Ruth and I were born into Protestant families, raised in the church, and saved at an early age. Eventually I was ordained as an Assembly of God minister and we served eight years in missions, five of them in Africa. This work was spiritually rewarding in many ways. In Uganda I was a Senior Pastor, Bible School Principal and Teacher, Social Worker, and a Regional Overseer of many churches. Our desire has been to please God in all we do. We have sought him and served him wholeheartedly. We believe we have been in His will in our life and ministry. Now, however, we can no longer see ourselves continuing in the Protestant ministry even though we are three years short of retirement. We are giving up our ministry and our means of support to join the Catholic Church.
Why would anyone in his right mind want to do that? In the pages that follow I will try to show you that what we are doing is God’s will for us. My hope is that it will spark your interest to study these matters further.
I should have been born in a log cabin but it burned down the year before I was born. My parents were small time dairy farmers with lots of kids. As number 9 of 11, I was born on July 9, 1940. However, due to childhood diseases, only 7 of us lived to adulthood.
Materially we were always poor. We took in homeless relatives often and shared what we had. But we were spiritually well off. My parents had been saved shortly after they were married in 1922. Dad decided he should be a pastor so they went off to Chicago to attend Moody Bible Institute. They were there when the stock market crashed in 1929 and then had to return home to help with extended family care. Dad never completed school or became a pastor, but my parents were strong in the faith and always active in the local church. We went for almost every service. In 1947 our United Brethren denomination merged with the Evangelical Church to become the Evangelical United Brethren. (E.U.B)
But this merger caused trouble. Some members thought the Evangelicals were too liberal and that we shouldn’t have joined them. The conference sent a new pastor but they bought locks for the church doors and locked him out so Dad took his family to another E.U.B church nearby. I was about 10 at that time and didn’t know what the disputes were all about. But I know it was the result of each one reading and interpreting the Bible in his own way. There was no one to settle the issues, no submission to authority. No sure way of knowing right from wrong.
By age 14 I was saved, baptized and confirmed. It was a serious matter for me and I really believed the Gospel. I had decided I wanted to be a pastor when I grew up. In Confirmation classes I learned the Apostles and Nicene Creeds. We were told that “catholic” meant “universal” and applied to the whole church. The church consisted of all believers of all denominations. Although our church was the best one, it was possible that even some Lutherans and Catholics could be saved. But most of them were just religious and didn’t really believe in Jesus so they wouldn’t get to heaven. We knew this because they drank, smoked cigarettes, played cards, danced, and did other evil things like that. Even those who went to Sunday ball games were doubtful. You had to be holy to get to heaven. Of course we were saved by grace through faith and not by works, but we still had to be holy. I always tried my best to conform to all the rules. I wanted to be a good Christian.
I graduated from High School in May 1958. My career goal was the ministry in our E.U.B. denomination. I would need 4 years of college and then 3 years of Seminary. I enrolled at Wisconsin State College in Eau Claire because I heard they had a good pre-seminary course and it was close to home (50 miles).
In my second year of college I met Ruth. She was American Baptist, a seriously committed Christian, and wanted a good Christian husband. For sure he couldn’t be Catholic, but could be from another Protestant denomination. I qualified. We fell madly in love and were married on May 28, 1960. But before I proposed, she had to agree to go with me wherever God would lead us, even to Africa if necessary. She gladly agreed. Forty-two years later she still agrees. We took no thought about how we would finance a family, college and seminary. We were in love and believed God would provide what we needed.
Ruth got pregnant right after marriage and I had to drop out of college. Our son, Jim, was born on May 17, 1961 and in September that year I returned to college. I worked for one year as a part time Youth Director for the local E.U.B. church for $20 a month. Despite this, my interest in spiritual things was declining.
I majored in History with a minor in Psychology. I studied two years of German and one year of New Testament Greek. In June of 1963 I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
I was academically ready for Seminary. But I never made it.
Ruth was pregnant again and I decided seminary was out. Besides, I was no longer sure I wanted to be a pastor. I took a social worker job at the State Prison. Karen was born on October 27, 1963
As time went on, I became less interested in spiritual things and more involved in supporting a family. Doing Social Work would hopefully satisfy my desire to “help people.” After three years of social work, I gave up the idea of seminary and ministry completely and pursued a Masters in Social Work that I completed in June 1968.
During the two years of graduate study we never attended church. I tried various ways of sinning but found no satisfaction in it. I was busy with graduate studies, work, and civil rights activities. Our marriage was strained and at one time we considered divorce, but we managed to reconcile.
The birth control pill was first marketed about then and kept us from any further children during this time. After graduate school we decided to increase our family. Marie, our last child, was born on August 16, 1969.
BACK TO CHURCH
In June 1968 I graduated with a Master of Science in Social Work. I had specialized in Administration and Supervision and I worked in those kinds of positions for many years thereafter. The first position was in Milwaukee. There we found our E.U.B. pastor from 6 years earlier. He had transferred to a small United Methodist church near our new home. The E.U.B. had merged with the Methodist Church to become the United Methodists. One step closer to all churches becoming one.
We started attending our former pastor’s church and I taught the college age class. We were religious but not very spiritual. It didn’t matter much which church we went to, just so it was Protestant and not Pentecostal.
During this time I met some radical Vietnam War protestors who were Catholic. I read a few issues of the Catholic Worker newspaper and one summer we went to a Catholic family camp. We went for the country camping experience, but were amazed at the spirituality of the priests and families. They accepted us warmly and decided we could participate in their communion. I had some spiritual interest by that time but had no idea which church was right and thought most any one of them would do. I had no thought about joining these Catholics. I am not sure what I believed then, but I never completely abandoned faith in God and his Son Jesus. Nor was I sure what was required for salvation. Many versions of the truth were offered and I didn’t know how to chose amongst them.
About this time, one of my older brothers really surprised us. He started out as a good Protestant. But he wasn’t satisfied and joined the Episcopal Church and later, the Orthodox Church. We couldn’t imagine why. He studied theology in Greece and Romania. After his return to the States I attended his ordination as a Priest-Monk. He built a small hermitage on our home farm where he lived and cared for my mother in her old age. I visited him often, read some of his library books, and discussed his beliefs. His sincere commitment to Jesus was obvious but we didn’t understand the need for icons and all the rituals he went through. He is now teaching at a Russian Orthodox Seminary. One discouraging thing I learned was that the various Orthodox groups were independent of each other, quarreled over many issues and didn’t cooperate much with each other. They also stayed within their own ethnic and cultural groups.
Lutheran and Spirit Filled
In June of 1971, we moved back to our home area where I took a Social Work Supervisor position in a rural county. We wanted to get our three children away from the evils of the big city. I kept that job for nine years and we raised our children on a farm.
The first year back we never went to church. The United Methodist Church was several miles away and we had no urge to go. Spiritual matters were not a big priority. After one year we bought our own 80-acre farm and settled down. A neighbor lady invited us to the nearby Lutheran Church and we became active members. We liked the Pastor and the people. One Sunday afternoon our three children were baptized. We thought Marie was still too young, but since Lutherans baptized infants, we went along with it.
Soon I was Sunday School Superintendent and Ruth was President of the Women’s ministry. I also ran for the local School Board, was elected and in one year was the School Board President. We were involved in many school and community activities with our children. It was a good life.
But spiritually I still didn’t know what to believe. The Lutherans had a liturgy, a new experience to us. They read their prayers. We had been taught prayers should be spontaneous. But their doctrine was Biblical enough to satisfy our Evangelical beliefs about Jesus.
I tried to learn about Luther and his teachings. A lot of it made sense. After we became accustomed to the Liturgy, we really liked it. Coming from an Evangelical background, we knew everyone had to be saved. The Lutherans didn’t use that terminology. But I reasoned that since they confessed Jesus as Lord every week, if they just believed it one Sunday, they would be saved. (Romans 10:9-10) One thing that troubled me was learning about the myriad varieties of Lutherans. They couldn’t agree with each other on very basic things. How could we know which Lutheran denomination was the right one? There was no central Lutheran authority anywhere.
In those days we knew almost nothing about Catholics. As Evangelicals we had heard the Church had reformed since Luther pointed out its errors. But they were still not considered to be right and we should stay away from them. Nonetheless, we knew some good Catholic families in our farming community. None of them ever witnessed to us about their faith, however. The Catholic Church in our little town had a big sign that said simply “God Is.” I always liked that reminder of his existence, but it didn’t tell me who or what he was.
In the Lutheran Church we learned about the priesthood of all believers and more about faith alone being sufficient for salvation. That fit well with our fundamentalist upbringing. But I did wonder way they ordained clergy if all of us were priests.
About a year after joining up with the Lutherans, we were invited to a Basic Youth Conflict Seminar put on by a Baptist. He based everything on the Bible. We, along with about 10,000 others sat spell bound through his one week 32 hours course. It was the clearest teaching on Christian living that I had ever heard. There in the St. Paul Auditorium, we rededicated our lives to Jesus. Since then our chief desire has been to serve him.
But another event was to take place three years later that would seal the deal. We were wary of the Pentecostals, having heard weird things about them. Then our Lutheran Pastor became Spirit filled and invited another Lutheran to preach in our church. He taught about the Holy Spirit and prayed for people to be baptized in the Spirit. This was all new to us. But it was in our own Lutheran Church, was all very orderly, and not like what we had heard about Pentecostals. On the last night, Ruth and I and our teenage son went up for prayer and received the Holy Spirit. It was an event that changed our lives.
After becoming Spirit filled, my old call to the ministry resurfaced. Could it be we were still supposed to be in ministry? Now I was in my late thirties, had a wife and three children, a farm, and a good career. And I had said that I would never move again. I enjoyed my career, my hobby farming and the rural life. But the call remained.
I explored Seminaries. My Lutheran Pastor gave me a catalog for Luther Seminary in St. Paul. I considered the United Methodist Seminary. I visited a Pentecostal School in Anaheim. I thought about Oral Roberts University. None of them seemed right.
So we stayed in the Lutheran Church for about three more years. Each summer we attended the Lutheran Charismatic Renewal Conference in Minneapolis. It was wonderful. The power of God was there. We also went to meetings by “Faith Teachers” and others as they visited our area. We were learning all we could about the Holy Spirit.
In June of 1980, Ruth and I visited a Bible School in Tulsa attended their Sunday night service. That night we knew that God had called us to missions and we both felt should attend the school’s two-year missions program. We made an application the next morning and were accepted a few weeks later.
We resigned our jobs and community positions, listed our farm, rented a Ryder truck, and moved to Tulsa. Though I had said I would never move again, God has moved us many times since.
Attending Bible School was a big adjustment. We went from Professional to student, from good income to no income, from farm to city. We attended classes in the mornings, and worked whatever odd jobs we could get in the afternoons and evenings. Our daughters attended a Christian school. We used up my Wisconsin retirement fund money and the money from selling our farm. We had many struggles, but two years later we both graduated from the missions program. We had learned the Bible according to one man and a few of his close associates, but not much else. One of our last class assignments was to write our own Creed. Now that we were finishing school and going into ministry, we were told, we should decide what we believe and write it down. I got out an old hymnal and copied down the Apostles Creed. I told the instructor I still thought it was the best statement of Christian belief. I recoiled at the idea of each person writing their own Creed.
So we graduated, but were we prepared for ministry?
When we left Wisconsin for school in Oklahoma, we left our son in a Lutheran College, but we left the Lutheran Church behind. Only a few Lutherans were Spirit filled and we were Pentecostals now. So now, where should we go to church? What could be a reliable guide? We decided that a church pastored by a graduate of our Bible School would be a safe bet. We found one and started attending. It wasn’t quiet and orderly like our Lutheran Church, but they had the Spirit. They were independent and answered to no one, including God, I think.
A few months later we were looking for another church. We found one that had just started. It too was independent but the pastor had been Assemblies of God and seemed to have had some good training.. The pastor was a good leader and attracted many followers. His church was not so loud and disorderly. In about one year he had over 700 members, many of them professionals. But we were still dissatisfied. We could see he was building his own empire, often at the expense of others.
After graduating, we left that church and went to yet another independent faith church. I guess we don’t learn very fast. This pastor was a missionary to Mexico and made frequent trips there. He really practiced living by faith. Since we had been to the missions program in a “Faith” school, it seemed like a good fit. This pastor ordained me into his own little non-profit ministry he called the World Outreach Center.
This ordination soon seemed meaningless to me. How could one independent Pastor create his own denomination and ordain people? I thought ordination should be by an organized and recognized denomination. There needed to be some central authority to decide belief issues. I never let people know I was ordained and let it lapse after one year. We were still looking for God’s Church.

While being vaguely aware of the Catholic Church and its worldwide headquarters in Rome, it never occurred to me that this might be the answer to my quest for a central authority. Watching news reports of Pope John Paul II’s world visits, I came to suspect that he was a real Christian. I was impressed when he forgave the man who shot him. But I never read any of his writings or really came to know what he believed. I intended to always be a Protestant.
But having graduated, we felt we should get out of Tulsa and do some ministry somewhere. We prayed much about what to do. We didn’t feel ready to pastor a church or to go to the mission field. The training, while interesting and inspirational, had taught us little about theology or doctrine. We knew the Bible and that was supposed to be enough. I wasn’t convinced.
Some fellow graduates and members of our church were moving to Hawaii to plant a Faith Church. We had heard that Hawaii, despite its great attraction for tourists, was a very dark place spiritually. They asked us to join them. So in January 1983 we made our first visit to Hawaii. We sold our furniture to buy the airplane tickets and arrived in our new city with about $400.00, no job, no car, and no place to live. But God always supplied all our needs and we stayed over 18 years.
The couple we followed there made an attempt to start a church, gave up in a few weeks, and soon returned to Oklahoma and got divorced. So much for church planting. We were finally cured of independent churches.
I was convinced we needed a church that had some structure and a firm belief system, yet Pentecostal. It could not be every one making up their own belief system. I thought an older established church would be better. But not so old that it had grown cold and unspiritual. We started attending the First Assembly of God. The Assemblies had a history of more than 70 years, a long time in Pentecostal circles. It was conservative, moral, and Biblical. It had a big missions program. While I still missed the Lutheran liturgy, the worship service was good. We were a part of First Assembly for 19 years.
We did not go into full time ministry until 11 years later. I returned to Social Work practice and Ruth took a job in a downtown office. The cost of living in Hawaii is very high, about 30% more than the mainland USA.
I engaged in various ministries at First Assembly of God. At one time or another over the years I did prison ministry, was a Life Group leader, Overseer of Life Groups, served as Communion deacon (the big task here was to fill 1800 little cups with grape juice once a month), van deacon, counselor, teacher, and Board member. After our children had all left home, we spent most of our non-working time in these various ministries.
In 1992 I decided to apply for licensing by the AOG. The denomination accepted my Bible School courses, much to my surprise. I had to complete a couple of correspondence courses but in April 1993 I was licensed to preach. I felt better about this than I did about the ordination that I had let lapse ten years earlier.
My Social Work career was doing well and I had been promoted several times and had a good administrative position. But that was soon to end.
In early 1994 our interim Pastor asked me to teach for three months at an AOG Bible School in Uganda. We knew God was still calling us to missions and this three-month term would be a good introduction. So we agreed to go. God opened all the doors and off we went on our first foreign trip. Much could be written about culture shock, severe malaria for Ruth, and other hardships, but we endured. When we returned home we were asked if we would return for a two year term. We agreed, and in December 1994, left our jobs, sold our condo and car, gave away many things, and moved to Uganda. We stayed until March of 1999.
For the first three years I was Principal of the Bible School. I administered the school and taught many of the courses. At the same time I was preaching in many churches, overseeing churches, doing crusades and the like. Because of my Social Work background, I also did food programs, started two nursery schools, and a medical clinic. Ruth often traveled with me as we went all over the country and into very remote areas where foreigners seldom go, including where rebel soldiers were regularly killing travelers. But God always protected us. We endured many hardships and humiliations. The lack of toilets in the rural areas was hard on Ruth. Sometimes there weren’t even any good bushes to hide behind. And you must always be on the look out for snakes. But on the whole we had a good time in Uganda and wouldn’t trade it for anything.

In Uganda we were troubled by the great diversity of Christian teachings. Ugandans were struggling so hard to recover from years of civil war. The economy had been ruined as had much of the infrastructure such as roads, telephone service and electricity lines. Instead of working together, each Protestant group was promoting their particular brand of the Gospel. Some of my Bible School students were United Methodist and they seemed just as holy as the Assembly of God students. Yet the two church groups could not work together. The Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses were making big inroads. I really began to wonder about our evangelistic efforts. Often our converts were from other Christian churches. People flock to the foreign missionary often only for the money we bring. When we leave, they will move to another church that still has a missionary present.

My uneasiness with Protestantism was growing, but I still had no inkling the Catholic Church might be the answer. We heard about much corruption in their Ugandan churches. Of course we had it in ours also but we tried not to think about that.
In April 1999 we felt we had done what we could in Uganda, and moved back to First Assembly in Hawaii. The Hawaii District of the Assemblies of God ordained me at their District Council the week we arrived. It could have been done a few years earlier but I was out of the country. I valued this ordination as it was from a recognized church that I respect highly.
Immediately after getting home, expecting to rest up from our labors, First Assembly asked us to pastor a small missions church on the Big Island of Hawaii. So off we went to missions again, but at least this time it was in America. We led that church until August of 2001.
Missions work these past eight years has been fulfilling in many ways and we have learned to depend on Jesus for everything. We are willing to go wherever he sends us, even if that is the Catholic Church. And that is a big statement for a life long Protestant.
Exploring Catholicism
During one of our annual visits to America, I think it was in March of 1998, I began to read stories by converts to the Catholic Church. Our Lutheran son had joined the Catholic Church after marrying a Catholic. He studied long and hard before converting. After starting out in a Lutheran college, he had finished his degree in Biblical Studies at a Baptist college, but remained Lutheran. It was hard for him to give that. He acquired many books in his study, and while visiting his home I started reading some of them. I wanted to know why he had switched churches and I was still looking for something more than I was finding in the Assemblies. Besides the reading, we attended Mass with him and his wife. While I knew nothing about Catholic doctrine, other than Protestant misconceptions I had picked up, I was drawn to the liturgy. I thought it was beautiful and full of God. What I read also surprised me. These Catholics weren’t as pagan as we had been told. But I was happy as an AOG missionary and didn’t imagine ever changing churches.
One of the books in my sons collection was BORN FUNDAMENTALIST, BORN AGAIN CATHOLIC by David B. Currie. It was the story of the author’s spiritual journey to the Catholic Church. He carefully explained the doctrines and why he agreed with them. This book unsettled me once again. His spiritual background was similar to mine in many ways.
The next year, from my son’s collection, I read ROME SWEET HOME by Scott and Kimberly Hahn. I had never heard of them before but their book impacted me. SURPRISED BY TRUTH edited by Patrick Madrid really did surprise me as I read many conversion stories by people who I thought should have known better. But I was beginning to have serious doubts about my AOG faith. Nevertheless, I faithfully continued in my ministry.
Back in the states, we once again had television and even cable. I discovered EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network) which shared a cable channel with another Christian broadcaster. So twelve hours a day we could watch the Catholics, and then to stay balanced, we had twelve hours of Protestants. (We decided years ago not to watch secular television except for some news and a few sports events.) Mother Angelica, founder of EWTN impressed even Ruth who until this time had ignored my inquiry into the Church. We also watched shows by Patrick Madrid who I remembered from SURPRISED BY TRUTH..
Earlier, while visiting our son, we had attended his Charismatic prayer group a few times. We were pleased that even Catholics could be Pentecostal and that it was all done with the approval and oversight of the Church. One day while in an Ugandan hotel, I saw the Pope on television addressing a huge conference of Catholic Charismatics. I was surprised, but pleased, that he approved of them and that there were more than sixty million around the world. Surely some of them must be “saved”.
Now on EWTN, I also discovered THE JOURNEY HOME where a former Protestant pastor, now Catholic convert, Marcus Grodi, interviews other converts. The first time I saw it, I knew in my spirit that my Protestantism was in trouble. I don’t remember who his guest was, but those guys had something I needed. I discovered that the INTERNET had mushroomed while we were in Africa and I found his Coming Home Network web site. He has formed an organization to aid Protestants, particularly Clergy, in their exploration of the Catholic Church. Posted on his web site are many conversion stories and I read them all. Another feature was an e-mail discussion group and I soon joined it. After lurking for a while, I dared to ask some questions but I used my middle name. I wasn’t ready to have my church know about my inquiry and I didn’t know who was reading the list.
One of my first questions to the group was about praying to the saints. I had been taught that we cannot, and should not, talk to the earthly dead who are now living in heaven. God is against that. And besides, how could they hear us? There is no telephone hook up. Someone answered me and told me that the Holy Spirit conveys the prayers from us to them. Now how could a good Pentecostal argue with that? Certainly if God can hear us, and the Holy Spirit is God, and God is everywhere, then why can’t he tell the residents of heaven what our prayer requests are? And if we can ask believers here on earth to pray for us, as we all do, then why not ask those in heaven to do the same? I thought of it as God’s e-mail system with the Holy Spirit as the moderator.
This concept of praying to the saints opened the door to understanding requests to Mary. After all, who would be in a better position to intercede for us that the mother of Jesus? Since she was always close to Jesus during his earthly ministry, certainly she would be close to him now. Just as she asked him to solve the problem of the wine at the wedding feast, so now she would ask him to meet our needs. And he would grant his mother’s request just as he did then.
In the spring of 2000, I taught a course at a Bible school in Hawaii. The course was “Twentieth Century Pentecost.” In studying the Pentecostal movement that I had been involved in for almost 25 years, I discovered great instability. Each leader had his or her own belief system. They fought bitterly while forming hundreds of non-denominational denominations. Many leaders fell into great sin. There was great fervor, many conversions and healing miracles. But it always seemed to end in fights and confusion. So while teaching the course to my good Pentecostal students, I was becoming more disillusioned with the Pentecostal movement as a whole. I remembered the Catholic Charismatics and wondered if they were more stable in their belief system than us Protestant Pentecostals. But they weren’t included in my course.
Then in the fall of that year, I taught a course on The Nature and Character of God. The text we used was quite a theological study and quoted many Catholic early church writers. I not only learned about the nature and character of God but some history of the church as well. It moved me closer to Catholicism. Still studying about it, watching EWTN and participating in the Journey Home discussion list, I was more and more impressed with the doctrinal stability, morality, and authority of the Catholics.
Even though I was the teacher, the Nature and Character of God course introduced me to a new level of thinking theologically that I had never experienced in our Bible schools before. Teachers always learn more than their students.
Visiting our son again in August 2000, I read and re-read some of his books. He and I discussed the issues. Again we attended Mass and the Catholic Charismatic prayer group.
One by one my objections to the Catholic Church were being answered. For the first time we discussed converting. Ruth wasn’t in favor of it and said if I converted, I would probably be going to church alone. I was not in favor of that.
We continued to watch EWTN shows all that next year. Patrick Madrid’s POPE FICTION series was very helpful. It corrected many of my wrong beliefs about the papacy and I began to understand the infallibility doctrine. We began to talk seriously about leaving First Assembly. I was leaning toward Catholicism but Ruth still wasn’t ready. Although I tried real hard, it was getting more and more difficult for me to stay Protestant, especially as a pastor and missionary. I spent many hours in prayer about it, seeking God’s will. Still we discussed this with no one outside of our immediate family.
By June of 2001 we were seriously discussing leaving Hawaii and returning to our home state of Wisconsin where we had not lived since 1980. We knew we would not stay in Hawaii for retirement and thought we should get settled in a permanent home. We were living in a church owned mission house. That same month Ruth’s mother passed away. When we went home for the funeral, we decided it was time to move and we purchased Ruth’s parent’s home from her siblings. Since we already owned part of it, we were able to get a loan despite not having cash on hand. We decided we would resign from First Assembly, get moved and settled, and then decide what to do about the Catholic Church.
During the weeks between our resignation notice and leaving our church, Ruth went off to our son’s home in Florida again for the birth of our second Catholic grandson. While there for one month, she for the first time did some Catholic reading. She chose ROME SWEET HOME by the Hahns. Reading their story, she decided that if I converted, she would also. She didn’t want to be spiritually separated like the Hahns were for a time.
But while still finishing up in Hawaii, First Assembly prevailed upon me to return to Uganda for at least six months. I had left there in March of 1999, visited in March 2000 and January 2001. I knew the need was great and no one else was available to go. So after moving the family back to Wisconsin (our daughter Karen and her two children came to live with us after our return to Hawaii) we somewhat reluctantly returned to foreign missions. We felt bad about abandoning our family so soon after moving them.
I bought SURPRISED BY TRUTH 2 edited by Patrick Madrid and brought it along. While there I read it through twice and Ruth read most of it. Fifteen people tell their stories there. Some were former Catholics who returned after years as Protestants. Others were life-long Protestants. They each tell how God drew them to the Catholic Church and explain many of the doctrinal issues. To my surprise, the INTERNET had improved greatly in Uganda and list was possible to receive the Coming Home Network E-mail discussion list. It provided daily discussions of issues that concern potential converts. I also brought along the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” and read it all the way through. This book contains the official Vatican approved beliefs of the Church. I had bought it a year earlier and had read parts of it. I was surprised to find that the basis of the teaching was the Apostles and Nicene Creeds that I had learned way back in confirmation and had reaffirmed at the end of my Bible school training. In Hawaii I took notes from the Catechism and preached a series of sermons on the Creeds. There was nothing that conflicted with our Assembly of God beliefs in the discussion of the Creeds. The material is well presented and easy to follow. Hearing what the Catholics themselves had to say about what they believed was much different than hearing the Protestant version of what the Catholics believed.
Settling back in Uganda, I was distressed with the problems in the churches that we had left behind. Without consistent leadership, much of what we had left in place had fallen apart. The other Protestant churches in the area were experiencing many disputes about doctrines and great error and corruption was rampant. New little churches were springing up every where. Each one was right and better than the others. With my almost Catholic eyes, I saw a fragmented, confused group of churches all competing with each other for members and money. It was not a pretty sight. Nevertheless, the Gospel and love of Jesus does go forth and some souls are saved from the fires of Hell. But I could see that there had to be a more lasting, more effective way. I noticed that the Catholics had a large church on each end of our town while there were over sixty little Protestant churches. Now I was beginning to understand why.
During our inquiry into the Catholic Church, we were looking for the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. To our dismay we discovered that Protestants have lost or purposely discarded several major benefits of the New Covenant. What the Church had recognized as truth was re-evaluated by the Protestors who had to make things fit their new “each one is his own authority” belief system. Who gave them the authority to overrule the church fathers? As I studied these, I could see no valid reasons for discarding these truths.
Authority was the biggest issue.. From childhood I have witnessed bitter wrangling over doctrines and morals amongst church members. Once the issue of who has the authority to decide these things is settled, everything else falls into place. Who should make decisions in the Church? Who can be trusted to do it right? Such questions have plagued me for a long time. I began to see that Peter and the other Apostles had been given the authority to run the church and that they had passed this authority on to their successors. I found great comfort in that. From the very beginning, as shown in the book of Acts, the Apostles made decisions on the issues and sometimes held councils to assist in the process.
I chose the Assemblies of God because it was at least 70 years old and well established. It has not wavered from the views of its founders. Now I have found a church that is nearly 2000 years old that has still not wavered from the views of its founder, Jesus.
I was always taught that communion was a memorial service and that the elements were only symbolic. But now I learned that the Catholics believed what Jesus said about eating his body and drinking his blood. They believed that the consecrated elements are actually, literally, his body and blood. They call it the Real Presence. I studied this issue very carefully in the Gospels and Epistles. I could see no reason not to believe what they said. I felt we were missing out on a great deal by not believing it.
As I studied the other six Sacraments, I found the same thing. Catholics believe that in Baptism, Confirmation, Communion, Marriage, Anointing of the Sick, Penance and Reconciliation, and the Holy Orders, that God imparts his Grace to us. These powerful gifts had been purposely omitted from our belief system and I could discover no good reason why. I felt cheated by our Protestant forefathers.
Removing books from the Bible was another Protestant maneuver to make the Bible fit their new beliefs. Although certain books had been approved in the Church Councils for more than a thousand years, suddenly the reformers discovered they were not as inspired as the others and threw them out. Again, on whose authority did they do this?
Trying to understand the role of Mary and the other Saints was difficult. However, once I understood the difference between veneration and worship, and between asking the saints to intercede for us and asking them to directly do things for us, I had no more trouble.. I discovered they are not worshipped but are respected and honored and held in high regard. Only God is worshipped.
The Rosary interested me, so I bought a little book last summer and started praying it on occasion. I discovered the Rosary was made up of Scripture verses and a prayer request. So in saying it we are simply reciting scripture and praying. During the recitation of the Hail Marys, we are asked to meditate on the life of Jesus and recall what he did for us. Even a good Protestant ought to be able to do that. It is all scripture. After coming back to Uganda in October 2001, Ruth and I started praying the Rosary together every morning. We hope we are doing it right.
Purgatory is another thing missing in our Protestant doctrine. So now I had to find out what the Catholics really believed. I like what the Catechism had to say about it at paragraph 1030. “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.” We learned that since Luther’s time indulgences have not been sold and no amount of time has been assigned to the purging process. The idea of purifying made sense to me. I have known many believers who died with major flaws still in their lives. Surely they would want to be purified before coming into the full presence of God. I know I will need some after death treatment.
We wanted to attend Mass to become familiar with it but felt we couldn’t in Uganda or Hawaii. Explaining it to our church would be a bigger job than we cared to undertake. We didn’t want to bring confusion to an already confused people. So we just shared the Gospel and the Love of Jesus with them. The Catechism refers to them as separated brethren. We will have to leave it at that for now. The Catechism at paragraph 818 says: “…All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church.”

By late November we were quite certain we would both join the Catholic Church upon our return home from Uganda. We would give up our missions work and my AOG ordination. That means giving up our means of support as well. I informed my church in Hawaii that I would be resigning and that we were “seriously considering joining the Catholic Church.” I wrote a long letter to them and our close friends and relatives explaining our reasons. We thought the church might relieve us of our duties immediately, but instead they have pleaded with us to here. We agreed to complete our six-month commitment but stood firm in our resolve to move on after that. God called us to this mission field. Now he is calling us home. We are eager to see what He has in store for us there.
We still know little about the Church with its vastness, unity, and diversity. We know there is dissent within it. There are some corrupt and immoral priests and bishops. We are not expecting to find perfection. The forces of Hell have attacked the Church all through the centuries, but Jesus said they would not prevail, and they have not and will not.
Therefore we are expecting to find the church that Jesus himself founded. We will be happy if we are accepted as a part of it.
Leaving our church and ministry behind is not easy. We have served the Lord with gladness in our Protestant churches. We have been in First Assembly for 19 years and have no regrets. We thank them and God for all they have done for us. We have given our time and money but the church has given much more than that to us in return. It is with sadness that we leave First Assembly and our churches in Uganda. They love us and we love them. We thank God for them and pray that He will continue to bless them because they earnestly desire to do his will.
May God bless all those who have helped us on our journey.
Don and Ruth Newville