My father was born in 1909 in Croatia, which then was part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. He lived with his parents on their farm until he was thirteen years old, and then moved away to become a dyer’s apprentice. In those days, people re-dyed their old clothes, or re-dyed the unraveled the yarn of old clothes, to make new clothes. Eventually he started his own shop in the dyers trade. By the time World War II had begun, he was in the Croatian army. When the German military occupied Croatia and took over, they conscripted him into the German army. He spent the war years on the Eastern front. Late in the war was captured by the Russians, but managed to escape and make his way to Austria. He had heard that his mother had fled there. His father had died between the First and Second World Wars. He surrendered himself up to the Americans in Austria, and was interned in a POW camp for a time. After his release he found his mother. Eventually he met and married my mother, who was also of Austrian decent, having been born there in 1918. My brother, Roman, was born in 1947, and I came along in 1948.

Times were hard in Austria, and my father wanted to enter Germany to live there. However the European borders were closed due to the war, so he determined to emmigrate to America to find a better life. People wanting to enter America needed to be sponsored, and the Catholic Church had a sponsorship program which met the requirement. This resulted in a certain moral commitment to the Catholic Church. In May of 1952, we sailed for America. My father worked as a ship’s laborer to pay our passage, and there were friends in Chicago which we could live with until we could get on our feet. Things didn’t work out in Chicago, and we moved to Milwaukee, where we settled permanently.

When it was time for my brother and I go to school, we were enrolled at Saint Michaels’ Elementary School which offered grades one through eight. Except for a few lay-ladies who taught in a few of the lower grades, the School Sisters Of Notre Dame staffed the school. All of the classes attended mass (the Catholic worship service), every morning, and went to confession (the Catholic Sacriment of Penance), once a month. My brother and I went to church every Sunday as well. My mother went to Sunday services only occasionally, and my father only at Christmas and Easter.

The only discussions about religion I ever remember having at our home were some personal experiences my father told me about. When he was a child in grade school, his class was receiving religious instruction from the parish priest. The priest was teaching the doctrine of the Trinity, and said that there was the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. He then asked my father how many Gods there were. My father replied that there were three Gods, assuming from the lesson that it was the correct answer. The priest then slapped my father, and declared in anger that there was only one God. Years later, when my father was a young adult, the same priest apologized to my father for that incident. The priest also made another statement that would affect my father’s perspective on religion. He told my father that when he had first come to the village as a young parish priest, he arrived with only the clothes on his back, but in the succeeding years, he had accumulated so many things that he would need a train to carry them all away. He unknowingly convinced my father that religion was a business that served the leaders at the expense of the led.

When I was in fourth grade, I came to what I would call a spiritual crossroad. I began to suspect that what I was being taught in catechism class was not entirely true. For example, I was told that Mary, the mother of Jesus, had to be sinless, because only a sinless person could give birth to another sinless person. It was apparent to me that if that were true, since Mary was sinless, then Mary’s mother would also have to be sinless, and that her grandmother would have to be sinless for the same reason. This pattern would logically have to continue all the way back to Eve, who was a known sinner. However, it was taught that Mary’s mother was indeed a sinner, and that only Mary was special in this regard. Something wasn’t adding up. There was also the matter of indulgences. How did they know, I wondered, that reciting a certain prayer a set number of times, or paying for masses to be said for the dead, would let people out of purgatory early according to the set number of days that they specified? There were timetables that were very specific as to how many days each indulgence would shave off the total number each person would have to endure in that hell-like place. I didn’t know where these timetables came from, but it was obvious to me that they were not from God.

Eventually, I asked my teacher, a nun, if I should read the Bible. She replied that it would be pointless, since only the theologians could understand it. The conclusion of that comment was that I would have no basis for determining truth, since all that was left was what man said. I also asked her if I should believe the creation story of Adam and Eve, or believe in evolution. Her reply was that it didn’t matter. “How could it not matter?” I thought. If that didn’t matter, then what did matter? I now realize that if there was no Adam and Eve, there could also be no original sin, a cornerstone of the Catholic religion. I wrestled with these things for a time, and then decided to express my concerns to a priest. Since I was too shy to actually talk to a priest face to face, I chose to bring up my doubts in the confessional, assuming the priest wouldn’t know who I was. When I asked the priest what to do about my doubts, he was silent for a moment, and then replied that I “should just have faith.” This was not nearly adequate for me. Have faith in what? The Bible was a closed book, and the teachings of men were obviously misguided. That event marked the end of my faith in Catholic teaching. I had been told that the Catholic Church was the “one true church,” but not finding that believable, I reasoned that there must not be any true church, and that God probably didn’t exist. By the time I was through public high school, my reasoning had led to my becoming an atheist. In those days I would defend my atheistic beliefs against anyone who challenged them. Nevertheless, I still feared inwardly that God might exist, in which case, I would probably not be on His good side. I now know that atheists are afraid of God; they just won’t admit it to anyone.

In February of 1969, five months after my wife and I were married, I was drafted into the US Army. I was sent to Germany, and after a few months, my wife joined me there. We lived off-base in the village of Germersheim. In August of 1970, our first child was born, and my wife wanted to have her baptized. I willingly went along with this, just in case I was wrong about God. We went to one mass on the base to set up the baptism with the priest, and went back the next week to have our daughter baptized. Those were the only two times we attended mass in our eighteen months in Germany. Our daughter was five months old when my military duty ended and we returned to the United States.

When the first of our four sons was born three years later, we again attended mass to set up a baptism for him at a church we had picked randomly. I was still avowing atheism, but we would have him baptized “just in case”. At the baptism, there were three or four other couples that were going to have their babies baptized also. When our turn came, the priest referred to my wife by her maiden name. Bacause we weren’t married in the Catholic Church, he didn’t consider us married at all. We were shocked and appalled that he would do this, making it appear that our son was illegitimate, and we never attended a Catholic service again.

It was during this period that I secured a machinist apprenticeship at the factory where I worked. There were several other apprentices in my social group, among whom was Gary, a “born again” Christian. Gary shared Bible verses with me and expressed a concern for my salvation. However, I would not be deterred from my atheistic beliefs, and Gary was not having much success in his efforts to win me to Christ. Finally Gary gave me a Bible. He said he could see that what he was telling me wasn’t having any effect, and that I should read the Bible for myself. My thought was, “I’m not afraid of this,” and determined to read the Bible, though I felt I mostly knew what was in it because of my years in Catholic elementary school. So I began to read in the book of Genesis and made it to Leviticus before completely bogging down. The genealogies were just too much for me. Some months later I tried again, and again, I got only as far as Leviticus. After a while, I determined to start reading in the New Testament, thinking the going would be easier. By the time I made it through the gospels, I was convinced that the Bible was the Word of God, and that I fell far short of going to heaven. Also, I was utterly amazed at the difference in teaching between the Bible and the Catholic Church. I began to realize that I had been deliberately shielded from many Biblical truths by the Catholic priests.

While continuing to read the New Testament, and then returning to finish reading the Old Testament, I abandoned my atheistic beliefs and determined to be a Christian. I distinctly remember deciding to believe in the Biblical story of creation, rather than evolution. The only reason I had to change my view was because it was what the Bible taught. I had come to the place where the Bible took precedent over all other authorities in my life. I read it constantly, seeking to know just what was in those pages. I was also starting to look for a church to attend. In my meager efforts to witness to my co-workers, one of the men asked me which church I attended. I replied that I didn’t attend church. He sort of mocked me, saying that it was odd for someone to talk about the Bible as I did, and not even attend a church. So I began to look for a church that preached the Bible.

I attended eleven different churches in all before settling on one that I felt taught the truth. Many of the churches were not much more than social clubs, and visitors were not very welcome at some of these institutions. My wife was interested in attending church, so one Sunday morning, she and our two children accompanied me. Cathy had bought a dress for the occasion since she didn’t own one at the time. As we walked from our car to the church for the first time, I was reflecting on the change that had taken place in my life. Here I was, going to church with my wife and children. The thought was overwhelming to me; so great had been the change and direction of our lives. I was in awe of what was happening.

Even with all this, I could tell that something was missing, although I didn’t know what it was. I believed all that the Bible said, and now was defending rather than challenging it. I believed in Christ, who had died for me. But for all this, I didn’t feel complete. I didn’t feel secure. And I wasn’t really sure I was going to heaven. I tried to dismiss these feelings, since I was a Christian now (or so I thought), but I did wonder why I was feeling this way. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was insecure because I wasn’t saved. The Spirit of God wasn’t witnessing with my spirit that I was a child of God. I believed all the right things, but I hadn’t accepted Christ and been born again. I didn’t know any of this; I just didn’t feel quite right.

Our family attended that church for a total of four weeks. On the fourth week, I filled out a visitor’s card, and checked the box that requested a visit from the pastor. I don’t remember my reason for doing that, but I do remember regretting it as soon as the card was put into the offering plate. I had felt intimidated by the Catholic priests, though there was no obvious reason for it, and I was also intimidated at the thought of a pastor coming to my house. The evening the pastor arrived, I was so nervous that my hand was shaking, and I could hardly drink my coffee. As we began to converse, unknown to me, the pastor was seeking to lead me to Christ. He could tell that I wasn’t saved; it was I that didn’t know it. Finally he asked me if I was willing to pray with him and receive Christ as my Savior. My inner thought was that I was already a believer, and what need was there of receiving Christ? But I also thought that if I said no to this invitation, it would be like denying Christ, and that was unthinkable. So I agreed to follow him in a prayer of receiving Christ. He also asked my wife if she would pray. She said that she would pray in her heart, but was actually thinking that she already had a relationship with God, and that this wasn’t necessary.

As the pastor led me in prayer, a great change took place in my life. In those moments I was gloriously saved! It was the deep-down, full assurance kind of salvation experience that leaves no room for doubt. After the prayer was finished, I was joyful and elated. I had passed from death into life, and I knew it. My wife hadn’t experienced anything since she wasn’t accepting what the pastor was saying. She questioned whether a person needed to be born again as I was, and the next day called a liberal pastor in the area to ask him about it. He said that being born again certainly wasn’t a necessity to go to heaven, and with that, she was content in believing that she was acceptable to God. Since she felt uncomfortable with the pastor that had led me to Christ, we moved on to attend other churches. One year later she also accepted Christ as her Savior.

In the years that followed, I never had any doubts about my salvation as many do. There were times, however, when my old atheistic thinking would invade my mind, and I would question whether God actually existed. Whenever I had these thoughts, I would think to myself, “Well if God exists, I am definitely saved; but if this is all a dream, and God doesn’t exist, I’m alright too, because there’s no hell”. Using that logic would get me past those thoughts. After four or five years, I finally came to the simple realization that if God didn’t exist, I wouldn’t exist either. After that, I never again struggled with those kinds of thoughts.

Many years ago, when I first began to read the Bible, I just wanted to know what was between the covers of that sacred Book. Now that I am familiar with the Bible, I have a need to know how I should understand its messages. As a rusult, I’ve been studying the Bible to the best of my limited ability. Sometimes my studies have resulted in written documents that I would like to share with others. This webpage has become my vehicle to with which to share what God has given me. I hope you find it useful, and enjoy in reading, as mush as I have enjoyed writing it.