My name is Brent Speak. My family and I have been attending here for around 7 years. The first Mass that we actually attended was the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. If you would have told me 10 years ago, that I would be standing up here and giving a personal narrative (a testimony of sorts) of how it was that I came to come to Mary Immaculate, a Catholic Church, I would have scarcely believed you. You see, I was born and raised a Protestant—in the Fundamentalist/Evangelical strain.  We were not nominal Protestants, either. We went to church twice on Sundays, as well as once on Wednesday nights. That doesn’t include Sunday school and children’s church, as well as church camps and various revivals and everything that comes along with those.  My brother is a pastor in Macon, and I was even a deacon (akin to the Parish Pastoral Council) at the time I was called out of that church. I will always be grateful for the formation that I received, even though I ultimately realized that it was fundamentally inadequate, that is to say, incomplete.
 
My joining the Church was not much short of being miraculous, I suppose. I have heard multiple times that people either marry their way into the Church or read their way into the Church. I was neither, and yet, I was both.
 
I was reconciled to the Church on December 18^th, 2016—this happened to be our wedding anniversary. This was improbable in and of itself. I recall once telling a girl who was chasing me, “I could never date a Catholic.”  And while this was in part an evasive maneuver, it was also true.  Somehow, she eventually caught me, and we were married at St. Bonaventure in Marceline.  I promptly “converted” her to a Protestant, or maybe she just started coming along with me without too much protest.
 
This continued on for about 15 years of marriage.  Little did I know that things were going to shift dramatically (and somewhat miraculously).  Since moving back to Kirksville, my kids had always attended school here at Mary Immaculate. As it would happen, Msgr. Cox was assigned to be the pastor. Growing up, my wife knew him well. When Msgr. Cox realized that she was no longer a practicing Catholic, he began to pray for her daily.  My wife began to feel the call to come home. She never relayed this feeling to me. However, she began to pray for God to spur my reconciliation, and He did. Out of the blue, for 3 nights in a row, I was awakened in the middle of the night with the overwhelming sense that I should become Catholic. The next Sunday, while I was sitting in my former church running the soundboard, I knew that I was no longer where I belonged. I was called to be Catholic. I was called to conversion. At that moment, I sent an email to the Director of Religious Education at Mary Immaculate and asked to join the RCIA classes.
 
My brother being a pastor, and my father a deacon at the church that I used to attend, I knew that I would have to be able to give an answer for why I chose this path.  So, I started to read. I read and I read, because I wanted, when questioned, to have an intellectual leg to stand on. Also, I had been called to be Catholic—there was no question about that in my mind—but I really wanted to thoroughly know what I said I believed.

RCIA was a process that changed my life. Because I grew up Protestant, the concept of an ongoing conversion was completely lost on me. As I began to learn about my new Faith, it became more than just a cognitive assent. A change of heart occurred, as well as a change of mind.
 
God spurring me along to join RCIA was a miracle, but not the only one.  God then sent me another miracle, a tangible miracle, in that I was able to come into contact with dynamic members of the body of Christ: that is His Church. Pat Lehr, Don Crosby, soon to be Deacon Chris Korte were with me as I went through this process. I learned, I grew, I changed. I began to realize what it meant to live a sacramental life. I have always heard that I was supposed to be part of the Body of Christ, but they made it seem more tangible than I had previously experienced (not that I didn’t encounter dynamic and devout Christians growing up, because I did).  Their teaching, fellowship, and the life that they lived, God used as a witness to His grace in my ongoing conversion.

God’s grace brought me to the Church. God’s grace also brought me to members of the Body of Christ who picked me up and carried me along the way.  Without answering their call to stewardship, the local congregation would certainly be different. I know that I would certainly be different.
 
I am called, we are all called.  Sometimes my answering the call is hampered by self-doubt, lack of time and all of the other excuses that I can devise. However, I know my life would be less had others not given of their time and talent. I pray that I can be such a member of the Body of Christ that down the road that I may be used as an instrument of God’s grace in someone else's life. While I know that I may occasionally fail, I do love what Monsignor Makarewicz said once in a homily. I know that I am pulling it a little out of context, but he said, “Remember the invitation continues.”  I do pray that I will always echo the prophet Isaiah in saying, “Here am I Lord, send me.”