Carey Jordan – Loveland, Colorado … It was the fall of 1980, and Melia Williams was sitting in her first staff meeting at Dakota Adventist Academy. As she sat in that meeting, one thought kept running through her mind: What have I gotten myself into?
More than 45 years later, Melia can smile at the memory.
What she had gotten herself into was far more than a first teaching job. It became a lifetime of students and rehearsals, concerts and tours, friendships and faith. It meant hundreds of young people learning to sing, play, listen, lead, follow, and work together. It meant long hours, countless performances, miles of travel, and moments when music brought people together, when worship became something more, when perseverance produced something beautiful, and when students discovered the sense of belonging that comes from creating music together.
Most of all, it became a life spent serving young people through Adventist education.
Interestingly, Melia cannot point to a dramatic moment when she decided that music education would be her calling. “The truth: I don’t know,” she says when asked why she chose it.
During College Days, music majors helped sign her up, and Melia simply continued taking the next step before her. Only in looking back does she recognize something she could not fully see at the beginning. “God was leading all the way from my earliest memories,” she says. “So, I just kept following what was next.” And she is still following.
Today, Melia continues that ministry as a music teacher at HMS Richards Adventist School in Loveland, Colorado, more than four decades after she first entered an Adventist classroom as a music teacher.
Her journey in music began at Union College, now Union Adventist University. She entered as a piano major, later switching to vocal performance with music education, and earned a Bachelor of Music Education. She continued her studies at the University of Nebraska at Kearney and the University of Minnesota before earning a Master of Music Education from the University of Northern Colorado.
Her career has taken her into classrooms from kindergarten through twelfth grade, with much of her teaching at the high school level. She has also served as an adjunct professor for Union College, teaching AP Music Theory, and has taught piano students young and old along the way. Her years in Adventist education have included service at schools such as Platte Valley Academy in Nebraska, Maplewood Academy in Minnesota, and Campion Academy and now HMS Richards Adventist School in Colorado.
But listing schools, degrees, and years tells only a small part of Melia’s story for her, music education has never simply been about creating good musicians or preparing an impressive concert. It is about what music can awaken in a young person.
“Music is integral to our faith,” Melia explains. “Each student gains an understanding of what gift they might bring to worship in music class. More than that, music can be one way they begin a relationship with their Creator and with others.”
That belief continues to shape the way she teaches.
Music gives students confidence. It engages the brain in ways different from many other learning experiences. Students learn how to contribute to something larger than themselves. At one moment they may be called to lead; at another, they must learn to follow. They listen to one another. They depend upon one another. They form friendships they might never have formed otherwise.
Yet for Melia, the greatest possibility of music education is that somewhere in the process, a student may encounter God. She knows those moments are real because she has experienced them herself. Melia calls them “Holy Spirit moments”—times when music becomes something more than notes, rhythm, technique, or performance.
They have come to her as a student, as a performer, and as a teacher. They have happened during concerts, song services, and worship experiences while traveling on tour with students. “It’s an emotional rush that can only be experienced, but not really explained,” she says. Those experiences help explain why Melia sees music as such an important part of the mission of an Adventist school.
Early in her career, her first principal challenged Melia to think differently about her role. She was not simply responsible for rehearsals and concerts. He challenged her to become one of the faces of the school—to serve as recruiter, advertiser, school-spirit builder, worship leader, and ambassador for Adventist education. He gave her the time, resources, and support to carry out that mission. Decades later, Melia still believes music programs should serve in those ways.
Much has changed during her career. Staffing has changed. Budgets have tightened. Fewer music educators are available to take on programs that often require tremendous time and energy. Melia has long joked that whenever she left a position, at least two people had to be hired to replace her. There is humor in that observation, but there is also a glimpse of just how completely she has given herself to the work.
Through all the changes, however, some things remain deeply important. Melia believes there is value in holding on to meaningful traditions while also being willing to let go of “the old ways” when necessary. Great music still deserves to be studied. Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven still have something to teach students. Hymns still have stories to tell. But teaching is about continuing to grow.
“Musical growth happens as you study the music,” she says. “Spiritual growth happens when you seek God in everything you do.”
After more than 45 years of teaching, Melia also understands that meaningful music education is not built on perfect performances. A friend from graduate school once told her that “the mistakes made in concert will be the fondest memories in the future.” The longer she teaches, the more truth she sees in those words. “It’s about the journey.” And Adventist education has taken Melia on a remarkable journey.
Melina grew up attending a rural public school through eighth grade. When she was finally able to attend an Adventist boarding academy, she entered a world that felt entirely different.
She loved it.
There, no one asked why she could not eat the hot dog. She could participate in the weekend activities. Her faith was not something she had to explain.
She belonged.
That experience shaped the value she places on Adventist education today.
Later, Adventist education led her to Union College, where she met her husband, Chris. Union also opened the door to her first position in Adventist education. Her life and family continued to be shaped by the relationships she found through Adventist schools. And the “little farm kid from Iowa,” as Melia describes herself, suddenly found the world opening before her.
Through Adventist education, she has traveled to all 50 states. Music has taken her to Carnegie Hall. She has sung with Kenny Rogers and worked with renowned conductors and composers. She has traveled, performed, taught, worshiped, and built friendships across a worldwide church community. “Adventist education opened the world to a little farm kid from Iowa,” she says.
Yet even those extraordinary opportunities are not the greatest measure of Melia Williams’ ministry. That measure is found in people. It is found in generations of students who have walked into her classroom believing they could not sing and discovered that they could. It is found in young musicians who learned that their individual part mattered because others were depending upon them. It is found in students who discovered confidence, discipline, friendship, perseverance, and belonging. And perhaps most importantly, it is found in those moments when a song became more than a song—when music gave a young person a glimpse of the God who created them and the gifts He placed within them.
More than 45 years after that first staff meeting, Melia is still teaching. She is still making music. She is still encouraging young people to discover their gifts and use them in worship and service. Her first principal once told her something that she has carried throughout her career: “You have chosen a way of life, not a job.”
He was right.
For Melia Williams, Adventist education is not simply where she has worked. It has shaped her family, her friendships, her faith, and her understanding of ministry. It has taken her across the country and onto remarkable stages, but it has also brought her back, year after year, to the place that matters most—the classroom, standing beside another generation of students.
And when Melia looks across all those years, all those students, all those songs, and all the unexpected places God has led, she finds there is still a song for the occasion.
As she puts it, “There’s a song for everything.” For this journey, the song is a simple one: God is so good.
—Carey Jordan is principal of HMS Richards Adventist School. Photo supplied.
