WILLIAM DENNIS HOLMES was born on September 27, 1963, to Floyd and
Lizzie Mae Holmes in Greensville County, Virginia. He attended Greensville County
Public Schools and graduated in June 1982. He grew up in a Christian home with
a praying mother and father. They went to a powerful sanctified Holy Ghost-
filled church called Rising Sun Holiness Church of Emporia, Virginia, under the
leadership of Eldress Lillie P. Williams. It was there along with other churches
under Pastor Mother Williams that William Holmes witness the supernatural
power of God working among the saints of God. William would see how devoted
his mother was to serve God and how she put in him to love the Lord and serve
him with a perfect heart. She would pray faithfully calling on God from her bedside. She would talk to
him about Jesus. His father would provide for them and love them. He would read the Bible to them at
night. His father would also pray.
When he went to church, he saw the saints of God act the same as his mother and father. He
concluded that this was real because they held up holiness more important than education or anything
else in this world. They were happy people to be free from the world of sin. They gave up the world and
dressed and look like the saints of God. They kept their testimony year after year. William knew these
people were real.
When William was six years old, he was stricken with a serious illness and placed in the Medical
College of Virginia Hospital Richmond, Virginia. His father called Mother Williams, who prayed for
him, and God wonderfully brought him out. Even the doctors who attended his case said, "It was the
hand of God that brought him out." William devoted his heart to the Lord and got saved, sanctified, and
baptized by the Holy Ghost filled and fire at the ages of thirteen to fourteen years old. He was nourished
in the Word of God under his pastor, Bishop William H. Easter, who succeeded Mother Williams as
pastor of Rising Sun Holiness Church of Emporia, Virginia, along with Bishop Rufus A. Easter, pastor
of New Jerusalem Holiness Church of Garysburg, North Carolina. God wonderfully worked in his life
and took him through many trials and tests. He remained steadfast in his faith and rejoiced in the Lord.
He did not cause the church to be ashamed of his conduct. He lived a saved, sanctified life no matter
how people treated him. He was called into the ministry and preached his trial sermon in October 1990
at New Jerusalem Church under the leadership of the Former Eldress Rosa Banks.