Bob Bickle Funeral Service

We had Bob Bickle’s funeral today. About 5 years ago some of the members of the Ayer’s street congregation approached us. The congregation was going to disband and they were looking for a place for their members to go. Bob was preaching there at the time. When David, Gus and I met with Bob we knew that Bob was the kind of guy that we would like to work with. His calm demeanor and wisdom came out during those meetings. We certainly had some differences but we all felt like we could work with each other for the greater goal of building the congregation and reaching out to the “lost”.

We decided to financially support Bob as he worked with the congregation here. It was probably one of the best decisions we ever made. Bob took us in a direction that without him we never would have gone; Prison work and Counseling.

Bob was very active in prison work. Every Tuesday he would drive to the prison unit in Beeville to teach an anger management class to the inmates there. Prison work is the kind of work that you don’t see immediate results with. It is an investment in the future. I was touched by what one of Bob’s co-workers said today, that two thousand prisoners had been praying for Bob while he was in the hospital.

Bob also was very active in counseling. We advertised “Free Christian Counseling” with Bob’s cell phone number on our message board at the building. Many took advantage of that. Bob was able to counsel folks about the problems they had because of sin in their lives. We have members at Parkway because of Bob’s counseling.

Bob was such a hard worker. He was always looking for ways to promote his free counseling service and he was always looking to increase his knowledge by going to counseling seminars. He maintained a counseling website. Pretty amazing for a man of his age and health to be so active.

When he was admitted into the hospital with his cardiac condition he was in a hurry to get out because he and Janet had planned a trip to go to Florida for a counseling seminar that he didn’t want to miss.

Bob and Janet were especially gifted at helping the older members and visiting the sick in the hospital. There is a lot more that could be said about Bob.

Bob will be missed by all. He made Parkway a better place.