Transcript

I can't really remember a time that I didn't believe in God, and that's probably because I was raised in a genuine, genuinely loving Christian home.

My father was an ordained minister in the Baptist Disciples of Christ denomination, and my parents had laid their lives down for the Lord.

And so, that is the atmosphere that we grew up in.

I'm what you might call a walking ecumenical movement.

I was born into a family that was Lutheran at the time, but was baptized in the Presbyterian church.

Eventually ministered or was a part of the Methodist, the Pentecostal, the Baptist, uh, the Episcopalian churches, plus a couple of non-denominational, uh, churches.

And I was ordained in a non-denominational church.

I was born and raised in a small town in North Carolina.

Grew up with one brother, who was just about a year younger than me.

So, we grew up very close.

My mother was raised Lutheran, and my dad was raised in the Baptist Church.

And so, just by default, we ended up growing up raised in a Southern Baptist Church.

There was never really, um, you know, an explanation as to why were Baptist over a different Protestant denomination.

We just grew up in a loving, Christian family, going to church on Sundays.

I grew up in Central Indiana in a rural farming community, and I attended a Methodist church that my family has been in for decades.

It was a, a tightly knit community.

On a good Sunday, we would have 40 or, or 50 people come to church.

And it was there that I, I learned the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

We were a community that loved each other, that took care of each other, that prayed for each other, and I, I like to believe that I, I, I got a good foundation in Christianity.

I grew up, uh, in a military family, and my, uh, family participated in the base, uh, Protestant chapel.

Uh, we were devout, I guess you could say.

We were there every Sunday without fail.

Even if we were sick, my dad said, We're going to church.

Uh, so we were regular members of that, uh, community.

I was born in Pensacola, Florida.

And early on, my family moved to Asheville, North Carolina.

I grew up in the mountains.

I grew up Protestant, but really only attending church on occasion, acknowledging God, but it was much like being a good citizen.

Um, you were a Christian just because it was the right thing to do and, you know, you believed in God, and kinda went on it about your daily business.

But it certainly was not something I thought about, um, on a daily basis.

And I even had six years, uh, during my, my teenage years as an atheist.

Starting when I was 12 I became an atheist, and until I was 18, uh, had ceased to believe in God.

There's a lot behind how that happened and why, but mostly I think it was a matter of adolescent rebellion.

Then later when I was married and we started having children, we were a part of the Charismatic Renewal, because my parents had, had left the Disciples of Christ denomination and become involved in that.

Then we were part of a Fundamentalist church.

We were in non-denominational churches.

We were Presbyterian.

Eventually, I was Anglican, and, um, so I sort of covered the landscape of Protestant churches.

When I was young, our na- our, our landlady was, um, Catholic and invited me to mass with her, which I, which I loved and I was in thrall with the, the mystery and the reverence.

However, my family being Baptist were not approving of me, uh, continuing.

But my mother always, uh, sent us to church and to Bible study.

So, I was baptized at 12 years old.

Then when Guy and I became, uh, Presbyterian, we, um, enjoyed, um, the fellowship and the Bible study, and the, and our, and our membership with them.

However, in 2014, the congregation, uh, had a particular, um, new change in ordination policies at the national level.

And so at that, we were, um, vehemently disagreed with that, so we decided that we needed to find a new church home.

I grew up in Hong Kong until I was 16 years old.

Um, my first exposure to, uh, to Catholic is when I was, I started middle school and high school there in Hong Kong.

So, in middle school and high school, uh, the better ones are usually, um, affiliate, affiliated to, uh, some sort of religion.

And I got into the Catholic school, it's a all boys school where, uh, I got my first exposure to Catholic.

And, uh, you know, the, that was my first time saying prayers before, before lunch, before, uh, recess, and before, uh, you know, breakfast, but then that's also my first time going to, uh, monthly mass.

As I grew older and eventually as I, I went off to college, I began to realize that the faith that I had been raised with didn't always provide the best answers to some of the larger questions in life.

And so I began to, to look around at, at other, uh, faiths as well.

I, I dabbled for a bit in the Evangelical church, but it was as I was entering my senior year of college that I began to take my faith more seriously and, and really delve into Christianity on a more intellectual and, and historical basis.

As I became an adolescent and started having deeper questions about things regarding my faith, the answers from my parents weren't necessarily very theological.

When I was growing up on this, on the, the island, it was an island military base.Uh, we would go into New York City.

We lived, um, uh, it was a five-minute ferry ride from the island into, uh, Downtown Manhattan.

So, we would go into the city, and I would see, um, sisters, habited sisters in the city, and I had a deep curiosity about that.

I didn't know who they were.

They were wearing black and, honestly, without any information, I thought they were witches.

But I was deeply curious about that.

So, for me, um, there was a deep curiosity about all things Catholic from a very young age.

I knew I wasn't one, I knew I wasn't allowed, if you will, um, but I, I had a sense they had something I didn't have.

So, I eventually, though, came to faith.

Uh, as a Christian, returned to the faith of my youth, and, uh, eventually was, was ordained as a Protestant pastor.

But I kept looking, uh, as I mentioned, the different denominations we belonged to, the different settings.

Great people, learned wonderful things, came close to God, learned a lot about the scripture, how to worship him.

But ultimately, I knew there was something missing.

There was a fullness that I, I didn't have, didn't know.

And it was in my doctoral program, uh, working on a PhD in historical theology, that I finally began to find the, the pieces fit together.

As I began to study especially those Christians who had learned their faith from the apostles, the, the ch- early church fathers, I began to see that the early church, unlike what I'd been taught, was a catholic church.

It was the Catholic Church.

And all the things that I thought had been later additions, like bishops and councils and, um, a belief that the, the Eucharist really was the body and blood of Christ.

So many things I began to see were there from the beginning.

My uncle is, um, the only other Catholic in my family, and, um, he actually, um, after his conversion, ended up becoming a Catholic priest.

His ordination was my first experience in the Catholic Church.

And I was absolutely enthralled, um, with the sights, the sounds, the smells.

Um, everything, everything that I saw before me was something that I had not encountered before.

So, I would eventually, um, become, um, a military chaplain myself and, um, serve the Air Force for seven years.

It was in that context, in, uh, ex- being more exposed as an adult, more exposed to, uh, the plethora of Protestant denominations, that would cause me to look more deeply and say, You know, I don't think that's what Jesus meant, for us all to have, um, a, a different congregation whenever we have a dispute.

It didn't make sense as an adult.

Over time, as, as I studied the Catholic faith, I, I made the decision to convert to Catholicism, and I was received into the church just two weeks before I graduated from college.

It was a hard decision because it wasn't just simply moving from one church to another.

I was, I was leaving behind the faith that I'd been raised in, uh, um, and in a sense, uh, the tradition and the culture that I had been raised in.

And that was the hardest part for my family.

And then there came a time when none of that was working for me anymore, and I really needed something more and couldn't find it in my Protestant faith.

And I began to cry out to God for, for something to help me.

I had come to a time of real need in my life.

And my son and his wife had become Catholic and sent me a crucifix.

So, I used to pray at night, um, that the Lord would lead me to the next thing because I needed him very desperately.

And the prayer I kept praying was, Where is your body, Lord?

I need your body.

And eventually, I ended up calling my son to say, you know, Tell me a little bit more about Catholicism.

So, shortly after that, uh, when I was 16 years old, I moved to San Francisco, um, uh, in the United States to start my education here.

Um, then I transferred to North Carolina where I met my wife, who, who I quickly realized that she was Catholic.

After college, uh, when he moved down from New York, uh, to Charlotte, um, I did try to convince him to go to church with me every Sunday.

Honestly, it was like pulling teeth because, uh, to ask someone to wake up early on a Sunday morning to get ready for church was, uh, very difficult.

And a lot of times we would, um, kinda have these arguments over, Why do I need to be here?

And, um, for me, it was more of, um, w- wanting to share something special with him.

Um, so it was, it was difficult, but over time, I think he realized, um, how important it was for me that we shared this faith.

And then soon after, in grad school, I met, um, the man who would be my, be my husband.

And he was, um, the, actually the first, quote unquote, Catholic, that I ever really knew.

Um, I could tell that his faith was important to him.

I questioned, Why does this guy have to go to mass every single Sunday?

Um, I wondered, I, I remember early on going on a vacation with his family, and I was struck by the fact that they got up and went to mass on Sunday morning at the beach, even though they were out of town.

And so began my questions, um, to him regarding his faith.

And that set me on my journey, um, to learning more about the faith that would change my life forever.

And in addition to that, we were, um, looking for more reverence in our service and, um, communion more often, um, rather than three or four times a year, and, um What was another thing?

I, I, I think really the, the, the, the crux of the whole thing was the, uh, the change in the Book of Order, uh, from the General Assembly.

which we were, which we were vehemently opposed to and just couldn't, couldn't see our way carrying on in the Presbyterian faith.

Mm-hmm.

But an interesting thing that happened was that in the meantime when we were going through this, um, this discussion as a, as a couple, uh, we The Lord, I think, or the Holy Spirit sent to us new neighbors who were, who were Catholic.

He was a convert and, uh He was a cradle Catholic and she was a convert.

And over the period of years we became very good friends.

God didn't really enter into my world until I saw my uncle go through this amazing experience of his ordination and becoming a Catholic priest.

And it was at that point that I decided there was something special there and I, I didn't know that I wanted it for myself, but I knew that I wanted to find out more.

And on my uncle's suggestion, I started RCIA classes.

I took the I went to class just like I went to any other class.

I was 16.

I took it like I would take a college course.

Um, you know, showed up every week, um, did my homework, and showed up again.

But in the process of learning about the Catholic faith, I became 100% convinced that I had no choice but to convert because it did hold truth in its entirety and I wanted that in my life.

Um, it's the, the best decision that I ever made and I'm so thankful that, uh, that God gave me the opportunity to, um, to witness his ordination and brought me into the Catholic Church.

And so we visited their home, um, ad- admired their devoutness.

So finally in 2014 we began to say, Well, how about us going to, um, Good Friday with you?

And, uh, We would, we would li- like to know more about the Stations of the Cross.

And did the Stations of the Cross with them.

And they became our, our sponsors for RCIA and also our godparents for RCIA.

But by God's grace I was able to persevere despite some of the obstacles.

Despite the fact that some of my friends at, at college were anti-Catholic and tried to keep me from moving into the Catholic faith.

But it was the best decision that I ever made in my life.

And it took some time, took several years for me to come to the place of being willing to give up my ordination and so much of what I had planned for my life, uh, as a, as a pastor.

And also for m- for my wife to come to the place of belief.

Our children came along with us.

But I did finally, um, give up my ordination, enter the Catholic Church with all my family and it's the best decision of my life ever made.

Except, as my wife and I would agree, the, the decision to get married.

That was our very best.

I've never regretted it in all the years where there have been sometimes, uh, challenges in the church, uh, things in the news that might make you sad if you're a Catholic.

Nevertheless, I've never looked back.

The Catholic Church is my home and it always will be.