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| (Photo provided/ Deacon Ron “Willie” Williams) |
Deacon Ron “Willie” Williams of St. John Neumann Parish in St. Charles is a retired literature, composition, and history teacher who is also a three-time Camino de Santiago (Pilgrimage of St. James) walker.
He has been married 46 years, has five children and six grandchildren and enjoys taking the kids on “Papa adventures.”
Ordained to the permanent diaconate in 1994, he works as a corporate chaplain, leads church missions, prison retreats, and serves at homeless shelters and as a spiritual director/counselor. He has been a member of St. John Neumann Parish for 35 years.
Deacon Williams’ 33-day treks — about 500 miles in 2013 and 2015 and a 200-mile section in 2018 — have followed one of the Camino trails that begin in France, Portugal, Northern Italy, or Switzerland; all of them ending up at Santiago de Compostela, the final resting place of St. James the Greater on the coast of Spain.
The 790 kilometer trail that Deacon Williams has trekked begins in the Pyrenees mountains at the French city of St. Jean Pied de Port. His first day is well-described in his book, “Lost and Found Along the Way,” as a “cardiac stress test par excellence” that challenged his then-62-year-old body in many ways, even after 13 months of preparation for the journey. He learned that first day how to truly offer up his sufferings for others — including some 80 people he had listed on his cell phone and had promised to pray for each day. And every day thereafter brought additional insights along with challenges and new friends.
Deacon Williams admits he is “addicted” to the Camino, which he undertook only after some years of dry prayer ended with what he calls a “powerful message” to tackle this centuries-old walk of faith, sacrifice and growth.
Don’t expect “Lost and Found Along the Way” to be only about Deacon Willie Williams! The book, seven years in the making, begins with a fast-paced, narrative historical fictional account portraying St. James in Acts 12:2 facing his execution along with supposed reactions from his loved ones. It draws on facts, legends, tradition and imagination.
The rest of the book is nonfiction. “I had a group of people read through (my blog entries) and label” the stories, he says. “They scoured through and gave me an insight of the must-have blog entries. I took their advice and made them the chapters.”
Each of those chapters include what he calls “three perspectives”: The Camino (the geography and historical background); My Camino (his personal reflections along the way); and Our Camino (guidance for readers to go deeper into their own spiritual lives).
Deacon Williams’ goal for his book, published in June 2021, is to inspire readers to share their own stories and journeys of faith with others. The book’s final chapter talks about how to share faith journeys, he says, adding that personal faith testimonies do not “come across as pushy.”
“God is in the story if we look deeply enough,” he says. “Our faith story is today’s parable … a teaching for the next person about how to see God’s intervention, grace and forgiveness.”
Telling “the story of Jesus living in you,” he says, “is where the attraction lies.”
— “Lost and Found Along the Way” by Ron “Willie” Williams. Published by Deep River Books, Sisters, Oregon
Available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Orders to the book website will include a personal inscription by the author – www.lostandfoundalongtheway.com
