Eric Curry starts soon as First Free’s Director of Contemporary Worship. We spoke with him and his wife, Tarah, about their upcoming move from Greenwood, Indiana, and what they look forward to here in Rockford. Both are natives of Greenwood, Indiana, a south suburb of...
Originally published in 2021. In its list of available scholarships, Moody Bible Institute includes a short biography of John Willis, for whom a foreign missions scholarship is named. From Willis’ early years serving at Chicago’s Bethel Baptist Church, this short item...
Pastor John Crocker, who served First Free Rockford as our senior pastor from 1992-2007, went to be with the Lord on May 31. He was 78. John was born in South Africa on Jan. 31, 1945, to English parents. The family moved to Canada in his teen years, and then John came...
Editor’s Note: This story was originally published in December 2020. By a wide margin, it is the most-read and most-shared post in this blog’s history. We present it again in honor of what would have been Darcie’s 56th birthday. “There’s no...
Ron Smith already had struggled since his teens with crystal meth addiction. Then in 2013, both of his parents were killed by a drunk driver. “The only way I knew how to deal with that kind of pain was to use even more meth—all day, every day,” he says. “When I came...
Video produced by Nate Carter Growing up in suburban Milwaukee, Kaylee Gahm was accustomed to succeeding in whatever she set her mind to. As a young adult, she set her sights on nursing school, knowing this would be her biggest challenge yet. When school didn’t go...
