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THERON WILLIS, HOMETOWN NEWS A Level 2 male correctional facility with a fenced perimeter covered top to bottom with razor wire doesn’t sound like the type of place for a short, petite female minister. But this has been the exact environment where Pastor Deborah Williams has made her biggest impact for over 25 years.
Deborah Williams has been pastor of Lanford Grove Holiness Church near Woodruff since 1978 and after pastoring a few years at Lanford Grove, she felt the sudden conviction one day in prayer to preach to the imprisoned as well.
“I was praying in my prayer closet one day and I was asking the Lord to be with the sick and the shut-in, and then I asked ‘Lord visit the ones in prison,’” Pastor Williams said. “I’m not even sure if I ever prayed for the imprisoned before that day but as soon as I said it I realized that I was asking Him to do something that I was commanded to do myself. The next day I took off work and started searching for how to go about that.”
Soon after, Williams began volunteering at the Upper and Lower Yards at the Tyger River Correctional Institution in southern Spartanburg County, which was then known as the Cross Anchor facility before being renamed* Dutchman Correctional. Major Paul Brewton, who worked at Tyger River for over 25 years and just retired in December 2009, was there when Williams first started ministering in the prison and said the relationship that she has with the inmates is one that he’s never seen before or since.
For the rest of the story, see this week’s Inman Times.
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