Conversion stories are deeply personal, Hannah Rafle, CARITAS For Children's Assistant to the Executive Driector, graciously shares her life-changing experience.
When I was growing up, finding God or going to church did not seem practical at all. My family was what I termed “secular Christian”. We celebrated holidays like Christmas and Easter but never touched on the religious aspects. The only time we would attend church is when we visited my grandmother and would go to her Methodist Church.
This radically changed for me when I went to college. I decided to go to Saint Louis University for their engineering program. I knew it was a Catholic University and I was mildly curious about the Catholic faith but I didn’t have any plans to get involved in any way.
During my first couple of weeks at college I became friends with a wonderful group of people. I found out that they are all devout Catholics. They would invite me to come to daily Mass with them or other campus ministry events. I would go with them and see the peace that prayer gave them.
Me with my family after my Baptism, Confirmation, and First Eucharist.
Being away from home for the first time I was anxious and desired that peace. I decided to give prayer a try. I asked God to help me with three issues. Within the next couple of days all three issues were solved. When I “connected the dots” I came to the slightly scary conclusion, God is real and He listened to me and cared about me. In that moment my safe ego-centric world was turned inside out and upside down.
I decided to wait a year until starting RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults). During that year I attended daily Mass, started praying regularly and learned as much as I could on my own about the Catholic faith. I was falling more and more in love with God. Finally at the Easter Vigil in 2011 I was baptized, confirmed and received my first Eucharist.
With my pastor, Monsignor Edward Buelt who conferred the sacraments upon me at my parish of Our Lady of Loretto, back home in Colorado.
Fast forward about four years. I graduated from college and had been working at various office jobs. It wasn’t until I moved to Wisconsin last year that I first learned about CARITAS For Children and its Catholic child sponsorship programs. The decision to be part of this ministry was an easy one. I am so grateful to be able to put my faith into action. My Catholic faith and CARITAS For Children has changed what gets me out of bed in the morning, what I do with my evenings and how I spend my weekends. Though I could not have imagined that I would be working in a ministry of child sponsorship when I first started my faith journey I am so happy to be where I am now.
Finding God has truly affected everything in my life in a really good way. “Fall in Love, stay in love and it will decide everything.”
Those words are from a quote I came upon early on in my faith journey that is very meaningful to me and that I often revisit: “Nothing is more practical than finding God, than falling in Love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in Love, stay in love, and it will decide everything”. – Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ
