Elder Thelma Williams
Elder Thelma L. Williams
A Biographical Sketch
Elder Thelma Williams was born Thelma Lee McDade to Ellis and Lois McDade in Winfield, Louisiana on October 5, 1944. She is the fourth of six children.
Her mother, while visiting her brother in Seattle, Washington, fell in love with the city and returned home to announce the family was moving. She and her family moved to Seattle in the summer of 1961.
Upon moving to Seattle, the McDade family quickly settled into Bethel Christian Church. Moved and encouraged by the Word of God, at the age of sixteen, Sister Thelma was saved and filled with the Holy Ghost by October of the same year. She quickly became involved in the church and by seventeen her first responsibility was collecting the Sunday School books for the secretary. She enthusiastically joined the youth department, the choir, and many of the other auxiliaries of the church and worked faithfully to spread the Gospel.
She would go on to graduate from Garfield High School in Seattle, Washington. Upon completion of high school, she attended Metropolitan Business College where she earned her IBM programming certificate. While attending Seattle Central Community College, where she studied business management, she was hired by Seattle Public Schools as an accountant.
Upon returning with an honorable discharge from oversees duty in South Korea, Brother Lawrence Williams would begin attending Bethel Christian Church where he would meet Sister Thelma. After serving in the ministry together for many years, they became engaged and married on December 18, 1971. By 1979, they had departed from Bethel Christian Church to co-found Faith Deliverance Assembly A.O.H. Church of God, Inc. in Seattle, Washington.
Elder Williams was the superintendent of Faith A.O.H. Christian Academy, a Preschool to 6th grade primary school established and operated at Faith Deliverance Assembly Church. She has been the head of the Mother’s Board and Women’s Departments since the onset of FDA and serves as the Sunday School Superintendent. She has also been a dedicated servant to the nursing home and prison ministries for many years. She is a devoted prayer warrior and often exclaims, “The altar is your best friend!” In June 2013, she would receive her Elder’s license from the Apostolic Overcoming Holy Church of God, Inc.
Elder Williams has been blessed to be married to her husband for fifty-three years. They have four beautiful daughters, JoAnna, Jeanette, Michelle, and Kristy, who with their families, are all active in the ministry. They are also the proud grandparents of seventeen grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.