tweed side. Often these were working vacations, as I could log on and do my work. We would soon realize this mobility could be the key to future opportunities.

Opportunities v. Realities

It was during these years, 2007–2011, that through our telecommuting situation, the Lord was revealing to us that there were other opportunities that could be considered or explored. We were not tethered to anything in Colorado that would prevent us from uprooting and moving to help a struggling church or a church plant. We knew that throughout the Midwest Presbytery there were a handful of churches with low attendance that could benefit by a new family joining their fellowship.

Before any of these brainstorms turned into anything resembling plans, the Lord saw fit to change our focus. It became obvious to us during our trips to Sterling in 2009 and early 2010 that my parents needed to change their living situation. The big old house that had been in the family since 1963 was just too big and too unwieldy for them. The effects of Dad’s Parkinsonism were beginning to show. The help he needed every day was going to take its toll on my mother if something did not change. Even some of the folks in Sterling would share their concern for Mom and Dad when we would be home for a visit.

After discussing our parents’ situation at various times with my sisters, it was the consensus that one of the five of us would need to consider moving to Sterling. The purpose in moving would be to help our parents in their transition to the Sterling Presbyterian Manor’s cottage life and the long-term care that would likely follow someday. A secondary purpose, but still particularly important to all of us, was in having the home in Sterling stay in the family. This would give all five of our families a perpetual reason to come home to Sterling. Subsequent holiday celebrations since have proved that having this home in our family is a great blessing, and we all would love to see it continue.

Andrea and I knew that we were the only family unit of the five that could do this. We had prayed individually and together about it and openly discussed it between ourselves. We were in agreement from the start. The question, “Should we move home?” became “How soon should we move home?” There was never really a doubt in our minds that this was the Lord’s leading. Also, I figured that if I could telecommute from six miles, why not telecommute from 450 miles? My management at Lockheed agreed and allowed me to take my job to central Kansas.

By this time our third child, Quentin, had joined us in January. On June 2, 2011, a moving van and vehicles filled with children and belongings left our little home in Thornton and headed for Sterling.

Back Stories

Andrea and I were both born into Reformed Presbyterian homes with loving parents. Apart from that, our experiences were quite different. Andrea was born in Beaver Falls, Pa., in 1971 to Rev. Robert and Elaine (Bell) Tweed. She lived her first eight years at the house at the top of Fourth Street in Patterson Township. In 1979, Rev. and Mrs. Tweed moved the family to Anchorage, Alaska, after receiving a call to plant a church there.

Growing up, Andrea and her siblings—Jennifer Martin, James, and David—were well trained in the Reformed faith. Her parents wanted each of them to find their own faith and not just accept that of their parents.

In 1987 the family moved back to the lower 48 as Rev. Tweed was called to pastor the RP congregation in Lawrence, Kan. After graduating from Lawrence High in 1989, Andrea went to Geneva College and graduated in 1993.

Shortly after Andrea’s graduation, Rev. Tweed retired from the pastorate and the family moved to Winchester for a period of time, then back to the house in Patterson Township, Beaver Falls, in 1998. Andrea lived in the family home there in Patterson until 2004, when we were married, and took up residence in Colorado.

In Oct. 2009 we received a phone call informing us that Andrea’s father had a heart attack and did not survive. On New Year’s Eve 2016 a similar call came to let us know that Andrea’s mom had a heart attack and did not survive. In contrast to the deaths of my parents, these were out of the blue, sudden, unanticipated, shocking. They hurt differently. There was, of course, the comfort of knowing that they knew and loved the Lord and were immediately in His presence.

I was born in 1961 to Quentin and Irena (McKissick) Kilgore. Our family moved to the house that Andrea and I live in today in Mar. 1963. Quentin and Irena purchased the house from the Board of Trustees of Geneva College.

My sisters—Janet Fuller, Barbara Viramontez, Connie McWhirter, and Pat Enoch—and I all grew up in Sterling and attended the Sterling RP Church. I graduated from Sterling High School in 1979 and from Geneva College in 1983. In Jan. 1984, I moved to California and found a job as a computer operator at a big Lockheed facility in Sunnyvale. In 1992 I moved to Denver to a new Lockheed company and was still working at that Denver facility when Andrea and I were married.

Completing the Story

There is an interesting contrast in the concept of the Lord’s leading during my move from California to Colorado in 1992 and our family’s move from Colorado to Kansas in 2011.

In the move from California to Colorado, the Lord picked me up and moved me. I was having problems with godliness, and the Lord rescued my soul by moving me to a place closer to home and nearer to a church with which I was familiar. Not to be misunderstood, as soon as I heard about the opportunity in Denver I was eager to go—but, I have no recollection of spending a lot of time in prayer asking for God’s guidance or that this move to Colorado would be His will.

By contrast, in the move from Colorado to Kansas the Lord was revealing to Andrea and me that we were needed in Sterling. The decision to move came with much prayer and soul searching. There was such a peace with both Andrea and me that we knew right away that we were doing the right thing.

There were many rewarding times in our season with my parents as they transitioned. In her final days, my mother had no idea who the man (her husband and my dad) was in the picture on the shelf. But she could rattle off a dozen or more ABC Bible verses as if she just learned them in Sabbath school. My dad was not even able to smile or speak near the end, but I know his heart was filled with joy when little Quentin (his namesake) at four years old would run ahead of us into Dad’s room at the nursing home and jump up into Grandpa’s lap for a hug.

These are memories the Lord has blessed us with. These are gems. Praise God for these memories.

We have been in Sterling for 9 years and have settled into new roles. While our main reason for relocating is no longer, we have found new purposes and are happy to be serving in the Sterling RP Church. Blessings continue to abound.

About This Telecommuter Thing

For 12-13 years I had a work situation that was fairly unique in our culture. Telecommuting was not extremely widespread when I started in 2007. By 2020 it was becoming more and more mainstream. Now, in the age of the coronavirus, it is commonplace. I can draw two conclusions from that: 1) my work arrangement is not all that interesting anymore, and 2) telecommuting is here to stay.

The virus has shown many companies the savings that can be made by having people offsite. I believe that when everything opens up, and COVID-19 is history, we will see a lot of companies continue to employ personnel working from home. This is an opportunity for the church!

When the post-pandemic world arrives, in many cases a college graduate or a young family can center on a church location and take their job to it, instead of taking a job somewhere and hoping to find a good church nearby. Some people have already been doing this. Kudos to them for their forward thinking.

Hopefully, this will catch on. It could revolutionize church planting. It could revitalize struggling churches. It could be a means for increasing the current efforts of bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ to the lost. What bigger calling is there?

Bill Kilgore is a ruling elder in the Sterling, Kan., RPC. He and his wife, Andrea, live in Sterling with their children, Olivia (14), Julia (12), and Quentin (9).