Families in the Holy Spirit Renewing the Face of the Earth (part 1)

It has been a few months now since my parents have begun their CLP. I have shared it a few times during meetings as one of my blessings, but I’ve only decided to write about it now, partially out of fear that my eagerness and excitement might backfire on me.

My dad had not grown up in a religious family, so when he had married my mom at the age of 30, he was so out of touch with his religion that he didn’t even know how to say the Our Father. My mom, more into her faith than my dad, came to Canada before us and began working. When I arrived at age 5, my parents began working extensively, even on weekends. I remember though, as young as I was, God still carried me to church in the snow and sleet in the arms of my mom’s younger sisters, each and every Sunday.

At the age of 5, I had joined the first ever KFC Camp in Ottawa, but as my parents were not CFC, I lost touch with the CFC community directly after. It wasn’t until years later, at the age of 14, that I attended my first youth camp. I was invited to gatherings and took part in events, but more importantly, I fell madly and deeply in love with the Lord. At the age of 19, I officially became the sister Area Head of Ottawa. My parents were not always supportive of this as my service role quickly proved to require a lot of my time and energy. In fact, there was even a time when they had asked me to step down.

But as you may know, I held fast and continued to serve. It has been a long while since then and I have been in the community for a little over a decade now and my parents have grown spiritually as well. We began to attend mass on Sundays as a family, although my parents would stay sitting in the pew as my brothers and I squeezed by them to go up for communion. One day, (with a little nudging from God) I was able to muster enough courage and meekly told them about the importance of the Eucharist. The following Sunday, no one was left in our row.. they began joining us in line.

Honestly, I was happy for this already. Not just happy, I was incredibly joyous! I watched as my parents, especially my dad, became more patient and God fearing. It was beautiful. We would eat out after mass and discuss matters of faith, of God, of what we just heard during the homily. I felt joy in being able to share this aspect of my life with my parents… I felt so grateful to God for calling them closer to Him and for bringing us closer as a family.

I had long left behind the idea of my parents becoming CFC members. They were always busy, and I was already grateful for the man and woman of God they became. They were hesitant as it was never really “their thing.” So how did God slowly bring my mom and dad to CFC when they were initially hesitant about me even being in the community, let alone being a leader in it?

Well, I think they started to truly understand the goodness of the community when I really started to walk my talk. In fact, they made it a priority that my younger brothers join too. Then I started including them in my plans. Before I would simply leave the house for an activity or event then come home afterwards, but instead I started asking them to come with me. I remember there was a GA and I was tasked to bring drinks, so my parents offered to drop me off before heading to run errands for the rest of the day. When we arrived at church, they helped me unload the car and decided to come in to say hello. To my (great) surprise, they ended up taking a seat and listening to the teaching. They stood there during the worship, and bought food that the youth were selling afterwards.

Months after, my mom volunteered for RYC and helped during registration. She stayed behind to hear my talk which was pretty special since this was the first in all my years that she has heard. Weeks afterwards, my parents were invited by my CCs to come to the park for a post-RYC victory celebration. My mom sat at the table with the moms and my dad was playing tennis and walking around with the dads. My heart was doing laps around the park out of joy.

Months passed again and I remember hearing the voicemail from my old CCs inviting my parents for CLP. It had already been 11 years since I joined the community and year in and year out my parents replied with a firm “no” to becoming a member. I thought this would just be another failed attempt and I felt almost bad that my parents were being asked again. One day, my mom matter-of-factly told me that they were going to attend “that thing at church.” As I was packing for Duc in Altum a few days after, I went into my parents’ room to retrieve thick wool socks from my dad’s drawer and I heard him on the phone with his work.  He told them that his family was coming over Sunday and he couldn’t go in. I asked him who was coming over and he said, “No, remember? We have that ‘that thing at church’.” LOL that thing at church. My parents are funny. Although I’m laughing here as I look back, at the time, best believe I was crying tears of joy.

And so CLP began and they were present weekly.  On a random evening after I came home late at night, my mom told me what happened that made them go. She said that she wasn’t planning on attending, but late at night after they received the call, my dad told her that he thought it was time to go. “We have everything now; it’s time for us to go back to God.” She said he was crying. (Sidenote: I’ve only ever seen my dad cry a handful of times in my life, when he found out his dad died, during his dad’s funeral… yeah, pretty much less than five.) During my conversation with my mom, she told me that one of my youth’s parents (non-CFC) were next. “Do you really think so? Their daughter thinks it would be a miracle.”

“Tell her we were a miracle.”

Sigh, God is good.