West Milford Reverend Adam Muda is a very happy new priest, his contentment evidenced by his quick smile and open conversation about the road he’s traveled to get to this point in time. Ordained a priest of the Diocese of Paterson in May, Fr. Adam, 29, has been assigned as Parochial Vicar to Our Lady Queen of Peace parish in Hewitt, where he appears to be comfortably settling in. “I love this area, it’s country and I feel wonderful here. My first night here I saw a bear,” he said. Fr. Adam is a long way from home - the small village of Bononia, Poland. Having grown up on a farm with his parents, Andrezej and Genowefa, two sisters and a brother, he is familiar with country living. As a youngster he was an outdoors type of child, swimming in the river and lakes, roaming the forest and enjoying campfires with friends. He attended public elementary schools in Poland where religious education is taught and which he hopes never changes, he said. His family greatly contributed to his solid religious background. His mother and father are pious people, active in their parish. One uncle is a priest, another was a religious brother and his grandfather often sat the little boy down and read the Bible to him. After grammar school Fr. Adam went to a technical school for three years to become an auto mechanic and then on to high school for another three years. During his school years he was a long-distance runner and drove go-carts in competitions. Like all teenagers, he went to dance clubs and hung out with friends. He enjoyed camping in the beautiful mountains of his homeland. At this time he also had a job driving his uncle’s bakery truck and, like lots of teenage boys, he had a girlfriend. When he was younger, he said, he had some thoughts about the priesthood but put them aside. In his last year of high school the idea re-emerged. “I started praying before exams, then I began praying more. I read the Bible every day and meditated. I listened to Pope John Paul’s homilies. Praying opened my heart to vocation,” he said. On Holy Thursday in 2001, as Adam Muda knelt in church, he was coming to a decision. By the end of the Mass he knew where his heart would lead him. He was overjoyed. “This is it! I’m going,” he said to himself. In 2001 he entered the seminary at Catholic University in Lublin, Poland. It was difficult to contemplate ending the five-year relationship with his girlfriend and he had until the end of the first year in the seminary to make up his mind. Which he did. “It was hard, but I was sure,” Fr. Adam said. While still in the seminary in Poland, Fr. Adam met a vocation director from the Paterson Diocese who invited him to visit. He also met priests from Chicago, with whom he kept in contact. While torn about leaving Poland, Fr. Adam came to the United States in 2004, arriving at the Bishop Abramowicz Seminary in Chicago and studying English for the next two years at the University of Illinois. In 2005 he went on to Saints Cyril and Methodious Seminary in Michigan, then to Saint Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, Maryland in 2006. Leading up to his ordination, Fr. Adam served in Holy Rosary Parish in Passaic, Saint Rose of Lima in East Hanover, where he was ordained a deacon, and in Our Lady of the Magnificat in Kinnelon. Now, on his first assignment, Fr. Adam said that he looks forward to working with Polish-Americans in the area, many of whom travel outside the township to attend Polish language services. He is very excited by the fact that starting on Sept. 6, the noon Mass at Our Lady Queen of Peace will be in Polish, with Reconciliation at 11:30 a.m. Fr. Adam keeps in close touch with his family in Poland, many of whom attended his ordination. He calls his parents and the wonders of the internet allow him to see and speak with his siblings. In his spare time he enjoys swimming, jogging, tennis, squash, skiing and ice skating. It seems that West Milford was made to order for this young priest.