How I became Catholic - Part 2

The fall after I graduated (2000) I started attending South Abbotsford Church. I just have to say that I absolutely LOVED my time there. It still holds a very special place in my heart. I went to that Church and knew that my family was a part of it. My Dad’s grandfather, C.C. Peters, was asked to preach at an evening Bible training program that they had just started. He also officiated a very special marriage – the marriage of my mother’s parents! (and incidentally, was one of the people to ask my moms parents to leave the Mennonite church, when they were baptized in the Holy Spirit!). I still had Aunts and Uncles that went there.

This is my Great-Grandfather C.C. Peters and his wife Anne

But initially, the thing I liked most was that I could kind of get lost in the church. It was a big church (huge compared to the Full Gospel one) and I only new a few young people there by sight, so when I went to church I could sit and focus on what was being said, instead of being distracted by people talking to me, passing notes, etc (which often happened at my other church). Eventually my previous choir teacher became the interim Worship Pastor, so I decided to join the worship team. I had been part of the worship team at the full gospel church, so it was nice to get back into that, and to get more involved, since I had been going to South Abbotsford for a few months at that point.

I loved that aspect of going there – but more than anything, I really really liked the Senior Pastor there. It’s been awhile now, I can’t even remember what the first sermon was about that he gave, but it was important to me at the time. He was also my first introduction to the Saints – again I can’t remember any specific things he talked about, but he would sometimes quote Saints, like Saint Augustine, and I found that intriguing.

Then May 19, 2002 happened – a great day for many many reasons. First, there was never any reconciliation between my mother's parents and South Abbotsford Church (regarding the fact that they were asked to leave because they were baptized in the Holy Spirit). It didn’t stress my grandparents out too much, but they really felt in their hearts that they wanted things to be resolved before they passed away, and they trusted it would happen. They were called one day by the pastor of South Abbotsford and invited to attend on Church service on May 19; I don’t know if they really knew why. At the same time, my father, who was living in Alberta, was visiting because my brother and sister-in-law were due to have their first child, my parents first grandchild. I think my Dad always felt keenly the fact that his father had asked my mothers parents to leave South Abbotsford, and he wanted to see it all reconciled as much as my grandparents did. He too was at South Abbotsford church on May 19th. During the Pastor’s sermon, he asked Bill and Katie Stobbe (my Grandparents) if they would come to the front. He spoke about the Holy Spirit and the Mennonite Church around the time that people began being baptized in the Holy Spirit; he said that there were some unfortunate things to come from that, like Bill and Katie Stobbe being asked to leave the church. He apologized on behalf of the church and my grandparents gratefully accepted it. I think there were a lot of tears shed over that! That day, my nephew Benjamin was born! Like I said, it was a very special day.