Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 3, Number 8, 1 August 1986 — Former Construction Worker Turns to Church [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Former Construction Worker Turns to Church

A former heavy equipment operator in the construction business chucked it all in 1953 and went to college at the then ripe age of 35 to study for the ministry. "I was a kind of wild and untamed guy at the time until I was saved in 1950 when I converted to Christianity," relates the Rev. Abraham Williams who retired in 1984 after 20 years as pastor of the historic Waiola Congregational Church in Lahaina. Williams, 68, is a native Hawaiian. He is one-half Hawaiian and one-half Japanese. His father was Bean Williams, a construction engineer and farmer, and his mother was Katherine Kaleialoha Kahanu. There were 10 Williams children, all of whom were born and raised in Anahola, Kauai. Of the 10, seven have college educations. The other three didn't think they needed to go to college because they held good jobs. There were seven boys and three girls, including two others — Gilbert and Gaylord — who are also ordained ministers at the Lihue Hawaiian Church. The other boys are Solomon and Theodore, both retired; Benjamin, a private contractor on Kauai; and Bernard, principal at Kalakaua Intermediate School for the last five years. Two of the girls — Kaleialoha Kenney and Adeline Chandler — are deceased while Kealii Tam resides on Oahu. Ka Wai Ola O OHA interviewed the Rev. Abraham Williams at the Vancouver Airport and 35,000 miles high above the Pacific on a Continental Airlines flight recently . He was asked if he had anything he wanted to offer to his fellow Hawaiians. He had the following simple message:

"We should all try to get an education. We need it and we should go after it. The world is so competitve and without an education we cannot compete effectively. We are never too old to seek an education. There are many educational opportunities available." The Rev. Williams himself has an interesting history, growing up as he did as an asthmatic child and graduating in 1935 from Kauai High School where he eoneentrated on commercial courses. He was an office worker with the old Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), clerked in a bank and went to Honolulu in 1938 to work as a clerk for a trucking eompany. It was at about this time he overcame his asthmatic condition. Williams later switched to the construction industry, working as a laborer, truck driver, equipment helper, heavy equipment maintenance meehanie and finally as heavy equipment operator.

He recalls that in 1950 he became interested in the word of God and soon found himself as a little evangelist converting others to the Lord. Three years later he quit his job and went to college under conditions less than encouraging. Be he persevered and got his theology degree in 1958 from Ft. Wayne Bible College in Indiana. In 1958, he enrolled at Indiana University for his masters degree in education and this was followed by graduate work in divinity at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. He is married to the former Ethel Sakima of Wahiawa and they are the parents of a son, Kalama, who works for the Marriott Hotel in Lahaina, and a daughter, Katherine Lahelani Schwinge of Santa Cruz, Calif. Lahelani, a Lewis and Clark graduate, works at the California State University, Santa Cruz library. During his retirement years, the Rev. Williams keeps busy with his real estate interests in Hawaii and on the mainland. Additionally, he helps out at Waiola until a new pastor is named. The Waiola church also has an intersting history, having been established in 1823 by Keopuolani, wife of King Kamehameha the Great. King Kaumualii is buried

on the church grounds. One of the things that still stands out in the mind of the Rev. Williams and those of his brothers and remaining sister was the way their father taught them to respect and work the land. Bean Williams taught his ehildren how to till, plant and harvest taro and rice on their acreage in Anahola. The boys also turned out to be talented carpenters, many of them having built their own homes. Bean Williams certainly stood tall with his children — Kenny Haina.

Abraham Williams