03/04/2022
Forwarding this post:
Bonnie Hillesland Morales
REMEMBERING DAVID WILL
We can’t pick or choose when we want to go to heaven, it is God who knows the length of our days. And this is the day for David Will to see Jesus face to face!
David was a man who had a passion to know God and God’s Word more than anyone I’d ever met. He was always hungry for more and more and would share a jewel from the Word that he had discovered. That would be the first thing every morning on the bus to start his day, reading God’s Word!
He was a Minister of the Gospel in song and ministered Jesus saves at the end of every concert giving an altar call each night. Thousands and thousands of lives were touched and changed through the power of the Holy Spirit!
His talents were vast and he excelled in all of them. The first, and recognized the most, was his voice! He could flat out SING! (Armond’s favorite baritone singer of all time!) The Imperials, Jim, Terry, Sherman and Armond were singing one night in Ohio. Armond knew Terry was leaving and started looking for someone to step in. David was asked to sing a song before the second half of the concert began and Armond, very rarely, ever went into the auditorium and sat and listened to other singers or groups, but he did that night. While he sat and listened to David the Holy Spirit spoke and said “that’s your man”! After the concert he spoke to David and asked him if he’d be interested in joining the group which his reply was “I’ll have to pray about it”. Armond brought his publicity picture home and showed me and said “ this is our next guy to which my response was “he doesn’t look like an Imperial”! (That just shows you how much I know!) It was several years later when Jan shared with me about her prayer for David. He had been in several quarters over the years and he became discouraged with the industry so her prayer was - Lord if he joins another quartet please let it be The Imperials, I’ve heard there’s been a revival in the group! David called a couple of days later and gave Armond his answer, he’s one that never auditioned, Armond just knew his voice was it!! And that was in April of 1976!
I said David had many talents, he was also an excellent artist and designed two album covers for The Imperials, plus designed three different logos for the group. He was prolific in his art doing portraits and even of Armond for his birthday one year.
He was the go to mechanic when the bus broke down, and it broke down a LOT (my emphasis), he designed and built three interiors for those buses.
I remember one trip I went on we were heading home, still driving, on Sunday morning going east on I40. And it just so happened the bus broke down! There was a clanging of some sort in the engine compartment and we were just coming up on the off ramp, we turned right and the only building in sight was a small market/gas station. Whoever was driving pulled around behind the store and parked parallel to the interstate. Dave and Armond went in to ask if there was a Diesel engine repair shop or mechanic in the area and the man said he knew a man. We must have waited, in the summer heat with no shade and no air conditioning in a steel box, about 45 minutes or more. Meanwhile David put on his coveralls (always had them handy) and pulled a part out of the hot engine! An older gentleman pulled beside the bus in an old pickup truck. They talked for a few minutes and David showed him the part he needed and the man pulled that part out of the truck bed! It was a miracle, a God moment showing us He knew exactly what we needed and the moment we’d need it!! To get the part back into the engine David had to lay on the floor over the engine with his arm through a small hatch to replace the part. His arms were covered in grease up to his elbows, that was our David!
He was an electrician and plumber, he really could do it all!
He built furniture for their home, he even built, and gave, Armond a clothes valet stand for his birthday with his name burned in the tray. When his three girls, Lisa, Angela, and Nicole were little they played with Barbie dolls and he built them a three story doll house for their Barbies, it was beautiful and large!
Jan and I became sister/friends we were together so much. Neither one of us had a sister but we each had three brothers. Many times on the weekend I’d have her and the girls over for a pool/slumber party.
There is one road trip Jan and I took with our kids. The group was going to be in Del City, OK for a week crusade and we wanted to be with them so we packed our car (squeezed enough for four children and two adults for one week plus toys and books) and headed out! So each child had to sit by each door and two middle seats and we stopped every two hours of a twelve hour car ride, ugh! We’d stop at a fast food place and let the kids exert some energy, I then decided to pay each one a quarter every time they ran around the building! Let me just say by the end of the trip I was paying them a dime!
No fan knows what a wife and family faces when their husband and their father travels up to 250, and more, days a year! There’s loneliness, she has to be both mother and father and then change roles again as soon as daddy gets home. The children miss their daddy and often cry for him. The fathers miss the baseball games and school activities, birthday parties and the list goes on and on because it’s his job or more importantly it’s his calling! The husband steps on the bus with up to 11 other men and have to learn to live together as a family on a 45 foot rolling steel box with wheels!
The love of David’s life, at 15, was Jan. They met in church but couldn’t sit together so he always sat behind her and they held “feet”!! (Now that’s funny!)
Jan shared her husband and the girls shared their father with the world for over 30 years through music, knowing he was anointed to minister in song. They payed a greater sacrifice because he was always doing for the group even when home! Their reward in heaven will be as great as David’s. He LOVED and WORSHIPPED his God and he LOVED his family! He’ll be remembered as an Imperial, a fabulous singer but most of all a MAN OF GOD!!
We love you David and will miss you, but you’ve stepped into the very arms of Jesus and there is nothing on this earth that can compare. It won’t be long and we’ll all be together again!
Please pray for David Will's family!
