Benefit concert to help Perrysburg grad fund mission trip
Written by Sarah Ottney | Managing Editor | sottney@toledofreepress.comAs his family and friends ring in the New Year in Ohio, recent University of Toledo graduate William Adamiak will be en route to the other side of the world.
The 24-year-old from Perrysburg leaves for Australia on New Year’s Eve to serve for a year with NET (National Evangelization Teams) Ministries, a Catholic peer-to-peer mission organization.
To help fund the trip, Adamiak organized a benefit concert, set for 7 p.m. Dec. 29 at UT’s Corpus Christi University Parish (CCUP), located on Dorr Street across from UT. Adamiak will play violin and Luke Rosen, music director at CCUP, will accompany him on piano.
William Adamiak
The concert will also feature Charlotte Mariasy, music director at Perrysburg’s St. Rose Catholic Church, on piano; St. Rose members Kim Wolf on viola and singer Ashley Gibel; Perrysburg High School student Brooke Wiland on violin; and Adamiak’s sister Isabella Aramaic on cello. Rosen will perform a piece he composed for the event, and Rosen and Adamiak also plan to improvise one piece.
“The music is going to be incredibly varied for the small group that we have,” Adamiak said. “I just want to pack the house. I don’t really care if nobody donates. I’m doing this kind of as my last hurrah and to get all the people I know and care to all meet together in one place and enjoy some good music. It started out as a donation thing, but right now it’s just a come-and-enjoy-some-nice-music thing.”
A free-will offering will be collected. Rosen will also be selling “Portraits,” his solo CD of improvisational piano music, for $12, with a portion to be donated to Adamiak’s trip.
Rosen said Adamiak, who graduated from UT in May with a degree in bioengineering, is a talented musician.
“He’s just a really versatile player,” Rosen said. “The thing I really like about Will is, yes, he has all the technical stuff down; he can play anything, but so can a robot. The thing I love about playing with Will is he feels it so much and puts so much of himself in it. He’s also sort of fearless. He’s willing to make things up on the spot and just kind of go for it, which is great.”
Rosen said he has no doubt Adamiak will be a good fit with NET Ministries.
“Will’s always had a really strong faith life,” Rosen said. “He’s just generally one of the nicest people you could ever meet. His heart is always in the right place. I think he’s been looking to do something like this and hasn’t been able to find the right thing until now. So he’s excited and I think this will be a good fit for him.”
NET team members, who range in age from 17 to 30, are stationed in the United States, Canada, Ireland and Australia and share their faith with teenagers through retreats, workshops and leadership training seminars.
“They are looking for somebody to evangelize to teens — not just someone with spin polish, but someone who lives what they are going to be preaching,” Adamiak said. “When they asked me questions, they went deep. They asked about my faith, the history of my church, the sacraments I believe in, my beliefs, my sins, everything. I didn’t hold anything back.”
The year will start with a six-week training program in Brisbane followed by assignments. Some members will be stationed in one community for a year, while others will serve in multiple locations. Adamiak is hoping to be on a travelling team so he gets to see more of the country.
Adamiak, who speaks Portuguese and Spanish, was born in Brazil to a Brazilian father and an American mother who met in Poland. He moved to the U.S. when he was 12 and suspects the travel bug might be hereditary.
“I think it’s kind of in the genes me wanting to travel all over the place because they were big travelers when they were younger,” Adamiak said. “I’ve wanted to travel to a lot of places and Australia is about as far as you can get. It’ll be exciting.”
Adamiak’s interest in service was nurtured by a four-year scholarship program at UT called the Christian Leadership Program.
“It’s teaching you to take your Catholic faith and use it in a leadership role,” Adamiak said. “That’s what really drove me to start doing more missions, more service trips.”
Another major formative experience was a recent trip to Spain, where he walked a portion of a famous medieval pilgrimage route in northwestern Spain called El Camino de Santiago, or St. James’ Way. The 160-kilometer journey took him 12 days.
“That was an incredible experience, one I’ll definitely share at NET,” Adamiak said. “I enjoyed every experience, especially the pain, because it’s all a part of the journey.
“I like not knowing what’s going to happen tomorrow. Who are we to even say that tomorrow will happen? You can’t change what happened and you don’t know what will happen; all you can do is make the best of what you have right now.
“We’re all kind of chained down by society, by jobs, the places where we are. Why not take a leap of faith and say ‘I want to go do this?’ You can do it, and God will provide. I’ve never been really too worried about that.”
For more information, visit www.netministries.com.au.
