1 00:00:00,500 --> 00:00:02,127 But then Satan then taints your mind. 2 00:00:02,127 --> 00:00:05,046 So you start finding these things very 3 00:00:05,046 --> 00:00:05,839 lovely. 4 00:00:05,839 --> 00:00:07,882 Like, not lovely, but like you were. 5 00:00:07,882 --> 00:00:11,177 You find the dark things beautiful in a twisted way, 6 00:00:11,720 --> 00:00:15,765 like you romanticize death, you know, you don't see it as what it is. 7 00:00:16,766 --> 00:00:19,853 You see, there's some people in nice black dress, 8 00:00:19,978 --> 00:00:22,981 white in forever frolicking through the forest. 9 00:00:22,981 --> 00:00:27,318 I don't know how to say it, but, yeah, it's not the real thing 10 00:00:27,318 --> 00:00:28,403 at all. 11 00:00:34,034 --> 00:00:34,617 Susie, 12 00:00:34,617 --> 00:00:37,954 welcome to the Anabaptist Perspectives podcast. 13 00:00:38,538 --> 00:00:41,708 You're originally from Slovakia, I believe. 14 00:00:42,125 --> 00:00:44,419 Which isn't where we are right now. We're actually in Ireland. 15 00:00:44,419 --> 00:00:48,757 But there's a story there, and we want to capture some of your story 16 00:00:48,757 --> 00:00:52,010 of how you came to Christ and the journey 17 00:00:52,010 --> 00:00:55,889 you've been on over the years, and so, I guess, to start off with. 18 00:00:55,889 --> 00:00:58,016 Yeah. Where were you born? What kind of 19 00:00:59,100 --> 00:00:59,601 did you have? 20 00:00:59,601 --> 00:01:02,145 A religious upbringing, you know? Yeah. 21 00:01:02,145 --> 00:01:04,272 What was the environment you were born into? 22 00:01:04,272 --> 00:01:06,232 Well, I was born in Slovakia. 23 00:01:06,232 --> 00:01:09,235 I'm from Bratislava, which is the capital city, 24 00:01:09,903 --> 00:01:13,323 and I grew up in the most densely populated district, 25 00:01:13,531 --> 00:01:16,534 which was called Petrarca, which, 26 00:01:17,327 --> 00:01:19,412 has a lot of, concrete 27 00:01:19,412 --> 00:01:23,249 blocks of flats, like the typical Russian ones. 28 00:01:23,249 --> 00:01:28,379 Oh, that's true, because they'd been Soviet Union before, Yes, yes. 29 00:01:28,588 --> 00:01:32,092 So, yeah, it looks very, very similar to that. 30 00:01:32,133 --> 00:01:36,554 And, yeah, I lived in one of those buildings with my mom and dad 31 00:01:36,554 --> 00:01:41,643 and my brother and we were just like a typical family. 32 00:01:41,768 --> 00:01:45,188 We went to school, my mum and dad were working 33 00:01:45,647 --> 00:01:48,066 Yeah, I had no religious upbringing at all 34 00:01:48,066 --> 00:01:51,611 because during the Soviet times, religion has been banned. 35 00:01:51,736 --> 00:01:55,740 So there was like, you couldn't have any, religious 36 00:01:56,116 --> 00:01:59,911 ideologies, like not just Christian, but any other ones as well. 37 00:02:00,745 --> 00:02:05,208 So Christianity really kind of disappeared from from Slovakia at that time. 38 00:02:05,708 --> 00:02:09,587 So no one was getting baptized, no one was going to church or, 39 00:02:10,964 --> 00:02:11,798 you know, people were 40 00:02:11,798 --> 00:02:14,926 learning more about what the party wanted them to know. 41 00:02:15,760 --> 00:02:18,888 And so, yeah, when I was born, the communism fell. 42 00:02:20,014 --> 00:02:22,267 the world had started changing. 43 00:02:22,267 --> 00:02:24,602 I when I became, 44 00:02:24,602 --> 00:02:27,188 when I went to my first grade. 45 00:02:27,188 --> 00:02:30,942 That's when the religion started to get back again into the country. 46 00:02:31,359 --> 00:02:34,237 They opened the first religious class. 47 00:02:34,237 --> 00:02:36,406 It was a Catholic class. 48 00:02:36,406 --> 00:02:40,076 And, I only knew about Jesus from Christmas stories. 49 00:02:41,161 --> 00:02:43,538 a lot of the children went to this religious class, 50 00:02:43,538 --> 00:02:46,749 but I didn't, and so you didn't. So why? 51 00:02:47,167 --> 00:02:49,460 I don't know. I just didn't know what to do. There. 52 00:02:49,460 --> 00:02:51,212 And my parents were not interested. 53 00:02:51,212 --> 00:02:54,382 So I just was out with the teacher because it was after school. 54 00:02:54,716 --> 00:02:57,802 So it was like an after school thing that you can choose to go to or not. 55 00:02:58,553 --> 00:03:02,390 But I was very bored, so I was like, 56 00:03:02,390 --> 00:03:05,268 all my friends are in this class and I want to go there too. 57 00:03:05,268 --> 00:03:08,313 And I want to learn about Jesus. 58 00:03:08,313 --> 00:03:11,357 Like it would be nice to know what what is it about more. 59 00:03:11,357 --> 00:03:13,109 And he's a nice guy. 60 00:03:13,109 --> 00:03:15,862 Just those little innocent thoughts. 61 00:03:15,862 --> 00:03:18,823 And so I ask, mom, can I go? 62 00:03:18,823 --> 00:03:21,826 And she was like, okay, she just let me go. 63 00:03:22,410 --> 00:03:24,871 I don't really remember any details. 64 00:03:24,871 --> 00:03:27,624 Like, did she have objections or not? 65 00:03:27,624 --> 00:03:30,627 But then it turned out that this religious class was about 66 00:03:30,835 --> 00:03:32,378 children getting baptized 67 00:03:33,838 --> 00:03:36,841 because children were not being baptized back then. 68 00:03:36,966 --> 00:03:41,095 So they wanted new people to start attending church and stuff like that. 69 00:03:41,137 --> 00:03:44,140 So yeah, I was ten years old 70 00:03:44,557 --> 00:03:47,560 and I asked my mom, can I get baptized? 71 00:03:48,311 --> 00:03:50,772 Because I started to like Jesus. 72 00:03:50,772 --> 00:03:53,358 He became my friend in a way. 73 00:03:53,358 --> 00:03:55,193 I learned how to pray. 74 00:03:55,193 --> 00:03:58,112 I was going to church with my friends. 75 00:03:58,112 --> 00:04:01,032 My family didn't go to church because So just you then? 76 00:04:01,032 --> 00:04:03,952 Yeah, it was with your friends. Yeah. And again, this is Catholic. 77 00:04:03,952 --> 00:04:05,536 This is Catholic, Yes. 78 00:04:05,536 --> 00:04:08,957 We just had church very close to our house, 79 00:04:08,957 --> 00:04:11,376 so it wasn't a problem to go there with my friends. 80 00:04:11,376 --> 00:04:13,586 And, 81 00:04:13,586 --> 00:04:13,836 Yeah. 82 00:04:13,836 --> 00:04:15,755 And then I ask, mom, can I get baptized? 83 00:04:15,755 --> 00:04:19,384 And she didn't want me to get baptized because she didn't believe in it. 84 00:04:19,926 --> 00:04:21,511 She didn't think it was necessary, 85 00:04:21,511 --> 00:04:24,514 or she was worried that I was going to deep into it or something. 86 00:04:25,265 --> 00:04:29,018 And she told me that I had this look of horror 87 00:04:29,227 --> 00:04:32,230 on my face that I didn't want to go to hell 88 00:04:32,814 --> 00:04:35,817 and so when she saw my face, she said, 89 00:04:35,817 --> 00:04:38,319 okay, you can get baptized. 90 00:04:38,319 --> 00:04:40,697 And I started the process of getting baptized. 91 00:04:40,697 --> 00:04:41,072 I was, 92 00:04:42,115 --> 00:04:43,199 we had several 93 00:04:43,199 --> 00:04:46,744 meetings with the priest and, 94 00:04:46,744 --> 00:04:50,707 yeah, he was just preparing us on the journey, and, 95 00:04:51,582 --> 00:04:55,920 yeah, I got baptized and I still believe in God. 96 00:04:55,920 --> 00:04:58,172 I still attended this class. 97 00:04:58,172 --> 00:04:59,382 I was way older. 98 00:04:59,382 --> 00:05:03,636 And then you go to your first communion, and then you go to confirmation. 99 00:05:03,886 --> 00:05:06,848 And that was when I was in my teenage years. 100 00:05:06,848 --> 00:05:09,600 I was about 13 or 14. 101 00:05:09,600 --> 00:05:11,978 And then the priest said 102 00:05:11,978 --> 00:05:14,230 that if you want to get confirmed, you have to be very serious 103 00:05:14,230 --> 00:05:17,859 about your faith, because that means you were beginning your journey to live 104 00:05:18,484 --> 00:05:21,487 like God wants you to live, and to follow the Catholic, 105 00:05:22,071 --> 00:05:25,033 how would say faith 106 00:05:25,533 --> 00:05:28,202 and, you know, like the rules and stuff 107 00:05:28,202 --> 00:05:33,583 not just the basics of the Christianity, but like what the church would say, right? 108 00:05:33,583 --> 00:05:35,793 Like what the Catholic Church would, would ask you to do. 109 00:05:35,793 --> 00:05:38,296 Yeah. Okay. But I started having different, 110 00:05:39,714 --> 00:05:41,090 different I 111 00:05:41,090 --> 00:05:44,135 would I say interests, you know, teenagers. 112 00:05:45,261 --> 00:05:48,056 They're influenced by television and music 113 00:05:48,056 --> 00:05:51,517 and magazines and your friends especially. 114 00:05:52,268 --> 00:05:54,520 And so I said to myself that, you know, 115 00:05:54,520 --> 00:05:57,523 I am not serious and 116 00:05:57,940 --> 00:05:59,942 I don't think I will be able for it. 117 00:05:59,942 --> 00:06:04,989 And I would not be honest if I went ahead and got this confirmation, 118 00:06:05,948 --> 00:06:09,535 and I told that to the priest and he was very disappointed. 119 00:06:10,745 --> 00:06:14,082 But maybe he felt like, you know, better, 120 00:06:14,082 --> 00:06:18,044 to be honest, than doing it and then just do it for the wrong reasons. 121 00:06:19,003 --> 00:06:21,964 And yeah, ever since then I just abandoned the whole 122 00:06:22,340 --> 00:06:24,967 like I didn't like I did like Jesus still, 123 00:06:24,967 --> 00:06:27,512 but I just got deeper into other things. 124 00:06:27,512 --> 00:06:30,390 So Christianity 125 00:06:30,390 --> 00:06:32,975 kind of falls out of your life so to speak. 126 00:06:32,975 --> 00:06:33,267 Right. 127 00:06:33,267 --> 00:06:35,520 It just regular life starts happening 128 00:06:35,520 --> 00:06:39,399 and you get involved in other things and just, it just kind of disappears Yeah. 129 00:06:39,524 --> 00:06:40,316 In a way. 130 00:06:40,316 --> 00:06:42,735 Yeah. Especially when you don't have it in your family. 131 00:06:42,735 --> 00:06:44,737 It's very easy. That's true. Yeah. 132 00:06:44,737 --> 00:06:49,492 So so like you so you had a sibling, you know, and your parents. 133 00:06:49,492 --> 00:06:51,994 So they never really got involved in any of this. 134 00:06:51,994 --> 00:06:55,039 No, no, I my brother used to make fun of me a lot about it. 135 00:06:55,581 --> 00:06:57,583 So, you know, I was like, oh, okay. 136 00:06:57,583 --> 00:06:59,919 I didn't find it. 137 00:07:01,087 --> 00:07:04,090 I know, I guess I didn't have a relationship with Christ at the time, 138 00:07:04,257 --> 00:07:07,260 and I just knew it from the Catholic point of view. 139 00:07:07,301 --> 00:07:09,679 I didn't really read the Bible. 140 00:07:09,679 --> 00:07:13,558 There were just the songbook that we had or whatever. 141 00:07:13,558 --> 00:07:15,059 How the mass goes every time. 142 00:07:15,059 --> 00:07:17,770 And it's always the same here. 143 00:07:17,770 --> 00:07:21,566 And I didn't know much about how Christian lives or anything like that. 144 00:07:21,649 --> 00:07:24,652 So I find other things to do. 145 00:07:25,194 --> 00:07:26,320 I got into sorry. 146 00:07:26,320 --> 00:07:28,281 So Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. 147 00:07:28,281 --> 00:07:29,615 So what happens to you at this point? 148 00:07:29,615 --> 00:07:32,326 So you're in your your teenage years? Yes. Yeah. 149 00:07:32,326 --> 00:07:33,953 So life continues on. 150 00:07:33,953 --> 00:07:35,746 You get involved in other things like. Yeah. 151 00:07:35,746 --> 00:07:37,748 Where do you go then from this point? 152 00:07:37,748 --> 00:07:40,751 Well, I started being interested in subcultures. 153 00:07:41,169 --> 00:07:44,422 So subcultures as in the music subcultures, 154 00:07:45,381 --> 00:07:47,884 either the alternative 155 00:07:47,884 --> 00:07:52,388 scene where there was a lot of it was kind of new 156 00:07:52,972 --> 00:07:58,144 because, yeah, the 90s and the early 2000s were like kind 157 00:07:58,144 --> 00:08:02,023 of like the boom in the Western culture coming into the country. 158 00:08:02,356 --> 00:08:03,065 Oh, true. 159 00:08:03,065 --> 00:08:06,194 Because again, the fall of communism in 89, 160 00:08:06,194 --> 00:08:10,281 I guess, is when I would have or 89, 90 when that would really start up happening. 161 00:08:10,281 --> 00:08:11,240 Yeah. 162 00:08:11,240 --> 00:08:14,243 So there was a lot of new music coming in and 163 00:08:14,869 --> 00:08:16,954 I really liked it at the time. 164 00:08:16,954 --> 00:08:22,251 Like I like the rock music and different things you know, the different bands. 165 00:08:22,251 --> 00:08:24,921 And I got different friends. 166 00:08:24,921 --> 00:08:27,340 And then you know 167 00:08:27,340 --> 00:08:31,344 there were interests like in different like paganism 168 00:08:31,344 --> 00:08:35,890 was very like hand in hand in with the subcultures and the music. 169 00:08:36,516 --> 00:08:38,726 Oh, interesting. 170 00:08:38,726 --> 00:08:42,021 So okay, I wouldn't have I guess that kind of makes sense now you say. 171 00:08:42,063 --> 00:08:43,940 I just have never thought of that before. 172 00:08:43,940 --> 00:08:48,569 So when you started getting into the music scene, did you start getting these other 173 00:08:49,070 --> 00:08:52,073 ideas, world views, I guess getting pulled in with it. 174 00:08:52,240 --> 00:08:54,951 Yeah. Yeah, exactly. 175 00:08:54,951 --> 00:08:59,038 And everything just started to be so interesting and even 176 00:08:59,038 --> 00:09:04,627 the television started being like, like the Harry Potter came out in the 2000s. 177 00:09:04,627 --> 00:09:08,381 And then there was like the different like the witching movies. 178 00:09:09,090 --> 00:09:12,468 It was a lot of them in the early 2000s and and on. 179 00:09:12,468 --> 00:09:17,139 But like a lot basically with almost a a genre It was in a way. 180 00:09:17,139 --> 00:09:18,474 Yeah. 181 00:09:18,474 --> 00:09:22,937 And so that was like well I wonder you know the internet came out. 182 00:09:23,521 --> 00:09:23,896 Yeah. 183 00:09:23,896 --> 00:09:24,188 You know 184 00:09:24,188 --> 00:09:27,692 it was very dangerous times I guess for it for, for, for kids at that time. 185 00:09:28,276 --> 00:09:31,279 So yeah there is different 186 00:09:31,279 --> 00:09:34,865 people meeting in different places and that had the same interests as you. 187 00:09:34,865 --> 00:09:38,494 So you learn a lot of different things that you don't want to learn about. 188 00:09:39,161 --> 00:09:42,123 So you then find out that, you know, witchcraft is true. 189 00:09:42,123 --> 00:09:46,127 I like what if we could, you know, look into it with their parents. 190 00:09:46,127 --> 00:09:47,503 Sure. What can you do? 191 00:09:47,503 --> 00:09:50,006 We didn't know the real witchcraft. Where 192 00:09:51,090 --> 00:09:52,800 people hurt other people. 193 00:09:52,800 --> 00:09:57,096 But just like this watered down, like, a pop culture 194 00:09:57,096 --> 00:10:01,142 where witchcraft is kind of for entertainment witchcraft. 195 00:10:01,142 --> 00:10:04,437 I like Harry Potter, for example, and that's an entertainment thing. 196 00:10:04,437 --> 00:10:05,563 I mean, it's a movie. 197 00:10:05,563 --> 00:10:08,733 Whatever It wasn't serious in any way, because I knew that there are 198 00:10:08,733 --> 00:10:12,612 demonic forces from from, like, the movies, but whatever. 199 00:10:12,987 --> 00:10:14,238 But I believe in them. 200 00:10:14,238 --> 00:10:17,199 And so I didn't want to go deep into that kind of thing. 201 00:10:17,199 --> 00:10:20,036 Yeah. So then there was like the white. 202 00:10:20,036 --> 00:10:23,039 The white, they call it like the white witchcraft or whatever. 203 00:10:23,706 --> 00:10:25,124 It's all the same. 204 00:10:25,124 --> 00:10:28,794 But like, you know, the Celts and the Vikings and their, their pagan 205 00:10:28,794 --> 00:10:32,798 things and death, you know, the druids and the herbs and things like that? 206 00:10:32,798 --> 00:10:34,425 That was very interesting. 207 00:10:34,425 --> 00:10:38,679 But I again, I only saw it as I was just romanticizing it. 208 00:10:39,764 --> 00:10:42,141 You know, it was just in that kind of like 209 00:10:42,141 --> 00:10:45,978 the culture, the music, the clothes, the people, how they used to live. 210 00:10:46,354 --> 00:10:49,315 That's what drew me to that. 211 00:10:49,315 --> 00:10:52,777 So how how deeply involved then did you get into this, did 212 00:10:52,777 --> 00:10:56,697 this turn into a major part of your life going forward, 213 00:10:57,198 --> 00:10:59,700 you know, through your teens, into your 20s? 214 00:10:59,700 --> 00:11:01,911 What did that look like for you? 215 00:11:01,911 --> 00:11:04,121 because I was from the capital city. 216 00:11:04,121 --> 00:11:06,749 There was a lot of places where you could meet 217 00:11:06,749 --> 00:11:09,752 with people that are interested in this. 218 00:11:10,378 --> 00:11:12,004 Different things. 219 00:11:12,004 --> 00:11:14,799 Like there were people that were doing, like, historical reenactments. 220 00:11:14,799 --> 00:11:18,886 And so they were very interested in this mythology and whatever. 221 00:11:18,928 --> 00:11:23,391 Then there was this Gothic subculture, and they used to have like, 222 00:11:23,933 --> 00:11:25,142 like different pubs. 223 00:11:25,142 --> 00:11:28,729 We used to go to different pubs, and we used to have this thing called bat caves, 224 00:11:29,730 --> 00:11:32,733 which were like kind of like a discotheque, 225 00:11:32,817 --> 00:11:35,444 which was like underground and in 226 00:11:35,444 --> 00:11:38,447 a, like a dungeon. 227 00:11:38,489 --> 00:11:39,115 And it was. 228 00:11:39,115 --> 00:11:41,534 Yeah, it's a bit embarrassing. 229 00:11:41,534 --> 00:11:42,076 Sorry. 230 00:11:42,076 --> 00:11:45,496 No, no I understand though because there's, this is a significant 231 00:11:46,205 --> 00:11:48,499 undercurrent of culture. Right. In a lot of places. 232 00:11:48,499 --> 00:11:49,542 I mean there's a lot of people 233 00:11:49,542 --> 00:11:53,212 that get involved in this or become part of it, whatever. 234 00:11:53,671 --> 00:11:55,339 But then Satan then taints your mind. 235 00:11:55,339 --> 00:11:58,259 So you start finding these things very 236 00:11:58,259 --> 00:11:59,051 lovely. 237 00:11:59,051 --> 00:12:01,095 Like, not lovely, but like you were. 238 00:12:01,095 --> 00:12:04,390 You find the dark things beautiful in a twisted way, 239 00:12:04,932 --> 00:12:08,978 like you romanticize death, you know, you don't see it as what it is. 240 00:12:09,979 --> 00:12:12,106 You see, there's some 241 00:12:12,106 --> 00:12:16,819 people in this black dress, white in forever frolicking through the forest. 242 00:12:16,819 --> 00:12:18,404 I don't know how to say it, but, 243 00:12:19,905 --> 00:12:22,366 yeah, it's not the real thing at all. 244 00:12:22,366 --> 00:12:24,785 Yeah. 245 00:12:24,785 --> 00:12:28,706 You just go on tours like the horror movies and, you know, 246 00:12:28,706 --> 00:12:30,291 then, like, it's like 247 00:12:30,291 --> 00:12:33,335 it's like Satan is working in your mind, but you don't know about it. 248 00:12:33,669 --> 00:12:34,920 You know, nothing 249 00:12:34,920 --> 00:12:37,923 significant is really happening, but you find yourself getting, like, 250 00:12:38,048 --> 00:12:41,177 depressed or you're not doing well at school, 251 00:12:41,177 --> 00:12:43,846 or you don't get on with your parents very well. 252 00:12:43,846 --> 00:12:45,264 You're a loner. 253 00:12:45,264 --> 00:12:48,434 You just want to be with your friends, or you want to drink or you want to smoke. 254 00:12:48,476 --> 00:12:50,936 You know, these kind of things. 255 00:12:50,936 --> 00:12:54,648 So that's where a lot of my friends went down that road. 256 00:12:54,982 --> 00:12:58,027 You mentioned Gothic 257 00:12:58,277 --> 00:13:01,655 previously was that also part of the picture. 258 00:13:01,906 --> 00:13:03,324 Oh yeah. Part of the story. 259 00:13:03,324 --> 00:13:03,741 Yeah. 260 00:13:03,741 --> 00:13:07,995 That was very much so like you would have identified with that at an for a while. 261 00:13:08,120 --> 00:13:08,496 Yeah. 262 00:13:08,496 --> 00:13:11,957 Oh yeah I would, yeah I would, we would go to, 263 00:13:13,417 --> 00:13:13,751 we would 264 00:13:13,751 --> 00:13:16,754 go to cemeteries and drink there and it would be just 265 00:13:17,630 --> 00:13:19,423 that would be our pastime. 266 00:13:19,423 --> 00:13:21,425 And we just love places like that. 267 00:13:21,425 --> 00:13:25,179 Abandoned houses and just things like that. 268 00:13:26,514 --> 00:13:29,391 There's that is 269 00:13:29,391 --> 00:13:32,853 I don't I don't fully understand all the, the forces involved, obviously, but, 270 00:13:33,145 --> 00:13:37,483 you know, Christ coming in and defeating death and conquering the grave. 271 00:13:37,483 --> 00:13:41,570 And, you know, either the core fundamental doctrines of Christianity 272 00:13:41,570 --> 00:13:45,282 about how death is a great evil that, God has conquered 273 00:13:45,282 --> 00:13:48,285 and Christ has conquered, but then you have these other groups, 274 00:13:48,702 --> 00:13:51,288 Gothic, you know, neo paganism, I guess, you know, 275 00:13:51,288 --> 00:13:54,834 some of these groups that are say, oh, well, no, that's not that. 276 00:13:55,209 --> 00:14:00,381 They reinterpret what death is and turn it into something that's they glamorize it. 277 00:14:00,381 --> 00:14:00,881 Yeah. 278 00:14:00,881 --> 00:14:03,425 There you go. That's maybe the word I'm looking for. 279 00:14:03,425 --> 00:14:06,428 And I as a Christian, I've never understood that. 280 00:14:06,428 --> 00:14:09,098 They just seems I don't get it at all. 281 00:14:09,098 --> 00:14:11,267 But hearing what you're describing. 282 00:14:11,267 --> 00:14:13,310 Wow. That's actually starting to make sense. 283 00:14:13,310 --> 00:14:16,272 You know how someone could get into that? Yeah. 284 00:14:16,272 --> 00:14:17,857 You know, if they don't have the Christian framework 285 00:14:17,857 --> 00:14:22,194 of how death is viewed through, you know, in the lens of Scripture, they say that 286 00:14:22,236 --> 00:14:25,364 they see it as a bad thing, like they don't want to live in the world. 287 00:14:25,364 --> 00:14:28,367 Like, for me personally, I didn't like the world that I was in. 288 00:14:28,993 --> 00:14:30,452 I thought people were judging me. 289 00:14:30,452 --> 00:14:32,413 I couldn't identify with people. 290 00:14:32,413 --> 00:14:33,747 So I thought, well, well, 291 00:14:34,915 --> 00:14:37,835 these people understand me. 292 00:14:37,835 --> 00:14:41,630 It feels good to be when you are down and like they're 293 00:14:42,882 --> 00:14:45,509 the loner stage of life. 294 00:14:45,509 --> 00:14:50,723 It it is just appealing to, you know, I don't understand it. 295 00:14:50,723 --> 00:14:52,433 Now either, 296 00:14:52,433 --> 00:14:54,476 but yeah, it was just some 297 00:14:54,476 --> 00:14:57,521 it was just, I don't know, it was different. 298 00:14:57,563 --> 00:14:59,899 And you can escape into that. 299 00:14:59,899 --> 00:15:02,860 Reality almost like, like escapism. 300 00:15:02,860 --> 00:15:06,071 I hesitate to use that term because I'm sure there's more involved. 301 00:15:06,071 --> 00:15:09,408 But escapism is very real for a lot of people. 302 00:15:09,408 --> 00:15:12,661 They just want to get out of whatever situation they're in. 303 00:15:13,120 --> 00:15:15,748 You mentioned loneliness too. 304 00:15:15,748 --> 00:15:18,918 It feels like that's an important part of this story. 305 00:15:18,918 --> 00:15:21,962 Like looking for friends, looking for a place. 306 00:15:22,922 --> 00:15:24,214 Well, yeah. Looking for a place. 307 00:15:24,214 --> 00:15:26,425 A place to belong. To be a part of. 308 00:15:26,425 --> 00:15:27,593 Would have that... 309 00:15:27,593 --> 00:15:30,262 Maybe at the time, you couldn't have articulated like that. 310 00:15:30,262 --> 00:15:34,600 But that would have been a one of the driving factors for you, I assume. 311 00:15:34,850 --> 00:15:38,687 I suppose, because I don't know, was I too emotional or a deep thinker? 312 00:15:39,355 --> 00:15:43,609 But I felt like that subculture in particular understand me. 313 00:15:43,943 --> 00:15:46,946 Like when children are sad and then they hear sad music. 314 00:15:46,946 --> 00:15:49,573 And I was like, oh yeah, that's exactly what I'm going through. 315 00:15:49,573 --> 00:15:50,866 Even though it was just a really. 316 00:15:50,866 --> 00:15:53,494 Teenagers really sometimes have silly problems. But anyway, 317 00:15:55,412 --> 00:15:58,415 yeah, I guess that's what gets you. 318 00:15:58,749 --> 00:16:00,084 These people understand me. 319 00:16:00,084 --> 00:16:01,835 They know exactly what I'm going through. 320 00:16:01,835 --> 00:16:04,713 They're not trying to help me. They're just being. Misery loves company. 321 00:16:04,713 --> 00:16:08,634 And that's how it was when we were sad together. 322 00:16:10,010 --> 00:16:11,136 You know, 323 00:16:11,136 --> 00:16:16,266 was there any particular worldviews that you would have started associating with? 324 00:16:16,266 --> 00:16:17,768 I mean, you mentioned the Gothic scene. 325 00:16:17,768 --> 00:16:20,771 Were there others like, you know, New Age, 326 00:16:20,938 --> 00:16:24,108 different forms of the New Age, movement, and 327 00:16:24,692 --> 00:16:27,486 there's different spiritualist movements and so forth 328 00:16:27,486 --> 00:16:30,239 that tend to get wrapped in with, as you mentioned, paganism. 329 00:16:30,239 --> 00:16:31,907 But were there any in particular that you would have said? 330 00:16:31,907 --> 00:16:33,450 Yeah, I identify with that. 331 00:16:33,450 --> 00:16:35,661 I'm a part of this group. 332 00:16:35,661 --> 00:16:38,330 Maybe later on when I met my husband. 333 00:16:38,330 --> 00:16:39,373 Okay. 334 00:16:39,373 --> 00:16:42,376 So that story goes well in my 20s then, 335 00:16:42,584 --> 00:16:46,672 because I would still was in the subculture until like the 2012 336 00:16:46,672 --> 00:16:51,260 when, like the end of the world and the Mayans were you in on that, a little bit. 337 00:16:51,260 --> 00:16:52,136 Yeah. That. Yeah. 338 00:16:52,136 --> 00:16:54,638 That was I looked into that a little bit. 339 00:16:54,638 --> 00:16:57,641 And for those listening, I may not have a clue what we're talking about. 340 00:16:57,975 --> 00:16:59,643 Yeah. That was really a thing. 341 00:16:59,643 --> 00:16:59,935 Yeah. 342 00:16:59,935 --> 00:17:03,397 You know, because the Mayan calendar supposedly ended in the year 2012. 343 00:17:03,397 --> 00:17:05,524 And so that means the world's going to end or something, 344 00:17:05,524 --> 00:17:07,234 or there was all kinds of different interpretations. 345 00:17:07,234 --> 00:17:09,445 So I read some of the literature on it. 346 00:17:09,445 --> 00:17:11,572 Just be like, what what is going on? 347 00:17:11,572 --> 00:17:15,451 And yeah, that was that was really a thing for a while. 348 00:17:15,701 --> 00:17:20,247 Obviously it's not anymore because that has come and gone and 349 00:17:20,247 --> 00:17:21,081 but yeah, so 350 00:17:21,081 --> 00:17:21,540 it was that, 351 00:17:21,540 --> 00:17:24,793 it was that kind of a turning point for you, like it was supposed to end 352 00:17:24,793 --> 00:17:25,586 and it didn't, 353 00:17:25,586 --> 00:17:29,214 it was more that it was supposed to like transition into, like this better place, 354 00:17:29,381 --> 00:17:32,342 like the world was supposed to be a better place or something like that. 355 00:17:32,342 --> 00:17:34,511 well, that didn't happen. No, it did not. 356 00:17:34,511 --> 00:17:39,141 You see, when you when you strive for your problems to disappear. 357 00:17:39,141 --> 00:17:42,686 And the easiest way would be for the, for the world to end 358 00:17:43,520 --> 00:17:45,773 or just to transform into a better place. 359 00:17:45,773 --> 00:17:47,232 Oh, that is profound. 360 00:17:47,232 --> 00:17:47,524 Yeah. 361 00:17:47,524 --> 00:17:49,818 Yeah, that makes so much more. 362 00:17:49,818 --> 00:17:50,569 And then, you know. 363 00:17:50,569 --> 00:17:53,947 so no wonder a lot of people really probably latched on to that, 364 00:17:53,947 --> 00:17:55,282 to looking for hope. 365 00:17:55,282 --> 00:17:57,910 Yeah, It's like, oh, well, I don't have to. 366 00:17:57,910 --> 00:17:58,410 I know I'm 367 00:17:58,410 --> 00:18:03,123 in so much debt now when this world ends, or if we go into the four dimension 368 00:18:03,165 --> 00:18:07,169 or whatever they were calling it, I'm not into that anymore, I am. 369 00:18:07,169 --> 00:18:08,337 Everyone's happy. 370 00:18:08,337 --> 00:18:10,714 I can start over. 371 00:18:10,714 --> 00:18:12,382 I don't know, things like that. 372 00:18:13,509 --> 00:18:14,009 So that 373 00:18:14,009 --> 00:18:17,054 that was a pivot point then for you that year. 374 00:18:17,096 --> 00:18:18,764 Yeah. Because at the time then I know 375 00:18:18,764 --> 00:18:21,767 my now husband and we were talking a lot about it. 376 00:18:22,017 --> 00:18:25,562 So I guess we were learning the different 377 00:18:26,772 --> 00:18:28,982 spiritual 378 00:18:28,982 --> 00:18:31,735 things about New Age, like how there is, I don't know, 379 00:18:31,735 --> 00:18:35,239 I don't want to go into details because I don't want to influence anybody. 380 00:18:35,614 --> 00:18:39,493 So but that that's where the new age element starts coming in 381 00:18:39,493 --> 00:18:43,372 which, which also for anyone listening, we did interview your husband as well. 382 00:18:43,372 --> 00:18:44,414 Got some of his story. 383 00:18:44,414 --> 00:18:48,544 So Enda yeah, his his name and I'm not sure which order we’ll release. 384 00:18:48,544 --> 00:18:49,795 Which one will come first. 385 00:18:49,795 --> 00:18:50,921 But anyways, 386 00:18:50,921 --> 00:18:54,091 because he was describing some of the new age and its appeal, 387 00:18:54,091 --> 00:18:58,303 you know, to, to people and, and I can I honestly, I can see that 388 00:18:58,345 --> 00:19:01,348 like if you didn't have a community or a, 389 00:19:01,598 --> 00:19:05,310 the Christian setting or, you know, close friends like that, 390 00:19:05,727 --> 00:19:09,106 you're looking for something, you know, well, okay. 391 00:19:09,148 --> 00:19:13,360 To back up a little bit because he's, he's Irish, you're Slovakian. 392 00:19:13,694 --> 00:19:16,989 How did you all meet and then start doing this new age thing 393 00:19:16,989 --> 00:19:18,699 and yeah, walk me through that 394 00:19:18,699 --> 00:19:21,702 because those two countries aren't exactly close to each other. 395 00:19:21,785 --> 00:19:22,286 Yeah. 396 00:19:22,286 --> 00:19:24,997 Well, I wanted to learn English, 397 00:19:24,997 --> 00:19:28,000 I went prior, I met him, I went to England for two months, 398 00:19:28,750 --> 00:19:32,462 and so I wanted to kind of push off and to keep going. 399 00:19:32,754 --> 00:19:34,381 And so I just was looking for 400 00:19:34,381 --> 00:19:38,051 like some sort of a chat room that with native English speakers. 401 00:19:38,677 --> 00:19:40,012 And that's where I met my husband, 402 00:19:41,013 --> 00:19:43,015 and I was 16 at the time, 403 00:19:43,015 --> 00:19:46,810 and he was 19, and the year after I went to Ireland 404 00:19:47,519 --> 00:19:50,522 and, yeah, we met as well. 405 00:19:51,648 --> 00:19:52,649 In Dublin. 406 00:19:52,649 --> 00:19:57,487 We met twice, and then we kind of just, had a relationship online mostly. 407 00:19:57,487 --> 00:20:00,490 So it was a long distance relationship. 408 00:20:00,490 --> 00:20:03,702 And it went on, I was going to Ireland 409 00:20:03,702 --> 00:20:05,954 every summer holidays, and then I will come back. 410 00:20:05,954 --> 00:20:07,372 And then eventually 411 00:20:07,372 --> 00:20:11,835 my husband would come to Slovakia for, I think, about eight months or so, 412 00:20:12,878 --> 00:20:16,215 and we would just go back and forth until 2014. 413 00:20:16,423 --> 00:20:19,426 That's where I came to Ireland permanently. 414 00:20:19,718 --> 00:20:20,552 Yeah. 415 00:20:20,552 --> 00:20:23,180 again, this is where the new age element starts 416 00:20:23,180 --> 00:20:26,183 coming in right after this 417 00:20:26,225 --> 00:20:28,352 point after the 2012, 418 00:20:28,352 --> 00:20:31,772 thing, you know, and, and so that gets involved. 419 00:20:32,064 --> 00:20:34,524 Were you doing this, you and your husband together? 420 00:20:34,524 --> 00:20:36,401 I assume there's that element. 421 00:20:36,401 --> 00:20:37,277 Yeah, yeah, 422 00:20:37,277 --> 00:20:41,198 yeah, because there was this lady that we were influenced by and she had some, 423 00:20:43,200 --> 00:20:45,869 Now, when I think about it, it was. 424 00:20:45,869 --> 00:20:46,620 It was real. 425 00:20:46,620 --> 00:20:50,749 I'm not saying it wasn't, but the things she thought she was talking 426 00:20:50,749 --> 00:20:53,710 to was not, 427 00:20:53,794 --> 00:20:58,131 some ascended master aliens up in the sky, 428 00:20:59,007 --> 00:21:01,927 but they were demons, 429 00:21:01,927 --> 00:21:04,638 basically, she was channeling and she didn't know about it. 430 00:21:04,638 --> 00:21:07,641 She thought she was talking to, like a 431 00:21:08,308 --> 00:21:10,560 like a group. 432 00:21:10,560 --> 00:21:12,145 How would I say a group 433 00:21:12,145 --> 00:21:15,607 awareness of some sort like the, there's. 434 00:21:15,607 --> 00:21:20,529 Yeah, there's teachings on that, like the divine conscious ness of whatever, 435 00:21:20,654 --> 00:21:21,571 you know, it might be. 436 00:21:21,571 --> 00:21:25,367 And we can access it through different, different means. 437 00:21:25,367 --> 00:21:29,288 And that would that would be very part of the New Age movement. 438 00:21:29,288 --> 00:21:30,038 Right? 439 00:21:30,038 --> 00:21:31,665 They all get jumbled in my mind. 440 00:21:31,665 --> 00:21:31,790 Yeah. 441 00:21:31,790 --> 00:21:34,668 You know, But the basic theory about that, 442 00:21:34,668 --> 00:21:36,712 like everyone is a part of this consciousness and, 443 00:21:36,712 --> 00:21:40,424 and you are here to raise vibrations or something like that. 444 00:21:40,424 --> 00:21:44,344 And it's very selfish, self-centered religion. 445 00:21:44,344 --> 00:21:45,178 It's basically, 446 00:21:45,178 --> 00:21:49,433 you are a god in a, in a center, a part of your part of the divine. 447 00:21:49,558 --> 00:21:49,933 Yeah. 448 00:21:49,933 --> 00:21:54,980 Do you have the role to to help people to to be enlightened or something. 449 00:21:54,980 --> 00:21:55,439 I don't know. 450 00:21:56,606 --> 00:21:58,859 But it's very it's a very self-centered setting. 451 00:21:58,859 --> 00:21:59,693 Yeah. 452 00:21:59,693 --> 00:22:02,696 But again that just strikes me as 453 00:22:02,696 --> 00:22:04,781 you know you were searching, 454 00:22:04,781 --> 00:22:07,784 you were searching for something and 455 00:22:08,952 --> 00:22:12,622 without guidance or, or the right people in your life it's easy to, to. 456 00:22:13,040 --> 00:22:13,999 Well we should try this. 457 00:22:13,999 --> 00:22:16,543 Well and you know you're trying things like okay is this it, 458 00:22:16,543 --> 00:22:17,961 is this the real thing. You know. 459 00:22:17,961 --> 00:22:20,964 And I'm guessing this, this lady 460 00:22:21,548 --> 00:22:24,885 that, you were connecting with probably had many things 461 00:22:24,885 --> 00:22:28,305 that she did that sounded really convincing or or were very convincing. 462 00:22:28,305 --> 00:22:29,431 Maybe they were the real. 463 00:22:29,431 --> 00:22:32,100 They seemed very real. 464 00:22:32,100 --> 00:22:33,852 I don't know if you want to speak into that, but, 465 00:22:33,852 --> 00:22:36,938 because if there's dark forces involved, I'm guessing there's 466 00:22:37,522 --> 00:22:39,441 there are elements that are quite convincing. 467 00:22:39,441 --> 00:22:44,363 Very, because we got so deep into it that we wanted to do it as well. 468 00:22:45,113 --> 00:22:48,116 So we paid a lot of money to get the course. 469 00:22:48,367 --> 00:22:51,870 And she then she had like an, an, a private recordings of these things. 470 00:22:52,204 --> 00:22:52,996 And, 471 00:22:53,997 --> 00:22:54,331 she would 472 00:22:54,331 --> 00:22:57,709 interview somebody in this state and then she would 473 00:22:57,709 --> 00:23:01,088 interview somebody in a different state, somebody completely different. 474 00:23:01,088 --> 00:23:04,049 And they will talk about what that person left off. 475 00:23:04,299 --> 00:23:05,550 So it was very convincing. 476 00:23:05,550 --> 00:23:08,428 But she thought she was talking to something that was good. 477 00:23:08,428 --> 00:23:11,431 Here she was channeling the same force, 478 00:23:12,015 --> 00:23:14,017 the evil force. 479 00:23:14,017 --> 00:23:15,394 And the penny dropped. 480 00:23:15,394 --> 00:23:17,104 And later on, when we found out 481 00:23:17,104 --> 00:23:20,440 that they told her that she would live into a certain age or whatever, 482 00:23:21,191 --> 00:23:24,194 and she didn't, she actually die quite tragically. 483 00:23:25,112 --> 00:23:28,115 And that was just like, oh, wow, they were just playing with this poor lady. 484 00:23:28,824 --> 00:23:31,201 The whole time. 485 00:23:31,201 --> 00:23:32,828 It was very sad. 486 00:23:32,828 --> 00:23:36,832 But I would say we were seeking a lot, especially because my husband's 487 00:23:36,832 --> 00:23:39,960 sister was very sick at the same time, and we wanted to help her. 488 00:23:40,710 --> 00:23:42,838 We thought this would help her. Didn't. 489 00:23:44,548 --> 00:23:45,507 So, yeah, 490 00:23:45,507 --> 00:23:48,468 there was there was a hard time, 491 00:23:49,094 --> 00:23:50,846 Yeah I think 492 00:23:50,846 --> 00:23:53,849 humans are and have this 493 00:23:54,307 --> 00:23:58,270 drive to try to understand things 494 00:23:58,270 --> 00:24:01,273 or to cling to something that will give them hope. 495 00:24:01,273 --> 00:24:03,275 You know 496 00:24:03,275 --> 00:24:05,944 I'm guessing you can you, you and your husband 497 00:24:05,944 --> 00:24:09,406 would have been able to very much relate to this and during that time. 498 00:24:09,906 --> 00:24:11,491 Yeah. Looking for something? 499 00:24:11,491 --> 00:24:13,285 Oh yeah. We want because we wanted something good. 500 00:24:13,285 --> 00:24:16,913 We were also at that stage I was just really tired of the whole 501 00:24:17,956 --> 00:24:20,959 the things that I used to like 502 00:24:21,668 --> 00:24:24,629 the ugly and the like then 503 00:24:24,629 --> 00:24:28,425 and this poor sister passed away and then I seen the real face of death. 504 00:24:29,050 --> 00:24:33,221 And that it's not so glamorous and so beautiful. 505 00:24:35,140 --> 00:24:37,517 It's actually really horrible. 506 00:24:37,517 --> 00:24:39,769 And that made me feel like, you know, I'm not immortal. 507 00:24:41,313 --> 00:24:41,521 Yeah. 508 00:24:41,521 --> 00:24:43,398 She was very young. And look at me. 509 00:24:43,398 --> 00:24:46,401 I thought it's just old people that get sick and die, you know? 510 00:24:47,736 --> 00:24:48,612 There was very. 511 00:24:48,612 --> 00:24:49,905 That impacted me. 512 00:24:49,905 --> 00:24:52,491 Really deeply. 513 00:24:52,491 --> 00:24:56,703 And that made me want to I, I just started to dislike 514 00:24:57,287 --> 00:25:00,499 everything about it, and I just wanted something nicer. 515 00:25:00,499 --> 00:25:02,250 Something better. 516 00:25:02,250 --> 00:25:05,253 But again, we were still quite blind 517 00:25:05,504 --> 00:25:08,673 at that stage because, yeah, that's. 518 00:25:09,090 --> 00:25:13,470 After that, when we were with Enda’s, my husband's mum for a little while 519 00:25:14,054 --> 00:25:18,433 just to support her, and that's when the, 520 00:25:20,227 --> 00:25:23,188 the paranormal started happening in the house, 521 00:25:23,647 --> 00:25:25,565 where we were, and I was there. 522 00:25:25,565 --> 00:25:27,317 Do you want to talk about that. 523 00:25:27,317 --> 00:25:28,193 Yeah. Yeah. 524 00:25:28,193 --> 00:25:29,194 Like what. Like what. 525 00:25:29,194 --> 00:25:31,947 What was that like. Because. 526 00:25:31,947 --> 00:25:32,405 Okay. 527 00:25:32,405 --> 00:25:36,451 So in in America you know in Hollywood they like to make movies 528 00:25:36,451 --> 00:25:39,704 about these things and oh, the paranormal, the ghosts that. 529 00:25:39,704 --> 00:25:40,956 It's that. Yeah. 530 00:25:40,956 --> 00:25:44,626 And on, one level, it's marketed as entertainment. 531 00:25:44,834 --> 00:25:46,086 Right. It's just entertainment. 532 00:25:46,086 --> 00:25:49,381 But on on another level for a whole, for another group of people. 533 00:25:49,381 --> 00:25:52,342 It's not. It's real for them. Yeah. 534 00:25:52,342 --> 00:25:55,845 And it's pretty easy to just be like, okay, that's just kind of Hollywood 535 00:25:56,137 --> 00:25:57,889 trying to make money or whatever. 536 00:25:57,889 --> 00:26:02,936 But there is an element to this that I think we can say is very real. 537 00:26:02,936 --> 00:26:04,187 I mean. Yeah. 538 00:26:04,187 --> 00:26:05,855 Like from what you all experienced, 539 00:26:05,855 --> 00:26:09,109 but yeah, if you want to describe that for us Well, you see, 540 00:26:09,359 --> 00:26:14,030 I knew that there and Enda was mentioning a venue was even when he was younger 541 00:26:14,030 --> 00:26:17,784 or when they were just living there, things would be happening to them. 542 00:26:18,410 --> 00:26:19,452 And I was like, okay. 543 00:26:19,452 --> 00:26:21,997 At the time I was like, oh, that's kind of cool. You know? 544 00:26:21,997 --> 00:26:24,541 As silly as I was, because I couldn't understand the whole 545 00:26:24,541 --> 00:26:26,751 I couldn't imagine it. It didn't happen to me. 546 00:26:28,086 --> 00:26:29,170 I don't think I even 547 00:26:29,170 --> 00:26:32,716 experienced anything when I was in Slovakia. 548 00:26:32,966 --> 00:26:35,510 So it was pretty new to me. 549 00:26:35,510 --> 00:26:39,556 Like I knew these things happened, but I didn't quite seen it in real life. 550 00:26:39,556 --> 00:26:43,184 And so yeah there were a few instances like I remember 551 00:26:43,893 --> 00:26:47,564 like the knocking on the window, like when we were just, just chillen 552 00:26:48,523 --> 00:26:50,942 in, in Enda’s room and next thing 553 00:26:50,942 --> 00:26:53,903 it was dark and I think his mom went somewhere 554 00:26:53,945 --> 00:26:58,617 and we just heard this real three knocks on the window, and it was a split second. 555 00:26:58,617 --> 00:26:59,534 He opened the window. 556 00:26:59,534 --> 00:27:02,537 There was nobody there, and there was nothing outside. 557 00:27:02,996 --> 00:27:04,831 So that was quite scary. 558 00:27:04,831 --> 00:27:07,292 We couldn't understand it because we knew that demonic 559 00:27:07,292 --> 00:27:09,419 always does things in threes. 560 00:27:09,419 --> 00:27:11,504 So the three knocks. Was this like, okay, 561 00:27:12,505 --> 00:27:13,882 next thing, 562 00:27:13,882 --> 00:27:16,885 we had the kitten at the time as well. 563 00:27:17,427 --> 00:27:20,430 We clearly see a kitten climbing up on the bed, 564 00:27:20,805 --> 00:27:23,808 just like the how the claws. 565 00:27:23,975 --> 00:27:25,852 I just trying to get up. 566 00:27:25,852 --> 00:27:28,688 And then I look across the room and the kitten sleeping in the bed, 567 00:27:28,688 --> 00:27:32,942 its own bed, fast asleep away from the bed. 568 00:27:33,568 --> 00:27:36,571 So there was like, okay, well. 569 00:27:36,655 --> 00:27:39,449 And it's still, you know, I still kind of like, you know, 570 00:27:39,449 --> 00:27:43,328 I wasn't too scared about it, but I started to be kind of curious 571 00:27:43,828 --> 00:27:46,373 in a way. 572 00:27:46,373 --> 00:27:48,708 Then Enda’s uncle's picture 573 00:27:48,708 --> 00:27:51,711 that he passed away was turned to the wall, 574 00:27:53,004 --> 00:27:54,255 and no one turned it around. 575 00:27:54,255 --> 00:27:56,758 And his mom was very upset about that hanging on the wall. 576 00:27:56,758 --> 00:27:58,510 No, it was it was... 577 00:27:58,510 --> 00:28:01,513 but it was just me and and his mum. 578 00:28:01,846 --> 00:28:05,225 And no one touched the picture and it turned itself. 579 00:28:05,433 --> 00:28:09,145 I was turned to the wall facing the wall and she was very upset about it. 580 00:28:09,813 --> 00:28:11,648 I was like, I would not dare to do that. 581 00:28:11,648 --> 00:28:14,401 You know, that's very disrespectful. 582 00:28:14,401 --> 00:28:16,903 And then another instance 583 00:28:16,903 --> 00:28:20,365 was I heard Enda’s mum calling him 584 00:28:21,366 --> 00:28:23,159 and he just would not go. 585 00:28:23,159 --> 00:28:26,162 So I just wanted to like, why don't you go and like your mum is calling you 586 00:28:26,579 --> 00:28:29,040 and he said she's not at home. 587 00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:32,585 And at that point I was like, okay, well there is something going on in here. 588 00:28:33,086 --> 00:28:33,420 Yeah. 589 00:28:33,420 --> 00:28:37,632 And ya’ll both heard that No, I asked you just I heard it and I came to Enda 590 00:28:37,632 --> 00:28:40,635 and I said, why aren't you going like she's waiting for you? 591 00:28:40,677 --> 00:28:42,137 Oh my. Okay. 592 00:28:42,137 --> 00:28:45,849 That must have been, that must have been terrifying when you realized. 593 00:28:45,849 --> 00:28:46,224 Wait. 594 00:28:46,224 --> 00:28:49,060 She's not even in the house. Yeah, she wasn’t in the house. 595 00:28:49,060 --> 00:28:52,063 So somehow like then starting to be 596 00:28:52,272 --> 00:28:55,275 instead of, like, not be in the house. 597 00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:58,778 We started to get interested in the whole paranormal thing. 598 00:28:59,946 --> 00:29:03,408 And I know there were different apps on the phone that you could download 599 00:29:03,408 --> 00:29:04,242 and like, 600 00:29:04,242 --> 00:29:07,912 you know, ghost boxes and isn't like, like ghost hunting 601 00:29:07,912 --> 00:29:09,164 and some of these things like it's 602 00:29:09,164 --> 00:29:11,416 actually a thing like I thought it was a joke. 603 00:29:11,416 --> 00:29:14,461 And then I started looking at I was like, no, people take this very seriously. 604 00:29:14,544 --> 00:29:16,755 They do all you can get all sorts of equipment for that. 605 00:29:16,755 --> 00:29:18,965 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. 606 00:29:18,965 --> 00:29:21,634 I mean, in my naivete, I just kind of a, you know. 607 00:29:21,634 --> 00:29:23,845 Okay. Yeah. I mean, nobody takes this seriously, but. 608 00:29:23,845 --> 00:29:24,137 Yeah. 609 00:29:24,137 --> 00:29:26,806 Oh, no ghost hunting and all the equipment that comes with 610 00:29:26,806 --> 00:29:30,310 it is very much a real thing, which is terrifying. 611 00:29:30,310 --> 00:29:31,144 And Yeah. 612 00:29:31,144 --> 00:29:34,481 But some people just get some sort of how would I say 613 00:29:35,023 --> 00:29:38,401 not enjoyment, but it's like an adventure. 614 00:29:38,401 --> 00:29:40,111 It's kind of like curiosity. 615 00:29:40,111 --> 00:29:40,528 Yeah. 616 00:29:40,528 --> 00:29:44,783 Like this is but but even you said like before you went 617 00:29:45,283 --> 00:29:47,327 and experienced it yourself. You're like, oh, okay. 618 00:29:47,327 --> 00:29:50,371 Like it didn't really it didn't. Yeah. 619 00:29:50,663 --> 00:29:55,043 As as something, wait, this is actually horrifying and not okay. 620 00:29:55,251 --> 00:29:55,919 Because you might think 621 00:29:55,919 --> 00:29:59,672 that maybe it's just ghosts and they may want to say something, 622 00:29:59,839 --> 00:30:03,301 you know, because I knew they were demons, but I thought demons were different. 623 00:30:03,802 --> 00:30:04,677 I thought demons 624 00:30:05,929 --> 00:30:06,846 do worse things 625 00:30:06,846 --> 00:30:09,808 than just knock on windows, you know, like, yeah. 626 00:30:09,891 --> 00:30:11,851 Now, now, you you would have known there's demons. 627 00:30:11,851 --> 00:30:12,769 Like, why is that? 628 00:30:12,769 --> 00:30:16,773 From your experience, going to church right early on or the music 629 00:30:16,773 --> 00:30:18,149 or something like that, but. 630 00:30:18,149 --> 00:30:20,568 okay. But you didn't put the two together that. 631 00:30:20,568 --> 00:30:25,281 Hey maybe, perhaps the demonic element is behind 632 00:30:25,281 --> 00:30:29,202 these things with the new age stuff you're involved in and, and so forth. 633 00:30:29,410 --> 00:30:32,163 The connection hadn't been made yet for you at this point. 634 00:30:32,163 --> 00:30:34,123 no, I didn't think that at all. 635 00:30:34,123 --> 00:30:35,625 That's in it. 636 00:30:35,625 --> 00:30:36,042 That's it. 637 00:30:36,042 --> 00:30:40,338 That's I think a very important piece I think because I know 638 00:30:40,338 --> 00:30:41,756 there have been plenty of times in my life 639 00:30:41,756 --> 00:30:43,925 where I just thought, oh, anybody involved in this stuff 640 00:30:43,925 --> 00:30:47,929 must clearly know that they're involved with dark forces. 641 00:30:47,929 --> 00:30:49,305 And I've been hearing more and more. 642 00:30:49,305 --> 00:30:53,518 No, it's actually deceives like, it's deception. 643 00:30:53,518 --> 00:30:54,352 Yeah, yeah. 644 00:30:54,352 --> 00:30:56,271 Again, when I was interviewing your husband, 645 00:30:56,271 --> 00:30:59,357 he was saying we were trying to we thought we were trying to do 646 00:30:59,357 --> 00:31:03,653 good things, and we were completely off, you know, I mean, very dicey, 647 00:31:03,653 --> 00:31:06,823 you know, just just, you know, clearly had it wrong. 648 00:31:06,948 --> 00:31:10,702 But at the time, it felt like we were trying to do what was right, you know, 649 00:31:12,579 --> 00:31:13,580 Wow. Wild. 650 00:31:13,580 --> 00:31:14,414 Yeah. Yeah. 651 00:31:14,414 --> 00:31:18,167 Now, I think that these are really important pieces because it's so easy to, 652 00:31:18,793 --> 00:31:20,003 misunderstand these things 653 00:31:20,003 --> 00:31:23,464 or maybe not take them seriously or whatever the case may be. 654 00:31:23,756 --> 00:31:23,923 Yeah. 655 00:31:23,923 --> 00:31:28,803 So with the paranormal, situation like the. 656 00:31:29,137 --> 00:31:30,471 Yeah, that must have. 657 00:31:30,471 --> 00:31:33,266 Did that have a pretty big effect on your worldview and, 658 00:31:33,266 --> 00:31:34,934 and how you thought about these things. Yeah. 659 00:31:34,934 --> 00:31:38,479 Because it introduced me to like, oh, wow, the spiritual world is true is real. 660 00:31:38,688 --> 00:31:41,983 I still didn't think of God or heaven or hell, 661 00:31:42,692 --> 00:31:46,154 but it just opened the possibility of of life after death. 662 00:31:46,863 --> 00:31:50,241 You know that there, there, there is more to life. 663 00:31:50,617 --> 00:31:52,619 Like you just 664 00:31:52,619 --> 00:31:53,578 made it, did it. 665 00:31:53,578 --> 00:31:55,747 I believed, like I just had an idea of it. 666 00:31:55,747 --> 00:31:58,416 But now I believe that there is like when you die, you, you, 667 00:31:58,416 --> 00:31:59,584 you are still going to live. 668 00:32:00,835 --> 00:32:01,753 So we were then going 669 00:32:01,753 --> 00:32:05,465 into deeper into the paranormal because I don't know why I was so curious. 670 00:32:05,548 --> 00:32:09,135 But yeah, we watched hundreds and hundreds of them, 671 00:32:09,636 --> 00:32:12,513 and then we started 672 00:32:12,513 --> 00:32:15,767 to see a pattern in how these things operate, 673 00:32:16,267 --> 00:32:18,853 how they just subtly start with just making 674 00:32:18,853 --> 00:32:21,856 people argue or, 675 00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:25,026 you know, sometimes 676 00:32:25,026 --> 00:32:29,364 paranormal things or, or demonic forces don't just necessarily move stuff. 677 00:32:29,864 --> 00:32:34,077 They usually work on your emotions and they separate people 678 00:32:35,370 --> 00:32:36,496 and, yeah. 679 00:32:36,496 --> 00:32:40,792 So start to see different patterns and then different ways that help people 680 00:32:40,792 --> 00:32:44,170 who are dealing with these things, how they were trying to get rid of them. 681 00:32:44,921 --> 00:32:47,924 So our mission was to get rid of it. 682 00:32:49,092 --> 00:32:52,261 And so, we started to see that, 683 00:32:53,554 --> 00:32:56,557 like these people, they were smudging the place with sage and things like that. 684 00:32:56,557 --> 00:32:58,726 The things always came back. 685 00:32:58,726 --> 00:33:01,562 So we abandoned that idea with a straight away. 686 00:33:01,562 --> 00:33:04,524 And then and then this man, 687 00:33:04,774 --> 00:33:07,777 he was he was like a self-proclaimed exorcist. 688 00:33:08,486 --> 00:33:09,612 But he was a man. 689 00:33:09,612 --> 00:33:12,323 Like he believes in God, you know, we know him. We know him. 690 00:33:13,282 --> 00:33:14,117 he started ordering 691 00:33:14,117 --> 00:33:17,120 these things in the name of Christ. 692 00:33:17,161 --> 00:33:21,332 And I was like, that's very interesting because Jesus was in the new age, 693 00:33:21,916 --> 00:33:24,419 but he was just like an ascended master, you know? 694 00:33:24,419 --> 00:33:29,257 Oh, so like, not divine in the sense that Christians would say he is and so forth. 695 00:33:29,257 --> 00:33:30,842 Yeah, he would be divine, but more 696 00:33:30,842 --> 00:33:34,637 with the knowledge that he had, rather than him being the savior of the world. 697 00:33:34,762 --> 00:33:37,890 Okay, that's a critical difference. Yeah. 698 00:33:37,932 --> 00:33:39,225 Yeah okay. 699 00:33:39,225 --> 00:33:42,145 And then we were like, well, why weren't they saying, 700 00:33:42,145 --> 00:33:45,606 like, in the name of Budha or somebody else? 701 00:33:46,232 --> 00:33:49,819 It has never come up in any of those videos that we were watching. 702 00:33:49,819 --> 00:33:53,197 There was nobody there was called. 703 00:33:53,364 --> 00:33:57,243 They were either doing this shamanic stuff or they were using Jesus, 704 00:33:57,535 --> 00:33:58,286 but nothing else. 705 00:33:58,286 --> 00:34:00,663 Like at least what we have seen, there was nothing else 706 00:34:01,873 --> 00:34:04,500 but the name of Christ was working, you know? 707 00:34:04,500 --> 00:34:07,211 And so I was like, wow, that's that's very interesting. 708 00:34:07,211 --> 00:34:11,090 And at the time, we had this friend that used to work with us 709 00:34:11,090 --> 00:34:14,135 and he was the, he is a Jehovah's Witness. 710 00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:17,346 And, you know, he kept telling Enda that, you know, 711 00:34:17,346 --> 00:34:20,767 these are demons, you know, and they're like, yeah, okay. 712 00:34:21,225 --> 00:34:22,602 The ghosts, they're not demons. 713 00:34:22,602 --> 00:34:25,605 And, you know, and then so and there was on the mission to prove him 714 00:34:26,314 --> 00:34:29,317 that he, he started reading the Bible. 715 00:34:30,693 --> 00:34:32,528 And, 716 00:34:32,528 --> 00:34:34,781 then he got interested in Christ more and more. 717 00:34:34,781 --> 00:34:37,575 Oh, was he was he started reading the Bible to. 718 00:34:37,575 --> 00:34:40,078 I want to prove this. This person wrong. Right? 719 00:34:40,078 --> 00:34:43,998 necessarily that wrong but I just want to learn more and yeah to have a debate 720 00:34:43,998 --> 00:34:47,627 because he, he loved to debate, you know that friend in particular. 721 00:34:47,627 --> 00:34:49,420 So Enda wanted to be ready for him. 722 00:34:49,420 --> 00:34:52,673 So the more he wants to debate the more Enda read the Bible. 723 00:34:53,299 --> 00:34:54,467 Oh. That's incredible. 724 00:34:54,467 --> 00:34:58,012 What what a, hey, it gets you reading the Bible. 725 00:34:58,012 --> 00:34:58,763 That was. 726 00:34:58,763 --> 00:35:01,182 That's amazing. Yeah. You know, that's amazing. 727 00:35:01,182 --> 00:35:04,936 So, you know, it says every knee will bow in the name of Christ. 728 00:35:04,936 --> 00:35:06,604 And it did. 729 00:35:06,604 --> 00:35:07,480 And we went. 730 00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:11,317 And then, we heard that the paranormal activity 731 00:35:11,317 --> 00:35:15,071 which came back to in this mum's house again, she was experiencing things. 732 00:35:15,071 --> 00:35:19,867 And so we said to her, well, you know, maybe you can say to it 733 00:35:20,159 --> 00:35:21,536 to leave in the name of Christ, 734 00:35:22,620 --> 00:35:25,623 which is say, say, go in the name of Jesus 735 00:35:26,332 --> 00:35:29,335 and really believe it. 736 00:35:29,544 --> 00:35:31,587 And so she said, okay. 737 00:35:31,587 --> 00:35:34,590 And then one night she rang us and she said 738 00:35:35,049 --> 00:35:36,759 now, I don't know, sorry. 739 00:35:36,759 --> 00:35:39,470 But she did see, like a figure, 740 00:35:39,470 --> 00:35:42,473 appearing from underneath a blanket or something. 741 00:35:43,266 --> 00:35:46,269 And then she seen this hand put towards her 742 00:35:47,228 --> 00:35:51,315 or going towards her, and she was so scared she couldn't speak. 743 00:35:52,316 --> 00:35:56,487 And but she remembered what Enda had said to her. 744 00:35:57,488 --> 00:36:00,449 And she did say 745 00:36:00,449 --> 00:36:03,286 eventually for it to go away in the name of Christ. 746 00:36:03,286 --> 00:36:05,037 And she said it just went like. 747 00:36:05,037 --> 00:36:08,666 Like that was she she wasn't a Christian? No. 748 00:36:08,666 --> 00:36:10,084 At the time. She wasn't a Christian. 749 00:36:10,084 --> 00:36:13,171 But she believed in the power that God can do it. 750 00:36:13,504 --> 00:36:16,716 It's almost like, do you believe that I can do this? 751 00:36:16,716 --> 00:36:19,802 Yeah. Oh, that is that is amazing. 752 00:36:19,802 --> 00:36:20,720 It's incredible. 753 00:36:20,720 --> 00:36:24,390 And at that point I was like, wow, Christ is real. 754 00:36:24,390 --> 00:36:26,142 You know, God is real. 755 00:36:26,142 --> 00:36:27,977 And it was like, oh, we need to come to church. 756 00:36:27,977 --> 00:36:29,854 We have to find church. 757 00:36:29,854 --> 00:36:32,106 And we were just so shocked 758 00:36:32,106 --> 00:36:35,735 that that's where the Christian journey for us started. 759 00:36:36,861 --> 00:36:38,070 that is kind of 760 00:36:38,070 --> 00:36:42,074 phenomenal to me, that the paranormal or whatever you want to call it, 761 00:36:42,575 --> 00:36:46,370 and it's response to the name of Jesus is really 762 00:36:46,370 --> 00:36:50,082 a significant part of you all starting your journey to Christianity. 763 00:36:50,374 --> 00:36:53,586 Yeah, well, that's not the normal path people take. 764 00:36:53,961 --> 00:36:56,047 Christianity. 765 00:36:56,047 --> 00:36:57,423 But it connected with you. 766 00:36:57,423 --> 00:37:00,468 I I'm getting a sense it connected with you and your husband 767 00:37:00,885 --> 00:37:03,888 because you had been in this world before. 768 00:37:04,513 --> 00:37:09,727 This probably was really stuck out to you as whoa, We've never seen this before. 769 00:37:09,727 --> 00:37:11,312 No. And it was just so incredible. 770 00:37:11,312 --> 00:37:14,148 Especially the way I believed her when she told me to start. 771 00:37:14,148 --> 00:37:15,733 Because I knew, you know, why would you? 772 00:37:15,733 --> 00:37:17,151 Why would she lie. Yeah. She. 773 00:37:17,151 --> 00:37:17,735 Yeah. 774 00:37:17,735 --> 00:37:19,987 Like, I have experience it myself, I know. Well. 775 00:37:19,987 --> 00:37:21,948 And at the time, she was in such a bad place 776 00:37:21,948 --> 00:37:25,451 that I think that it was manifesting in a bad way. So 777 00:37:26,619 --> 00:37:30,122 it it confirmed her like it converted her to really. 778 00:37:30,122 --> 00:37:31,832 So she became a Christian then? 779 00:37:31,832 --> 00:37:33,125 Yeah, but we were very. 780 00:37:33,125 --> 00:37:36,295 How would I say not a like we were Christians, 781 00:37:36,295 --> 00:37:39,548 but we were we'd still we're like at the very, very, very beginning. 782 00:37:39,548 --> 00:37:41,676 So we still were in our old ways. 783 00:37:41,676 --> 00:37:46,806 Well, I was I, I don't think I was reading a Bible at the time much. 784 00:37:47,265 --> 00:37:50,268 I just know I got inspired by my husband reading it. 785 00:37:51,310 --> 00:37:53,980 And so we were kind of 786 00:37:53,980 --> 00:37:55,731 going on that journey together. 787 00:37:55,731 --> 00:37:58,734 And then after this, we found a church. 788 00:37:58,734 --> 00:38:01,737 And because we wanted to learn more about the faith, 789 00:38:01,904 --> 00:38:03,906 but I didn't want to go back to the Catholic Church. 790 00:38:03,906 --> 00:38:06,909 So any church will do at that stage, 791 00:38:07,952 --> 00:38:11,163 and it was very charismatic church too. 792 00:38:11,414 --> 00:38:15,751 So it really helped me to build that relationship with God and Christ. 793 00:38:16,294 --> 00:38:18,212 But then, 794 00:38:18,212 --> 00:38:20,506 we were learning more about the Bible, 795 00:38:20,506 --> 00:38:23,676 and then we seen the heretical teachings 796 00:38:23,676 --> 00:38:26,846 of that particular church that we were in involved with. 797 00:38:27,763 --> 00:38:30,683 So that was disappointing. 798 00:38:30,683 --> 00:38:33,311 There was like this whole Christian world that opened up 799 00:38:33,311 --> 00:38:35,855 with all these different denominations that we just were. 800 00:38:35,855 --> 00:38:36,981 So we were lost. 801 00:38:36,981 --> 00:38:39,984 oh, that must have been incredibly confusing. 802 00:38:40,192 --> 00:38:43,279 Very confusing, because neither you or your husband 803 00:38:43,404 --> 00:38:46,866 had interaction really with Christianity to this point. 804 00:38:46,866 --> 00:38:49,368 I mean, not not to a meaningful level, at least. 805 00:38:49,368 --> 00:38:51,996 So you're coming in with 806 00:38:51,996 --> 00:38:56,208 having read the Bible and some of the things that a Jehovah's Witness told you. 807 00:38:56,459 --> 00:38:57,585 And that's 808 00:38:57,585 --> 00:39:02,214 and a little bit of Catholic background, so you don't have much teaching 809 00:39:02,214 --> 00:39:05,509 or context, I guess I would say for Christianity to begin with. 810 00:39:05,593 --> 00:39:07,720 Yeah, that must have been hard. 811 00:39:07,720 --> 00:39:10,639 Yeah it was, but my husband has such a great ability to research. 812 00:39:10,639 --> 00:39:12,099 Yeah, yeah. 813 00:39:12,099 --> 00:39:14,352 There's he had. 814 00:39:15,644 --> 00:39:16,604 Yeah, he 815 00:39:16,604 --> 00:39:20,524 could, he could discuss with this friend for hours. 816 00:39:20,524 --> 00:39:24,862 Why what he believes in some certain things is not 817 00:39:26,405 --> 00:39:27,281 the way the Bible says it. 818 00:39:27,281 --> 00:39:29,617 You know, because the Jehovah's Witnesses have their own Bible. 819 00:39:29,617 --> 00:39:31,160 And then there is 820 00:39:31,160 --> 00:39:34,288 the other Bible, like, Oh, I bet those were some interesting conversations. 821 00:39:34,288 --> 00:39:36,457 They were very long ones, too. 822 00:39:36,457 --> 00:39:38,584 But, you know, it was good for something like it 823 00:39:38,584 --> 00:39:42,171 was it definitely helped us in our, our Christian journey. 824 00:39:42,171 --> 00:39:45,383 And then we had the problems with this church that we were part of. 825 00:39:46,592 --> 00:39:47,968 Yeah, we were learning. 826 00:39:47,968 --> 00:39:48,803 We were still learning. 827 00:39:48,803 --> 00:39:51,514 We were still looking for answers. 828 00:39:51,514 --> 00:39:54,141 It was very difficult in that church for us. 829 00:39:54,141 --> 00:39:57,520 Well because, because then that, that must have started you on a journey of okay 830 00:39:57,728 --> 00:40:01,315 you've, you've read the scriptures, you've become convinced that it's true. 831 00:40:01,399 --> 00:40:02,566 You're starting to follow Christ 832 00:40:02,566 --> 00:40:04,485 now like you said you're in the very very beginning. 833 00:40:04,485 --> 00:40:06,695 Yeah. Steps. You know, of that journey. 834 00:40:06,695 --> 00:40:10,241 And now you have a pretty, complicated 835 00:40:10,574 --> 00:40:14,328 process of, okay, what does church look like for for you? 836 00:40:15,704 --> 00:40:18,124 I can't even imagine what that would be like coming in with 837 00:40:18,124 --> 00:40:22,461 with so little context about Christianity, you would have so much to learn. 838 00:40:22,920 --> 00:40:25,172 That must've been quite the process. 839 00:40:25,172 --> 00:40:25,589 was a lot. 840 00:40:25,589 --> 00:40:28,843 Yeah, it was like the church where we were part of it was still kind of 841 00:40:28,843 --> 00:40:33,889 bells and whistles, like in the in a way that you still felt like the 842 00:40:34,265 --> 00:40:37,977 it was like from going from the new age on all the, the wonders and the 843 00:40:38,394 --> 00:40:41,147 and the paranormal and everything where you could kind of see and hear 844 00:40:41,147 --> 00:40:44,150 and touch and so, you know, it was 845 00:40:44,233 --> 00:40:46,569 it was very similar in to that charismatic church to, you know, 846 00:40:46,569 --> 00:40:49,572 people were speaking in tongues and there was music 847 00:40:49,655 --> 00:40:53,325 and people were spontaneously laughing. 848 00:40:53,325 --> 00:40:57,872 And it was, you know, but it was not in their eyes that that was that was God. 849 00:40:58,164 --> 00:41:01,167 There was the Holy Spirit, there was the opposite. 850 00:41:01,709 --> 00:41:04,378 But I started feeling like, well, I don't feel that way. 851 00:41:04,378 --> 00:41:06,380 I don't feel like bursting out laughing, or 852 00:41:06,380 --> 00:41:09,550 speaking in tongues or am I not believing enough? 853 00:41:10,342 --> 00:41:13,471 You know, if I, I, I started just feeling that way. 854 00:41:13,471 --> 00:41:16,599 It's like I just couldn't feel what those people were feeling. Ooh. 855 00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:19,852 And that that must have been disorienting. 856 00:41:20,144 --> 00:41:22,563 Yeah. It was. And so I was kind of like 857 00:41:24,023 --> 00:41:26,108 how would I say I just had to go to God. 858 00:41:26,108 --> 00:41:29,111 Like how do, how do Christian live. 859 00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:32,198 Like I know there's Muslims and they have their communities 860 00:41:32,198 --> 00:41:35,993 and they have their different clothes and they have their culture 861 00:41:36,494 --> 00:41:39,580 that they had their faith, but they live in it all the time. 862 00:41:41,123 --> 00:41:43,250 I go here, and I feel good for the Sunday. 863 00:41:43,250 --> 00:41:47,713 And then I come home, back to my own bed and my life, you know. 864 00:41:47,713 --> 00:41:49,298 Yeah. And I wanted something more. 865 00:41:49,298 --> 00:41:54,178 I wanted to live it every day because it just felt right at that time. 866 00:41:54,178 --> 00:41:56,263 It's like, God takes 867 00:41:56,263 --> 00:41:59,266 the the darkness out of your eyes and the 868 00:42:00,100 --> 00:42:04,021 you want him more and more and you don't find you love. 869 00:42:04,813 --> 00:42:05,648 I used to hate color. 870 00:42:05,648 --> 00:42:07,525 Like I was always wearing black and stuff, and 871 00:42:08,859 --> 00:42:11,195 it just I started to enjoy things. 872 00:42:11,195 --> 00:42:17,117 I loved flowers, everything lovely and colorful, and I just wanted to be in that. 873 00:42:17,368 --> 00:42:21,789 And it wasn't when I came back home from church, like we had no community. 874 00:42:22,414 --> 00:42:24,667 Those people just went back to their own work. 875 00:42:24,667 --> 00:42:25,459 And yeah, we 876 00:42:25,459 --> 00:42:29,463 then had a very complicated relationship with the pastors and the people in there. 877 00:42:30,381 --> 00:42:33,092 The more we knew and the more we were questioning. 878 00:42:33,092 --> 00:42:37,429 So and I was asking God about how to Christian live 879 00:42:37,429 --> 00:42:40,558 and so, yeah, I seen people head covering. 880 00:42:41,350 --> 00:42:44,687 Then when I was trying to figure it out, I think I just stumbled across 881 00:42:44,687 --> 00:42:48,107 one lady and she said she was a Christian and she was head covering where 882 00:42:48,732 --> 00:42:51,735 I was on YouTube. 883 00:42:51,777 --> 00:42:52,695 Sounds like rain. 884 00:42:52,695 --> 00:42:56,156 Oh yeah. Yeah, well that lady. really. Okay. 885 00:42:56,156 --> 00:42:57,366 So just searching. 886 00:42:57,366 --> 00:42:59,493 Yeah. On the internet and you just find things. 887 00:42:59,493 --> 00:43:00,327 Yeah. 888 00:43:00,327 --> 00:43:02,663 So I was like, all that is interesting. 889 00:43:02,663 --> 00:43:03,581 Were they. 890 00:43:03,581 --> 00:43:06,125 When I looked at their vlogs, they were a Christian family. 891 00:43:06,125 --> 00:43:07,209 They had their community. 892 00:43:07,209 --> 00:43:09,503 They talked about God all the time. 893 00:43:10,671 --> 00:43:13,674 They had all of this music or whatever. 894 00:43:13,674 --> 00:43:15,926 And I wanted 895 00:43:15,926 --> 00:43:19,346 and I, and I so I learned why she's head covering 896 00:43:20,055 --> 00:43:24,018 and I wanted to I felt like I want to do it too. 897 00:43:25,477 --> 00:43:28,105 And but I couldn't find anybody in Ireland doing it. 898 00:43:28,105 --> 00:43:31,108 Like even in our church, no one was talking about head covering. 899 00:43:31,859 --> 00:43:34,862 If anything, it was more like, I don't know what they were thinking, 900 00:43:36,447 --> 00:43:39,283 Because Ireland would be 901 00:43:39,283 --> 00:43:42,286 at least nominally very Catholic. 902 00:43:42,411 --> 00:43:43,120 Right. 903 00:43:43,120 --> 00:43:46,332 But beyond that it's actually just pretty secular. 904 00:43:46,332 --> 00:43:46,540 Right. 905 00:43:46,540 --> 00:43:51,211 And there isn't that much no Christianity as we would think of it. 906 00:43:51,253 --> 00:43:53,464 Right. The kind that’s lived out. 907 00:43:53,464 --> 00:43:54,965 And and so forth. 908 00:43:54,965 --> 00:43:57,509 It's almost more like a box that's checked. 909 00:43:57,509 --> 00:43:59,678 You know, I'm a Christian, kind of like. 910 00:43:59,678 --> 00:44:01,972 Is that a fair assessment? I don't want to. 911 00:44:01,972 --> 00:44:02,473 Yeah, there is, 912 00:44:02,473 --> 00:44:06,393 but then when you're like in the, I would say in the Pentecostal circles, 913 00:44:07,353 --> 00:44:09,730 you do have churches like that, 914 00:44:09,730 --> 00:44:13,984 but I never like I did look like I told you, it's not too bad, you know, 915 00:44:14,652 --> 00:44:18,322 but I just couldn't find anyone that head covers, and that was my requirement. 916 00:44:18,322 --> 00:44:22,159 Like, if they do obey this from the Bible, I'm sure they will obey way more. 917 00:44:22,159 --> 00:44:24,453 And they would take it really seriously. 918 00:44:24,453 --> 00:44:26,121 So are we just searching on the internet? 919 00:44:26,121 --> 00:44:29,458 Like, I don't know, head covering Christian in Ireland and things like that. 920 00:44:30,042 --> 00:44:31,752 Nothing came up. 921 00:44:31,752 --> 00:44:34,880 And but then when I wrote the head covering 922 00:44:35,214 --> 00:44:37,966 a bunch of Anabaptist people came up. 923 00:44:37,966 --> 00:44:39,677 So, there was. 924 00:44:39,677 --> 00:44:43,305 Yeah, that's what, that's what that's what opened the door to all everything 925 00:44:43,806 --> 00:44:46,809 through all the struggles we had and the searches of the searching 926 00:44:46,809 --> 00:44:49,603 of the different churches and denominations. And we can be part of. 927 00:44:50,729 --> 00:44:52,398 And I really, 928 00:44:52,398 --> 00:44:57,027 I found this particular lady that I really enjoyed watching her vlogs 929 00:44:57,027 --> 00:45:00,030 and the way she was presenting herself and the. 930 00:45:00,114 --> 00:45:03,117 Like, she was wearing a cape dress and she was wearing a head covering. 931 00:45:03,117 --> 00:45:05,703 And I was really interested in that. 932 00:45:05,703 --> 00:45:07,621 I was like, that's very nice. 933 00:45:07,621 --> 00:45:10,958 and presented it to my husband and just like, what do you think of this user? 934 00:45:11,125 --> 00:45:13,293 I think she was like, she's a Mennonite. 935 00:45:13,293 --> 00:45:15,546 And then, 936 00:45:15,546 --> 00:45:17,131 so I was like, 937 00:45:17,131 --> 00:45:20,134 I wonder if there's any Anabaptist in Ireland. 938 00:45:20,342 --> 00:45:23,345 And sure enough, there was and I just could not believe it 939 00:45:23,595 --> 00:45:26,014 that there is church in Dunmore East. 940 00:45:26,014 --> 00:45:29,226 And so we have looked in their website and then there was, 941 00:45:29,226 --> 00:45:31,812 listening to their sermons as well 942 00:45:31,812 --> 00:45:33,731 as you were trying to figure out what they believe in, 943 00:45:33,731 --> 00:45:37,109 because we were just like going from denomination to the other, 944 00:45:37,109 --> 00:45:39,236 and they believe in this, but they don't believe in that. 945 00:45:39,236 --> 00:45:43,574 And these go to war and these, you know, 946 00:45:44,283 --> 00:45:47,286 so but then the Anabaptists, they, 947 00:45:47,619 --> 00:45:51,331 they value the Bible so much. 948 00:45:51,874 --> 00:45:53,959 We really like the way 949 00:45:53,959 --> 00:45:57,171 it's not just about the outwardly appearance, but like even the, the, 950 00:45:57,296 --> 00:46:02,593 the nonresistance was very is like, wow, they, they, they're even non-resistant. 951 00:46:03,594 --> 00:46:05,179 And so yeah. 952 00:46:05,179 --> 00:46:08,390 And they had, got a contact with the pastor Dan 953 00:46:09,641 --> 00:46:12,436 at the time and 954 00:46:12,436 --> 00:46:17,107 they became really good friends and he helped us to answer questions 955 00:46:17,107 --> 00:46:20,235 that we had that we couldn't talk to our pastor about. 956 00:46:20,986 --> 00:46:24,907 And, yeah, we then decided to leave the church 957 00:46:24,907 --> 00:46:28,076 we were in, and we came to visit here 958 00:46:29,411 --> 00:46:30,996 and this church here. 959 00:46:30,996 --> 00:46:34,917 And then that begins the whole that, that next part of the journey. 960 00:46:34,917 --> 00:46:35,167 Right. 961 00:46:35,167 --> 00:46:39,087 Because ultimately, had to move that I'm assuming from a different place 962 00:46:39,087 --> 00:46:42,174 to join the community here and, and so forth. 963 00:46:42,216 --> 00:46:46,428 I'm guessing that this whole process, this is probably a pretty long process 964 00:46:47,012 --> 00:46:50,224 from first coming to Christianity to begin with, to ultimately 965 00:46:50,224 --> 00:46:54,061 where you are now here in the south of Ireland, now in Dunmore East. 966 00:46:55,562 --> 00:46:55,854 That was 967 00:46:55,854 --> 00:46:58,857 probably a long process about how many years was that? 968 00:46:58,857 --> 00:47:02,110 I'm trying to think I was pregnant with my first child, so that was 2020. 969 00:47:02,611 --> 00:47:05,614 So I think we kind of made the contact in 2019. 970 00:47:05,989 --> 00:47:10,327 And since then we, we, we were maintaining our relationship with the church. 971 00:47:10,744 --> 00:47:13,497 And because we lived so far away, 972 00:47:13,497 --> 00:47:16,500 we tried to make it our business to come every two weeks. 973 00:47:16,750 --> 00:47:18,919 But it wasn't it just wasn't working out. 974 00:47:18,919 --> 00:47:19,503 Yeah. 975 00:47:19,503 --> 00:47:22,381 And so we were like, we know we have to make a decision. 976 00:47:22,381 --> 00:47:24,424 Do we want to stay. 977 00:47:24,424 --> 00:47:29,054 And who knows what Yeah, we will be doing? 978 00:47:29,429 --> 00:47:33,684 Or do we want to join this church that we want so badly to be part of? 979 00:47:33,725 --> 00:47:37,604 Because we we, we liked not just the community, 980 00:47:37,604 --> 00:47:40,983 but just the you live Christ every single day. 981 00:47:41,650 --> 00:47:43,485 And I just really, really liked that. 982 00:47:43,485 --> 00:47:46,655 And it was like the answer to my prayer that I was talking to God about, 983 00:47:46,947 --> 00:47:48,156 about how the Christian lives. 984 00:47:48,156 --> 00:47:49,700 And this was the answer. 985 00:47:49,700 --> 00:47:52,327 Wow. And, yeah. 986 00:47:52,327 --> 00:47:54,997 So we decided to move over to New Ross. 987 00:47:54,997 --> 00:47:59,751 At first because for a very long time we couldn't find any house to stay in. 988 00:48:00,711 --> 00:48:03,589 So the the move was very dramatic, 989 00:48:04,548 --> 00:48:06,258 especially, 990 00:48:06,258 --> 00:48:09,261 Enda’s parents were not very happy about that. 991 00:48:10,220 --> 00:48:12,723 So yeah, that's we moved there. 992 00:48:12,723 --> 00:48:15,767 And then we got baptized in 2022. 993 00:48:17,019 --> 00:48:19,771 So what a what a journey. 994 00:48:19,771 --> 00:48:23,483 You know from Slovakia you know and 995 00:48:24,693 --> 00:48:27,738 some interactions early on with the Catholics 996 00:48:27,738 --> 00:48:31,783 and then on to these other things you were part of, and then ultimately 997 00:48:31,783 --> 00:48:36,038 finding the scriptures and how that completely changed your life. 998 00:48:36,413 --> 00:48:39,374 Yeah. Just completely. completely. Yeah. 999 00:48:39,416 --> 00:48:42,461 It is just a testament to how powerful God's word is. 1000 00:48:42,544 --> 00:48:44,087 Very, You know. Yeah. 1001 00:48:44,087 --> 00:48:49,051 So I'm, I'm guessing there's people listening to this episode 1002 00:48:49,217 --> 00:48:52,638 that are on different points of maybe a somewhat similar journey. 1003 00:48:52,679 --> 00:48:55,182 You know, they're trying to find maybe they're testing. 1004 00:48:55,182 --> 00:49:00,062 Is is Christianity true or what what church should they consider joining? 1005 00:49:00,062 --> 00:49:02,689 You know what community should they what should they join in? 1006 00:49:02,689 --> 00:49:05,275 And these journeys are sometimes long 1007 00:49:05,275 --> 00:49:08,445 and not always a straight path, you know? 1008 00:49:08,820 --> 00:49:13,116 But what would you say to to someone in that position to encourage them, 1009 00:49:13,617 --> 00:49:16,620 or any advice you would like to give to someone like that? 1010 00:49:16,703 --> 00:49:19,373 Well, I’m not the source of wisdom or like, you know, not very good 1011 00:49:19,373 --> 00:49:22,709 and encouraging people, but I would definitely say that 1012 00:49:22,918 --> 00:49:27,589 please keep seeking and there is no wrong questions 1013 00:49:28,131 --> 00:49:32,219 and that God meets you where you are and he 1014 00:49:33,178 --> 00:49:33,929 he gives you. 1015 00:49:33,929 --> 00:49:36,390 If you are serious about your journey and if you're 1016 00:49:36,390 --> 00:49:39,393 serious about looking for God, he will show himself to you. 1017 00:49:40,310 --> 00:49:42,980 If you're doing it for the good reasons, 1018 00:49:42,980 --> 00:49:45,983 then he will meet you where you are. 1019 00:49:46,108 --> 00:49:49,486 Be being in a Pentecostal church, being out in the world somewhere. 1020 00:49:50,237 --> 00:49:52,531 He will meet you there and he'll lead you home. 1021 00:49:52,531 --> 00:49:55,242 And just don't give up. 1022 00:49:55,242 --> 00:49:57,619 Sounds like, faithfulness 1023 00:49:57,619 --> 00:50:01,873 to what God is calling us to is one element, but also patience. 1024 00:50:02,082 --> 00:50:03,083 Yes. Patience. 1025 00:50:03,083 --> 00:50:03,375 Yeah. 1026 00:50:03,375 --> 00:50:06,253 Because it didn't happen just immediately for you. 1027 00:50:06,253 --> 00:50:08,463 Yeah. This was a long process. 1028 00:50:08,463 --> 00:50:09,548 Yeah, definitely. 1029 00:50:09,548 --> 00:50:13,427 It's nothing radical like I always thought it would be. 1030 00:50:13,468 --> 00:50:16,471 Just this profound. Radical change. 1031 00:50:16,555 --> 00:50:17,931 But now I just see it's not. 1032 00:50:17,931 --> 00:50:18,390 I don't think 1033 00:50:18,390 --> 00:50:21,393 people would really handle it that well if it was a radical experience. 1034 00:50:21,518 --> 00:50:23,687 And yeah that's true. 1035 00:50:23,687 --> 00:50:24,938 I hadn't thought of that. 1036 00:50:24,938 --> 00:50:28,442 It’d be almost too much of an adjustment all at once. 1037 00:50:28,525 --> 00:50:29,484 I'd say. So. 1038 00:50:29,484 --> 00:50:32,487 I think people just need time and God knows that. 1039 00:50:32,487 --> 00:50:36,450 He knows everybody intimately, and he knows what works with other people. 1040 00:50:37,284 --> 00:50:41,371 you know there's a there in revelation it talks about how, 1041 00:50:42,706 --> 00:50:44,416 Christ followers overcome 1042 00:50:44,416 --> 00:50:47,419 through the word of their testimony and through the blood of the lamb. 1043 00:50:47,669 --> 00:50:50,505 And then you've definitely shown us both of those today. 1044 00:50:50,505 --> 00:50:53,216 You know, on, on this episode, you know, that our testimonies, 1045 00:50:53,216 --> 00:50:56,803 our stories have power, because of what Christ has done. 1046 00:50:56,803 --> 00:50:59,306 Because because of who he is, not who we are. 1047 00:50:59,306 --> 00:51:04,352 As we bring this, this story, you know, 1048 00:51:04,603 --> 00:51:08,231 pull this package together and, and bring this episode to a close. 1049 00:51:08,273 --> 00:51:11,276 Is there anything else you would like to leave with the listeners? 1050 00:51:12,069 --> 00:51:15,072 I just pray that everyone will find what they're looking for. 1051 00:51:17,282 --> 00:51:17,824 Yeah. 1052 00:51:17,824 --> 00:51:21,578 If you're if you're struggling, I do pray that you will get in. 1053 00:51:21,578 --> 00:51:23,455 You'll have peace. 1054 00:51:23,455 --> 00:51:24,623 But God is good. 1055 00:51:24,623 --> 00:51:26,541 And he sees you when he sees your pain 1056 00:51:27,793 --> 00:51:29,878 and he will lead you home. 1057 00:51:29,878 --> 00:51:31,379 Just be faithful. 1058 00:51:31,379 --> 00:51:35,884 Well, Susie thank you so much for sharing with us today. 1059 00:51:36,218 --> 00:51:37,427 Thank you. 1060 00:51:38,261 --> 00:51:40,847 Thanks for listening to this episode with Susie. 1061 00:51:40,847 --> 00:51:43,266 If you found this interesting, you should go to our website 1062 00:51:43,266 --> 00:51:47,145 at Anabaptistperspectives.org where you can find all our content. 1063 00:51:47,270 --> 00:51:49,022 We've recorded a number of other life 1064 00:51:49,022 --> 00:51:52,526 stories on this podcast and I hope you find those interesting. 1065 00:51:53,026 --> 00:51:56,071 Thanks again for listening and we'll see you in the next episode.