BY GRETCHEN KEISER

Staff Writer

ATLANTA--Diverse experiences in places as farflung as Anchorage, Alaska, and the northern Appalachian region of Pennsylvania are in his background as Father Bill Williams begins serving as an archdiocesan priest.

Thirty-eight years old on July 24, Father Williams grew up in Erie, Pa., in a family of 14 children, and by the age of 14 was exploring his interest in serving others and in prayer.

A House of Prayer opened in Erie by Sister Peter Claver Fahy needed repairs and Bill Williams, a student at Tech High School, offered to help. "Meeting Sister Peter with her simplicity, her lifestyle, her way of prayer was awesome," the new priest says of the nun from Georgia now in her nineties and still active.

After high school he worked in the Frenchville, Pa., area with Sister Theresa Dush at the Young People Who Care Center. The two-fold ministry brought practical help to northern Appalachian poor such as home repairs, Meals on Wheels and transportation while introducing those who served to the lives and experiences of the poor in a retreat setting. "I've always felt called to working with the poor and wanting to help them," particularly in "hands-on ministry," Father Williams recalls.

Following this year and a half experience he enlisted in the Army and spent seven years in Germany and Anchorage, Alaska, assigned to radio communications. In both posts he continued to volunteer, he says, working with Scouts and in religious education in Germany and in shelter and street ministry in Anchorage.

Inspired by the writings of Mother Teresa to share the lives of the poor, he spent two summer months living on the streets of Anchorage in the hobo lifestyle of homeless there.

He was a co-worker at a shelter ministry which has since been taken over by the diocese as the Brother Francis Shelter serving 450 people a night during Alaskan winters.

Following the Army, Father Williams returned to Pennsylvania to pursue a college degree at Edinboro University, where he received first an associate's degree in special education and then a bachelor of fine arts. His specialization was in the areas of weaving and basketry, both as art and as therapeutic tools.

While at Edinboro he recognized that he wanted to enter the priesthood and simultaneously completed minor seminary at St. Mark's Seminary in Erie. His major seminary study was undertaken over the past five years at St. Vincent's in Latrobe, Pa. He was ordained to the diaconate there April 26 by Bishop Thomas Tobin of Youngstown, Ohio.

Contact with Atlanta seminarians at St. Vincent led him to meet vocations director Msgr. Don Kenny and to change from study for the Diocese of Erie to study for the Archdiocese of Atlanta.

"What really drew me was the very large, open hospitality not just of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, but of the laity of the archdiocese," Father Williams said. "The Church of the South is very hospitable and very welcoming. The archdiocese is very much wanting a person to feel at home here."

Last year he was given a pastoral experience at Holy Spirit Church in Atlanta where he learned from the process the parish was undergoing of completing a new sanctuary, dedicating the church and moving into it. His first assignment as a priest is to St. Joseph's in Marietta, where he celebrated his first Mass and will be a parochial vicar.

His priesthood is focused upon bringing the presence of God to the people he serves, Father Williams said. "I wanted to be ordained to be a man who could bring the sacraments to the people of God. . . For me when I celebrate and also in preaching I depend a lot on God and the Holy Spirit to guide and direct me. . . I pray very hard to ask God to direct me to be present to his people."

The primary focus is upon the true nature of the Eucharist, he said. "Everything comes from that. This is what we come to and come from and this is what we take to other people as well. . . We are filled up, made whole, made new everyday. All of us, even the presider, has to enter into that transformation."

Although much has preceded his ordination in life experiences, Father Williams said he truly has the sense that this is "a brand new beginning again."

"The practice of humility is very important," he said. "To stand aside and let God work through you--not to be God."