200 at Arlington Hts. prayer breakfast

A friend's suicide and his own wife's serious bout with cancer led William Bradish to study the Bible for guidance in his daily life.

Bradish spoke Thursday at the Arlington Heights Mayor's 23rd annual Community Prayer Breakfast, which is modeled after an event started in 1952 in Washington, D.C. The village and Chamber of Commerce event drew just under 200 people.

"Serious questions in life; confusion, restlessness, uncertainty, fear of failure - all were drawing me to the word of God," said Bradish, who owns an independent insurance agency in Arlington Heights and has a part-time job with Orchard Evangelical Free Church.

His wife, Judy, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer seven years ago, and is among the 15 percent of women contracting the disease who survive more than five years, he said.

After reading from the Bible, Dr. Michael Schroeder, a dentist and Wheeling Township supervisor, told the story of how eight years ago he relinquished Wheeling Township's Republican committeeman post only three months after winning the office - a victory conservatives had struggled long and hard to achieve, he said.

Schroeder acted because he realized he was not being true to his stated priorities - God, then family and finally business.

It was a trip to Benin, in West Africa, to give dental treatment to impoverished residents that showed Schroeder what real contentment is, he said. He said he witnessed "many Christian believers in Benin without a tooth brush or clean drinking water."

The attempt of the prayer breakfast to include all kinds of beliefs was represented in the invocation by Rev. Jeffrey Phillips, pastor of St. John United Church of Christ.

"We come as Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Unitarians, questioners, doubters, Buddhists, syncretists and practitioners of earth-based religions, " Phillips said. "But we come to pray," he said.