May 1, 2025 • 52 mins
Susie Coyne grew up in Slovakia and was part of the Gothic underground. She later became involved in New Age Spiritualism and other dark practices, and had no interest in Christianity. In this episode, Susie tells her story of how she came to see that every knew will bow to Jesus, and ultimately how her and her husband left the New Age world behind and instead followed Christ.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
But then Satan then taints your mind.
So you start finding these things very
lovely.
Like, not lovely, but like you were.
You find the dark thingsbeautiful in a twisted way,
like you romanticize death, you know,you don't see it as what it is.
You see, there's some people in nice blackdress,
white in foreverfrolicking through the forest.
(00:22):
I don't know how to say it, but,yeah, it's not the real thing
at all.
Susie,
welcome to the Anabaptist Perspectivespodcast.
You're originally from Slovakia,I believe.
Which isn't where we are right now.We're actually in Ireland.
(00:44):
But there's a story there,and we want to capture some of your story
of how you came to Christ and the journey
you've been on over the years,and so, I guess, to start off with.
Yeah. Where were you born? What kind of
did you have?
A religious upbringing, you know? Yeah.
What was the environmentyou were born into?
Well, I was born in Slovakia.
(01:06):
I'm from Bratislava,which is the capital city,
and I grew up in the most denselypopulated district,
which was called Petrarca, which,
has a lot of, concrete
blocks of flats,like the typical Russian ones.
Oh, that's true, because they'd beenSoviet Union before, Yes, yes.
(01:28):
So, yeah,it looks very, very similar to that.
And, yeah, I lived inone of those buildings with my mom and dad
and my brother and we were just like a typical family.
We went to school,my mum and dad were working
Yeah, I had no religious upbringing at all
because during the Soviettimes, religion has been banned.
(01:51):
So there was like,you couldn't have any, religious
ideologies, like not just Christian,but any other ones as well.
So Christianity really kind of disappearedfrom from Slovakia at that time.
So no one was getting baptized,no one was going to church or,
you know, people were
(02:11):
learning more about whatthe party wanted them to know.
And so, yeah, when I was born,the communism fell.
the world had started changing.
I when I became,
when I went to my first grade.
That's when the religion startedto get back again into the country.
They opened the first religious class.
(02:34):
It was a Catholic class.
And, I only knew about Jesusfrom Christmas stories.
a lot of the childrenwent to this religious class,
but I didn't, and so you didn't. So why?
I don't know.I just didn't know what to do. There.
And my parents were not interested.
So I just was out with the teacherbecause it was after school.
(02:54):
So it was like an after school thingthat you can choose to go to or not.
But I was very bored, so I was like,
all my friends are in this classand I want to go there too.
And I want to learn about Jesus.
Like it would be nice to knowwhat what is it about more.
And he's a nice guy.
Just those little innocent thoughts.
(03:15):
And so I ask, mom, can I go?
And she was like,okay, she just let me go.
I don't really remember any details.
Like, did she have objections or not?
But then it turned outthat this religious class was about
children getting baptized
because childrenwere not being baptized back then.
(03:36):
So they wanted new people to startattending church and stuff like that.
So yeah, I was ten years old
and I asked my mom, can I get baptized?
Because I started to like Jesus.
He became my friend in a way.
I learned how to pray.
I was going to church with my friends.
(03:58):
My family didn't go to churchbecause So just you then?
Yeah, it was with your friends.Yeah. And again, this is Catholic.
This is Catholic, Yes.
We just had churchvery close to our house,
so it wasn't a problem to go therewith my friends.
And,
Yeah.
And then I ask, mom, can I get baptized?
And she didn't want me to get baptizedbecause she didn't believe in it.
(04:19):
She didn't think it was necessary,
or she was worried that I was goingto deep into it or something.
And she told me thatI had this look of horror
on my facethat I didn't want to go to hell
and so when she saw my face, she said,
okay, you can get baptized.
And I started the processof getting baptized.
(04:40):
I was,
we had several
meetings with the priest and,
yeah, he was justpreparing us on the journey, and,
yeah, I got baptizedand I still believe in God.
I still attended this class.
I was way older.
And then you go to your first communion,and then you go to confirmation.
(05:03):
And that waswhen I was in my teenage years.
I was about 13 or 14.
And then the priest said
that if you want to get confirmed,you have to be very serious
about your faith, because that meansyou were beginning your journey to live
like God wants you to live,and to follow the Catholic,
how would say faith
(05:25):
and, you know, like the rules and stuff
not just the basics of the Christianity,but like what the church would say, right?
Like what the Catholic Churchwould, would ask you to do.
Yeah. Okay.But I started having different,
different I
would I say interests,you know, teenagers.
They're influenced by television and music
(05:48):
and magazines and your friends especially.
And so I said to myself that, you know,
I am not serious and
I don't think I will be able for it.
And I would not be honestif I went ahead and got this confirmation,
and I told that to the priestand he was very disappointed.
(06:10):
But maybe he felt like, you know, better,
to be honest, than doing itand then just do it for the wrong reasons.
And yeah, ever since thenI just abandoned the whole
like I didn't like I did like Jesus still,
but I just got deeper into other things.
So Christianity
kind of falls out of your lifeso to speak.
(06:32):
Right.
It just regular life starts happening
and you get involved in other thingsand just, it just kind of disappears Yeah.
In a way.
Yeah. Especially when you don't have it inyour family.
It's very easy. That's true. Yeah.
So so like you so you had a sibling,you know, and your parents.
So they never really got involvedin any of this.
No, no, I my brotherused to make fun of me a lot about it.
(06:55):
So, you know, I was like, oh, okay.
I didn't find it.
I know, I guess I didn't havea relationship with Christ at the time,
and I just knew itfrom the Catholic point of view.
I didn't really read the Bible.
There were just the songbookthat we had or whatever.
How the mass goes every time.
And it's always the same here.
(07:17):
And I didn't know much abouthow Christian lives or anything like that.
So I find other things to do.
I got into sorry.
So Yeah, that's what I was going to ask.
So what happens to you at this point?
So you're in youryour teenage years? Yes. Yeah.
So life continues on.
You get involved in other things like.Yeah.
Where do you go then from this point?
Well,I started being interested in subcultures.
(07:41):
So subculturesas in the music subcultures,
either the alternative
scene where there was a lot ofit was kind of new
because, yeah, the 90sand the early 2000s were like kind
of like the boom in the Western culturecoming into the country.
(08:02):
Oh, true.
Because again,the fall of communism in 89,
I guess, is when I would have or 89, 90when that would really start up happening.
Yeah.
So there was a lot of new musiccoming in and
I really liked it at the time.
Like I like the rock music and differentthings you know, the different bands.
And I got different friends.
(08:24):
And then you know
there were interests like in differentlike paganism
was very like hand in handin with the subcultures and the music.
Oh, interesting.
So okay, I wouldn't have I guessthat kind of makes sense now you say.
I just have never thought of that before.
So when you started getting into the musicscene, did you start getting these other
(08:49):
ideas, world views,I guess getting pulled in with it.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
And everything just startedto be so interesting and even
the television started being like, likethe Harry Potter came out in the 2000s.
And then there was like the differentlike the witching movies.
(09:09):
It was a lot of them in the early 2000sand and on.
But like a lot basicallywith almost a a genre It was in a way.
Yeah.
And so that was like well I wonderyou know the internet came out.
Yeah.
You know
it was very dangerous times I guess for itfor, for, for kids at that time.
So yeah there is different
(09:31):
people meeting in different placesand that had the same interests as you.
So you learn a lot of different thingsthat you don't want to learn about.
So you then find out that,you know, witchcraft is true.
I like what if we could,you know, look into it with their parents.
Sure. What can you do?
We didn't know the real witchcraft. Where
people hurt other people.
(09:52):
But just like this watereddown, like, a pop culture
where witchcraft is kind offor entertainment witchcraft.
I like Harry Potter, for example,and that's an entertainment thing.
I mean, it's a movie.
Whatever It wasn't serious in any way,because I knew that there are
demonic forces from from,like, the movies, but whatever.
(10:12):
But I believe in them.
And so I didn't want to go deepinto that kind of thing.
Yeah. So then there was like the white.
The white, they call itlike the white witchcraft or whatever.
It's all the same.
But like, you know, the Celtsand the Vikings and their, their pagan
things and death, you know, the druidsand the herbs and things like that?
That was very interesting.
(10:34):
But I again, I only saw itas I was just romanticizing it.
You know, it was just in that kind of like
the culture, the music, the clothes,the people, how they used to live.
That's what drew me to that.
So how how deeply involved thendid you get into this, did
this turn into a major part of your lifegoing forward,
(10:57):
you know,through your teens, into your 20s?
What did that look like for you?
because I was from the capital city.
There was a lot of placeswhere you could meet
with people that are interested in this.
Different things.
Like there were people that were doing,like, historical reenactments.
And so they were very interestedin this mythology and whatever.
(11:18):
Then there was this Gothic subculture,and they used to have like,
like different pubs.
We used to go to different pubs, and weused to have this thing called bat caves,
whichwere like kind of like a discotheque,
which was like underground and in
a, like a dungeon.
And it was.
(11:39):
Yeah, it's a bit embarrassing.
Sorry.
No, no I understand thoughbecause there's, this is a significant
undercurrent of culture. Right.In a lot of places.
I mean there's a lot of people
that get involved in thisor become part of it, whatever.
But then Satan then taints your mind.
So you start finding these things very
lovely.
Like, not lovely, but like you were.
(12:01):
You find the dark thingsbeautiful in a twisted way,
like you romanticize death, you know,you don't see it as what it is.
You see, there's some
people in this black dress, whitein forever frolicking through the forest.
I don't know how to say it, but,
yeah, it's not the real thing at all.
(12:22):
Yeah.
You just go on tourslike the horror movies and, you know,
then, like, it's like
it's like Satan is working in your mind,but you don't know about it.
You know, nothing
significant is really happening,but you find yourself getting, like,
depressedor you're not doing well at school,
or you don't get on with your parentsvery well.
(12:43):
You're a loner.
You just want to be with your friends,or you want to drink or you want to smoke.
You know, these kind of things.
So that's where a lot of my friendswent down that road.
You mentioned Gothic
previouslywas that also part of the picture.
Oh yeah. Part of the story.
Yeah.
That was very much so like you would haveidentified with that at an for a while.
(13:08):
Yeah.
Oh yeah I would,yeah I would, we would go to,
we would
go to cemeteries and drink thereand it would be just
that would be our pastime.
And we just love places like that.
Abandoned housesand just things like that.
There's that is
(13:29):
I don't I don't fully understand all the,the forces involved, obviously, but,
you know, Christ coming in and defeatingdeath and conquering the grave.
And, you know, either the core fundamentaldoctrines of Christianity
about how death is a great evilthat, God has conquered
and Christ has conquered,but then you have these other groups,
Gothic, you know, neo paganism,I guess, you know,
(13:51):
some of these groups that are say,oh, well, no, that's not that.
They reinterpret what death is and turn itinto something that's they glamorize it.
Yeah.
There you go. That'smaybe the word I'm looking for.
And I as a Christian,I've never understood that.
They just seems I don't get it at all.
But hearing what you're describing.
Wow. That'sactually starting to make sense.
(14:13):
You know how someone could get into that?Yeah.
You know,if they don't have the Christian framework
of how death is viewed through, you know,in the lens of Scripture, they say that
they see it as a bad thing,like they don't want to live in the world.
Like, for me personally,I didn't like the world that I was in.
I thought people were judging me.
I couldn't identify with people.
So I thought, well, well,
(14:34):
these people understand me.
It feels good to be when you are downand like they're
the loner stage of life.
It it is just appealing to, you know,I don't understand it.
Now either,
but yeah, it was just some
it was just,I don't know, it was different.
(14:57):
And you can escape into that.
Reality almost like, like escapism.
I hesitate to use that termbecause I'm sure there's more involved.
But escapism is very realfor a lot of people.
They just want to get outof whatever situation they're in.
You mentioned loneliness too.
It feels like that'san important part of this story.
(15:18):
Like looking for friends,looking for a place.
Well, yeah. Looking for a place.
A place to belong. To be a part of.
Would have that...
Maybe at the time,you couldn't have articulated like that.
But that would have been a one of thedriving factors for you, I assume.
I suppose, because I don't know,was I too emotional or a deep thinker?
(15:39):
But I felt like that subculturein particular understand me.
Like when children are sadand then they hear sad music.
And I was like, oh yeah, that'sexactly what I'm going through.
Even though it was just a really.
Teenagers reallysometimes have silly problems. But anyway,
yeah, I guess that's what gets you.
These people understand me.
(16:00):
They know exactly what I'm going through.
They're not trying to help me.They're just being. Misery loves company.
And that's how it waswhen we were sad together.
You know,
was there any particular worldviews thatyou would have started associating with?
I mean, you mentioned the Gothic scene.
Were thereothers like, you know, New Age,
(16:20):
different formsof the New Age, movement, and
there's different spiritualist movementsand so forth
that tend to get wrapped in with,as you mentioned, paganism.
But were there any in particularthat you would have said?
Yeah, I identify with that.
I'm a part of this group.
Maybe later on when I met my husband.
Okay.
So that story goes well in my 20s then,
(16:42):
because I would stillwas in the subculture until like the 2012
when, like the end of the world and theMayans were you in on that, a little bit.
Yeah. That. Yeah.
That was I looked into that a little bit.
And for those listening, I may not havea clue what we're talking about.
Yeah. That was really a thing.
Yeah.
You know, because the Mayan calendarsupposedly ended in the year 2012.
(17:03):
And so that means the world'sgoing to end or something,
or there was all kindsof different interpretations.
So I read some of the literature on it.
Just be like, what what is going on?
And yeah, that wasthat was really a thing for a while.
Obviously it's not anymorebecause that has come and gone and
but yeah, so
it was that,
it was that kind of a turning pointfor you, like it was supposed to end
(17:24):
and it didn't,
it was more that it was supposed to liketransition into, like this better place,
like the world was supposed to bea better place or something like that.
well, that didn't happen. No, it did not.
You see, when you when you strivefor your problems to disappear.
And the easiest way would be for the,for the world to end
or just to transform into a better place.
(17:45):
Oh, that is profound.
Yeah.
Yeah, that makes so much more.
And then, you know.
so no wonder a lot of peoplereally probably latched on to that,
to looking for hope.
Yeah, It's like, oh, well,I don't have to.
I know I'm
in so much debt now when this world ends,or if we go into the four dimension
or whatever they were calling it, I'mnot into that anymore, I am.
(18:07):
Everyone's happy.
I can start over.
I don't know, things like that.
So that
that was a pivot pointthen for you that year.
Yeah. Because at the time then I know
my now husbandand we were talking a lot about it.
So I guess we were learning the different
spiritual
(18:28):
things about New Age,like how there is, I don't know,
I don't want to go into detailsbecause I don't want to influence anybody.
So but that that's where the new ageelement starts coming in
which, which also for anyone listening,we did interview your husband as well.
Got some of his story.
So Enda yeah, his his name and I'mnot sure which order we’ll release.
Which one will come first.
(18:49):
But anyways,
because he was describingsome of the new age and its appeal,
you know, to, to people and, and I canI honestly, I can see that
like if you didn't have a community or a,
the Christian setting or,you know, close friends like that,
you're looking for something,you know, well, okay.
To back up a little bit because he's, he'sIrish, you're Slovakian.
(19:13):
How did you all meetand then start doing this new age thing
and yeah, walk me through that
because those two countriesaren't exactly close to each other.
Yeah.
Well, I wanted to learn English,
I went prior, I met him,I went to England for two months,
and so I wanted to kind of push offand to keep going.
And so I just was looking for
(19:34):
like some sort of a chat roomthat with native English speakers.
And that's where I met my husband,
and I was 16 at the time,
and he was 19,and the year after I went to Ireland
and, yeah, we met as well.
In Dublin.
We met twice, and then we kind of just, had a relationship online mostly.
(19:57):
So it was a long distance relationship.
And it went on, I was going to Ireland
every summer holidays,and then I will come back.
And then eventually
my husband would come to Slovakia for,I think, about eight months or so,
and we would just go back and forthuntil 2014.
That'swhere I came to Ireland permanently.
(20:19):
Yeah.
again,this is where the new age element starts
coming in right after this
point after the 2012,
thing, you know, and,and so that gets involved.
Were you doing this,you and your husband together?
I assume there's that element.
Yeah, yeah,
yeah, because there was this lady thatwe were influenced by and she had some,
(20:43):
Now, when I think about it, it was.
It was real.
I'm not saying it wasn't,but the things she thought she was talking
to was not,
some ascended master aliens up in the sky,
but they were demons,
basically, she was channelingand she didn't know about it.
(21:04):
She thought she was talking to, like a
like a group.
How would I say a group
awareness of some sort like the, there's.
Yeah, there's teachings on that, likethe divine conscious ness of whatever,
you know, it might be.
And we can access it through different,different means.
(21:25):
And that would that would be very partof the New Age movement.
Right?
They all get jumbled in my mind.
Yeah.
You know,But the basic theory about that,
like everyone is a partof this consciousness and,
and you are here to raise vibrationsor something like that.
And it's very selfish,self-centered religion.
It's basically,
you are a god in a, in a center,a part of your part of the divine.
(21:49):
Yeah.
Do you have the role to to help people toto be enlightened or something.
I don't know.
But it'svery it's a very self-centered setting.
Yeah.
But again that just strikes me as
you know you were searching,
you were searching for something and
without guidance or, or the right peoplein your life it's easy to, to.
(22:13):
Well we should try this.
Well and you knowyou're trying things like okay is this it,
is this the real thing. You know.
And I'm guessing this, this lady
that, you were connecting withprobably had many things
that she did that sounded reallyconvincing or or were very convincing.
Maybe they were the real.
They seemed very real.
I don't knowif you want to speak into that, but,
(22:33):
because if there's dark forces involved,I'm guessing there's
there are elementsthat are quite convincing.
Very, because we got so deep into itthat we wanted to do it as well.
So we paid a lot of moneyto get the course.
And she then she had like an, an,a private recordings of these things.
And,
(22:53):
she would
interview somebody in this stateand then she would
interview somebody in a different state,somebody completely different.
And they will talk about whatthat person left off.
So it was very convincing.
But she thought she was talking tosomething that was good.
Here she was channeling the same force,
the evil force.
(23:14):
And the penny dropped.
And later on, when we found out
that they told her that she would liveinto a certain age or whatever,
and she didn't,she actually die quite tragically.
And that was just like, oh, wow, they werejust playing with this poor lady.
The whole time.
It was very sad.
But I would say we were seeking a lot,especially because my husband's
(23:36):
sister was very sick at the same time,and we wanted to help her.
We thought this would help her. Didn't.
So, yeah,
there was there was a hard time,
Yeah I think
humans are and have this
drive to try to understand things
(23:58):
or to cling to somethingthat will give them hope.
You know
I'm guessing you can you,you and your husband
would have been able to very much relateto this and during that time.
Yeah. Looking for something?
Oh yeah. We wantbecause we wanted something good.
We were also at that stageI was just really tired of the whole
the things that I used to like
(24:21):
the ugly and the like then
and this poor sister passed awayand then I seen the real face of death.
And that it's not so glamorousand so beautiful.
It's actually really horrible.
And that made me feel like,you know, I'm not immortal.
Yeah.
She was very young. And look at me.
(24:43):
I thought it's just old peoplethat get sick and die, you know?
There was very.
That impacted me.
Really deeply.
And that made me want to I,I just started to dislike
everything about it,and I just wanted something nicer.
Something better.
But again, we were still quite blind
(25:05):
at that stage because, yeah, that's.
After that, when we were with Enda’s,my husband's mum for a little while
just to support her, and that's when the,
the paranormalstarted happening in the house,
where we were, and I was there.
(25:25):
Do you want to talk about that.
Yeah. Yeah.
Like what. Like what.
What was that like. Because.
Okay.
So in in America you know in Hollywoodthey like to make movies
about these thingsand oh, the paranormal, the ghosts that.
It's that. Yeah.
And on, one level, it'smarketed as entertainment.
Right. It's just entertainment.
(25:46):
But on on another level for a whole,for another group of people.
It's not. It's real for them. Yeah.
And it's pretty easy to just be like,okay, that's just kind of Hollywood
trying to make money or whatever.
But there is an element to thisthat I think we can say is very real.
I mean. Yeah.
Like from what you all experienced,
but yeah, if you wantto describe that for us Well, you see,
(26:09):
I knew that there and Enda was mentioninga venue was even when he was younger
or when they were just living there,things would be happening to them.
And I was like, okay.
At the time I was like,oh, that's kind of cool. You know?
As silly as I was,because I couldn't understand the whole
I couldn'timagine it. It didn't happen to me.
I don't think I even
experienced anythingwhen I was in Slovakia.
(26:32):
So it was pretty new to me.
Like I knew these things happened,but I didn't quite seen it in real life.
And so yeah there were a few instanceslike I remember
like the knocking on the window,like when we were just, just chillen
in, in Enda’s room and next thing
it was darkand I think his mom went somewhere
(26:53):
and we just heard this real three knockson the window, and it was a split second.
He opened the window.
There was nobody there,and there was nothing outside.
So that was quite scary.
We couldn't understand itbecause we knew that demonic
always does things in threes.
So the three knocks. Was this like, okay,
next thing,
we had the kitten at the time as well.
(27:17):
We clearly see a kittenclimbing up on the bed,
just like the how the claws.
I just trying to get up.
And then I look across the roomand the kitten sleeping in the bed,
its ownbed, fast asleep away from the bed.
So there was like, okay, well.
And it's still, you know,I still kind of like, you know,
(27:39):
I wasn't too scared about it,but I started to be kind of curious
in a way.
Then Enda’s uncle's picture
that he passed awaywas turned to the wall,
and no one turned it around.
And his mom was very upsetabout that hanging on the wall.
No, it was it was...
but it was just me and and his mum.
(28:01):
And no one touched the pictureand it turned itself.
I was turned to the wall facing the walland she was very upset about it.
I was like, I would not dare to do that.
You know, that's very disrespectful.
And then another instance
was I heard Enda’s mum calling him
and he just would not go.
(28:23):
So I just wanted to like, why don't you goand like your mum is calling you
and he said she's not at home.
And at that point I was like, okay,well there is something going on in here.
Yeah.
And ya’ll both heard that No, I askedyou just I heard it and I came to Enda
and I said, why aren't you goinglike she's waiting for you?
Oh my. Okay.
That must have been, that must have beenterrifying when you realized.
(28:45):
Wait.
She's not even in the house. Yeah,she wasn’t in the house.
So somehow like then starting to be
instead of, like, not be in the house.
We started to get interestedin the whole paranormal thing.
And I know there were differentapps on the phone that you could download
and like,
you know, ghost boxesand isn't like, like ghost hunting
(29:07):
and some of these things like it's
actually a thinglike I thought it was a joke.
And then I started looking at I was like,no, people take this very seriously.
They do all you can getall sorts of equipment for that.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
I mean, in my naivete,I just kind of a, you know.
Okay. Yeah.I mean, nobody takes this seriously, but.
Yeah.
Oh, no ghost huntingand all the equipment that comes with
it is very much a real thing,which is terrifying.
(29:30):
And Yeah.
But some people just get some sort of how would I say
not enjoyment, but it's like an adventure.
It's kind of like curiosity.
Yeah.
Like this isbut but even you said like before you went
and experienced ityourself. You're like, oh, okay.
Like it didn't really it didn't. Yeah.
(29:50):
As as something, wait,this is actually horrifying and not okay.
Because you might think
that maybe it's just ghostsand they may want to say something,
you know, because I knew they were demons,but I thought demons were different.
I thought demons
do worse things
than just knock on windows,you know, like, yeah.
Now, now, youyou would have known there's demons.
(30:11):
Like, why is that?
From your experience, going to churchright early on or the music
or something like that, but.
okay.But you didn't put the two together that.
Hey maybe, perhaps the demonic element is behind
these things with the new age stuffyou're involved in and, and so forth.
The connection hadn't been made yetfor you at this point.
(30:32):
no, I didn't think that at all.
That's in it.
That's it.
That's I think a very important pieceI think because I know
there have been plenty of times in my life
where I just thought,oh, anybody involved in this stuff
must clearly knowthat they're involved with dark forces.
And I've been hearing more and more.
No, it's actually deceiveslike, it's deception.
(30:53):
Yeah, yeah.
Again,when I was interviewing your husband,
he was saying we were trying towe thought we were trying to do
good things, and we were completely off,you know, I mean, very dicey,
you know, just just,you know, clearly had it wrong.
But at the time, it felt like we weretrying to do what was right, you know,
Wow. Wild.
(31:13):
Yeah. Yeah.
Now, I think that these are reallyimportant pieces because it's so easy to,
misunderstand these things
or maybe not take them seriouslyor whatever the case may be.
Yeah.
So with the paranormal, situationlike the.
Yeah, that must have.
Did that have a pretty big effecton your worldview and,
and how you thought about these things.Yeah.
(31:34):
Because it introduced me to like, oh, wow,the spiritual world is true is real.
I still didn't think of Godor heaven or hell,
but it just opened the possibilityof of life after death.
You know that there, there,there is more to life.
Like you just
made it, did it.
I believed, like I just had an idea of it.
(31:55):
But now I believe thatthere is like when you die, you, you,
you are still going to live.
So we were then going
into deeper into the paranormalbecause I don't know why I was so curious.
But yeah,we watched hundreds and hundreds of them,
and then we started
to see a pattern inhow these things operate,
(32:16):
how they just subtly startwith just making
people argue or,
you know, sometimes
paranormal things or, or demonic forcesdon't just necessarily move stuff.
They usually work on your emotionsand they separate people
and, yeah.
(32:36):
So start to see different patternsand then different ways that help people
who are dealing with these things,how they were trying to get rid of them.
So our mission was to get rid of it.
And so, we started to see that,
like these people, they were smudgingthe place with sage and things like that.
(32:56):
The things always came back.
So we abandoned that ideawith a straight away.
And then and then this man,
he washe was like a self-proclaimed exorcist.
But he was a man.
Like he believes in God,you know, we know him. We know him.
he started ordering
these things in the name of Christ.
(33:17):
And I was like, that's very interestingbecause Jesus was in the new age,
but he was just like an ascended master,you know?
Oh, so like, not divine in the sense thatChristians would say he is and so forth.
Yeah, he would be divine, but more
with the knowledge that he had, ratherthan him being the savior of the world.
Okay, that's a critical difference. Yeah.
(33:37):
Yeah okay.
And then we were like, well,why weren't they saying,
like, in the name of Budhaor somebody else?
It has never come up inany of those videos that we were watching.
There was nobody there was called.
They were either doing this shamanic stuffor they were using Jesus,
but nothing else.
(33:58):
Like at leastwhat we have seen, there was nothing else
but the name of Christ was working,you know?
And so I was like,wow, that's that's very interesting.
And at the time, we had this friendthat used to work with us
and he was the, he is a Jehovah's Witness.
And, you know, he kept telling Enda that,you know,
these are demons, you know,and they're like, yeah, okay.
(34:21):
The ghosts, they're not demons.
And, you know, and then soand there was on the mission to prove him
that he, he started reading the Bible.
And,
then he got interested in Christmore and more.
Oh, was hewas he started reading the Bible to.
I want to prove this. This personwrong. Right?
necessarily that wrong but I just want tolearn more and yeah to have a debate
(34:43):
because he, he loved to debate,you know that friend in particular.
So Enda wanted to be ready for him.
So the more he wants to debatethe more Enda read the Bible.
Oh. That's incredible.
What what a, hey, it getsyou reading the Bible.
That was.
That's amazing. Yeah. You know,that's amazing.
So, you know, it says every knee will bowin the name of Christ.
(35:04):
And it did.
And we went.
And then,we heard that the paranormal activity
which came back to in this mum's houseagain, she was experiencing things.
And so we said to her, well,you know, maybe you can say to it
to leave in the name of Christ,
which is say, say, go in the name of Jesus
(35:26):
and really believe it.
And so she said, okay.
And then one night she rang usand she said
now, I don't know, sorry.
But she did see, like a figure,
appearing from underneatha blanket or something.
And then she seen this handput towards her
(35:47):
or going towards her, and she was so scared she couldn't speak.
And but she rememberedwhat Enda had said to her.
And she did say
eventually for itto go away in the name of Christ.
And she said it just went like.
Like that was sheshe wasn't a Christian? No.
(36:08):
At the time. She wasn't a Christian.
But she believed in the powerthat God can do it.
It's almost like,do you believe that I can do this?
Yeah. Oh, that is that is amazing.
It's incredible.
And at that point I was like,wow, Christ is real.
You know, God is real.
And it was like,oh, we need to come to church.
We have to find church.
(36:29):
And we were just so shocked
that that's where the Christianjourney for us started.
that is kind of
phenomenal to me, that the paranormalor whatever you want to call it,
and it's response to the name of Jesusis really
a significant part of you allstarting your journey to Christianity.
(36:50):
Yeah, well,that's not the normal path people take.
Christianity.
But it connected with you.
I I'm getting a senseit connected with you and your husband
because you had been in this world before.
This probably was really stuck out to youas whoa, We've never seen this before.
No. And it was just so incredible.
(37:11):
Especially the way I believed herwhen she told me to start.
Because I knew, you know, why would you?
Why would she lie. Yeah. She.
Yeah.
Like,I have experience it myself, I know. Well.
And at the time,she was in such a bad place
that I think that it wasmanifesting in a bad way. So
it it confirmedher like it converted her to really.
So she became a Christian then?
(37:31):
Yeah, but we were very.
How would I saynot a like we were Christians,
but we were we'd still we're likeat the very, very, very beginning.
So we still were in our old ways.
Well, I was I, I don't thinkI was reading a Bible at the time much.
I just know I got inspired by my husbandreading it.
And so we were kind of
(37:53):
going on that journey together.
And then after this, we found a church.
And because we wantedto learn more about the faith,
but I didn't want to go backto the Catholic Church.
So any church will do at that stage,
and it was very charismatic church too.
So it really helped me to buildthat relationship with God and Christ.
(38:16):
But then,
we were learning more about the Bible,
and then we seen the heretical teachings
of that particular churchthat we were in involved with.
So that was disappointing.
There was like this whole Christian worldthat opened up
with all these different denominationsthat we just were.
So we were lost.
(38:36):
oh, that must have beenincredibly confusing.
Very confusing,because neither you or your husband
had interactionreally with Christianity to this point.
I mean,not not to a meaningful level, at least.
So you're coming in with
having read the Bible and some of thethings that a Jehovah's Witness told you.
And that's
(38:57):
and a little bit of Catholic background,so you don't have much teaching
or context, I guess I would sayfor Christianity to begin with.
Yeah, that must have been hard.
Yeah it was, but my husband has sucha great ability to research.
Yeah, yeah.
There's he had.
Yeah, he
could, he could discuss with this friendfor hours.
(39:20):
Why what he believes in some certainthings is not
the way the Bible says it.
You know, because the Jehovah's Witnesseshave their own Bible.
And then there is
the other Bible, like, Oh, I betthose were some interesting conversations.
They were very long ones, too.
But, you know,it was good for something like it
was it definitely helped us in our,our Christian journey.
(39:42):
And then we had the problemswith this church that we were part of.
Yeah, we were learning.
We were still learning.
We were still looking for answers.
It was very difficultin that church for us.
Well because, because then that, thatmust have started you on a journey of okay
you've, you've read the scriptures,you've become convinced that it's true.
You're starting to follow Christ
(40:02):
now like you saidyou're in the very very beginning.
Yeah. Steps. You know, of that journey.
And now you have a pretty, complicated
process of, okay,what does church look like for for you?
I can't even imaginewhat that would be like coming in with
with so little context about Christianity,you would have so much to learn.
(40:22):
That must've been quite the process.
was a lot.
Yeah, it was like the churchwhere we were part of it was still kind of
bells and whistles, like in thein a way that you still felt like the
it was like from going from the new ageon all the, the wonders and the
and the paranormal and everythingwhere you could kind of see and hear
and touch and so, you know, it was
(40:44):
it was very similar in to thatcharismatic church to, you know,
people were speaking in tonguesand there was music
and people were spontaneously laughing.
And it was, you know, but it was notin their eyes that that was that was God.
There was the Holy Spirit,there was the opposite.
But I started feeling like, well,I don't feel that way.
(41:04):
I don't feel like bursting outlaughing, or
speaking in tongues or am I not believingenough?
You know, if I, I,I started just feeling that way.
It's like I just couldn'tfeel what those people were feeling. Ooh.
And that that must have been disorienting.
Yeah. It was. And so I was kind of like
how would I say I just had to go to God.
(41:26):
Like how do, how do Christian live.
Like I know there's Muslimsand they have their communities
and they have their different clothesand they have their culture
that they had their faith,but they live in it all the time.
I go here, and I feel good for the Sunday.
And then I come home, back to my own bedand my life, you know.
(41:47):
Yeah. And I wanted something more.
I wanted to live it every daybecause it just felt right at that time.
It's like, God takes
the the darkness out of your eyes and the
you want him more and moreand you don't find you love.
I used to hate color.
Like I was alwayswearing black and stuff, and
(42:08):
it just I started to enjoy things.
I loved flowers, everything lovely andcolorful, and I just wanted to be in that.
And it wasn't when I came back homefrom church, like we had no community.
Those people just went backto their own work.
And yeah, we
then had a very complicated relationshipwith the pastors and the people in there.
(42:30):
The more we knewand the more we were questioning.
So and I was asking Godabout how to Christian live
and so, yeah, I seen people head covering.
Then when I was trying to figure it out,I think I just stumbled across
one lady and she said she was a Christianand she was head covering where
I was on YouTube.
(42:51):
Sounds like rain.
Oh yeah. Yeah,well that lady. really. Okay.
So just searching.
Yeah. On the internetand you just find things.
Yeah.
So I was like, all that is interesting.
Were they.
When I looked at their vlogs,they were a Christian family.
They had their community.
They talked about God all the time.
They had all of this music or whatever.
(43:13):
And I wanted
and I, and Iso I learned why she's head covering
and I wanted toI felt like I want to do it too.
And but I couldn't find anybody in Irelanddoing it.
Like even in our church,no one was talking about head covering.
If anything, it was more like,I don't know what they were thinking,
(43:36):
Because Ireland would be
at least nominally very Catholic.
Right.
But beyond that it's actuallyjust pretty secular.
Right.
And there isn't that much no Christianityas we would think of it.
Right. The kind that’s lived out.
And and so forth.
It's almost more like a boxthat's checked.
(43:57):
You know, I'm a Christian, kind of like.
Is that a fair assessment?I don't want to.
Yeah, there is,
but then when you're like in the,I would say in the Pentecostal circles,
you do have churches like that,
but I never like I did look likeI told you, it's not too bad, you know,
but I just couldn't find anyone thathead covers, and that was my requirement.
(44:18):
Like, if they do obey this from the Bible,I'm sure they will obey way more.
And they would take it really seriously.
So are we just searching on the internet?
Like, I don't know, head coveringChristian in Ireland and things like that.
Nothing came up.
And but then when I wrote the headcovering
a bunch of Anabaptist people came up.
So, there was.
(44:39):
Yeah, that's what, that's what that'swhat opened the door to all everything
through all the struggles we hadand the searches of the searching
of the different churchesand denominations. And we can be part of.
And I really,
I found this particular ladythat I really enjoyed watching her vlogs
and the way she was presenting herselfand the.
(45:00):
Like, she was wearing a cape dressand she was wearing a head covering.
And I was really interested in that.
I was like, that's very nice.
and presented it to my husband andjust like, what do you think of this user?
I think she was like, she's a Mennonite.
And then,
so I was like,
I wonder if there's any Anabaptistin Ireland.
(45:20):
And sure enough, there wasand I just could not believe it
that there is church in Dunmore East.
And so we have looked in their websiteand then there was,
listening to their sermons as well
as you were tryingto figure out what they believe in,
because we were just like goingfrom denomination to the other,
and they believe in this,but they don't believe in that.
And these go to war and these, you know,
(45:44):
so but then the Anabaptists, they,
they value the Bible so much.
We really like the way
it's not just about the outwardlyappearance, but like even the, the,
the nonresistance was very is like, wow,they, they, they're even non-resistant.
And so yeah.
(46:05):
And they had, got a contactwith the pastor Dan
at the time and
they became really good friendsand he helped us to answer questions
that we had that we couldn'ttalk to our pastor about.
And, yeah,we then decided to leave the church
we were in, and we came to visit here
(46:29):
and this church here.
And then that begins the whole that,that next part of the journey.
Right.
Because ultimately, had to movethat I'm assuming from a different place
to join the community here and,and so forth.
I'm guessing that this whole process,this is probably a pretty long process
from first coming to Christianityto begin with, to ultimately
(46:50):
where you are now here in the south ofIreland, now in Dunmore East.
That was
probably a long processabout how many years was that?
I'm trying to think I was pregnantwith my first child, so that was 2020.
So I think we kind of madethe contact in 2019.
And since then we, we, we were maintainingour relationship with the church.
(47:10):
And because we lived so far away,
we tried to make it our businessto come every two weeks.
But it wasn't it just wasn't working out.
Yeah.
And so we were like,we know we have to make a decision.
Do we want to stay.
And who knows what Yeah, we will be doing?
Or do we want to join this churchthat we want so badly to be part of?
(47:33):
Because we we, we likednot just the community,
but just theyou live Christ every single day.
And I just really, really liked that.
And it was like the answer to my prayerthat I was talking to God about,
about how the Christian lives.
And this was the answer.
Wow. And, yeah.
So we decided to move over to New Ross.
(47:54):
At first because for a very long timewe couldn't find any house to stay in.
So the the move was very dramatic,
especially,
Enda’sparents were not very happy about that.
So yeah, that's we moved there.
And then we got baptized in 2022.
(48:17):
So what a what a journey.
You know from Slovakia you know and
some interactionsearly on with the Catholics
and then on to these other thingsyou were part of, and then ultimately
finding the scripturesand how that completely changed your life.
Yeah. Just completely. completely. Yeah.
(48:39):
It is just a testamentto how powerful God's word is.
Very, You know. Yeah.
So I'm, I'm guessingthere's people listening to this episode
that are on different pointsof maybe a somewhat similar journey.
You know, they're trying to findmaybe they're testing.
Is is Christianity true or whatwhat church should they consider joining?
(49:00):
You know what community should theywhat should they join in?
And these journeys are sometimes long
and not always a straight path, you know?
But what would you say to to someonein that position to encourage them,
or any advice you would like to give tosomeone like that?
Well, I’m not the source of wisdomor like, you know, not very good
and encouraging people,but I would definitely say that
(49:22):
please keep seekingand there is no wrong questions
and that God meetsyou where you are and he
he gives you.
If you are serious about your journeyand if you're
serious about looking for God,he will show himself to you.
If you're doing it for the good reasons,
(49:42):
then he will meet you where you are.
Be being in a Pentecostal church,being out in the world somewhere.
He will meet you thereand he'll lead you home.
And just don't give up.
Sounds like, faithfulness
to what God is calling us tois one element, but also patience.
Yes. Patience.
(50:03):
Yeah.
Because it didn't happenjust immediately for you.
Yeah. This was a long process.
Yeah, definitely.
It's nothing radicallike I always thought it would be.
Just this profound. Radical change.
But now I just see it's not.
I don't think
people would really handle it thatwell if it was a radical experience.
And yeah that's true.
(50:23):
I hadn't thought of that.
It’d be almost too much of an adjustmentall at once.
I'd say. So.
I think people just need timeand God knows that.
He knows everybody intimately,and he knows what works with other people.
you know there's athere in revelation it talks about how,
Christ followers overcome
(50:44):
through the word of their testimonyand through the blood of the lamb.
And then you've definitely shown usboth of those today.
You know, on, on this episode,you know, that our testimonies,
our stories have power,because of what Christ has done.
Because because of who he is,not who we are.
As we bring this, this story, you know,
(51:04):
pull this package together and,and bring this episode to a close.
Is there anything else you would liketo leave with the listeners?
I just pray that everyone will findwhat they're looking for.
Yeah.
If you're if you're struggling,I do pray that you will get in.
You'll have peace.
But God is good.
(51:24):
And he sees you when he sees your pain
and he will lead you home.
Just be faithful.
Well, Susie thank you so muchfor sharing with us today.
Thank you.
Thanks for listening to this episodewith Susie.
If you found this interesting,you should go to our website
at Anabaptistperspectives.orgwhere you can find all our content.
(51:47):
We've recorded a number of other life
stories on this podcastand I hope you find those interesting.
Thanks again for listeningand we'll see you in the next episode.
But then Satan then taints your mind.
So you start finding these things very
lovely.
Like, not lovely, but like you were.
You find the dark thingsbeautiful in a twisted way,
like you romanticize death, you know,you don't see it as what it is.
You see, there's some people in nice blackdress,
white in foreverfrolicking through the forest.
(00:22):
I don't know how to say it, but,yeah, it's not the real thing
at all.
Susie,
welcome to the Anabaptist Perspectivespodcast.
You're originally from Slovakia,I believe.
Which isn't where we are right now.We're actually in Ireland.
(00:44):
But there's a story there,and we want to capture some of your story
of how you came to Christ and the journey
you've been on over the years,and so, I guess, to start off with.
Yeah. Where were you born? What kind of
did you have?
A religious upbringing, you know? Yeah.
What was the environmentyou were born into?
Well, I was born in Slovakia.
(01:06):
I'm from Bratislava,which is the capital city,
and I grew up in the most denselypopulated district,
which was called Petrarca, which,
has a lot of, concrete
blocks of flats,like the typical Russian ones.
Oh, that's true, because they'd beenSoviet Union before, Yes, yes.
(01:28):
So, yeah,it looks very, very similar to that.
And, yeah, I lived inone of those buildings with my mom and dad
and my brother and we were just like a typical family.
We went to school,my mum and dad were working
Yeah, I had no religious upbringing at all
because during the Soviettimes, religion has been banned.
(01:51):
So there was like,you couldn't have any, religious
ideologies, like not just Christian,but any other ones as well.
So Christianity really kind of disappearedfrom from Slovakia at that time.
So no one was getting baptized,no one was going to church or,
you know, people were
(02:11):
learning more about whatthe party wanted them to know.
And so, yeah, when I was born,the communism fell.
the world had started changing.
I when I became,
when I went to my first grade.
That's when the religion startedto get back again into the country.
They opened the first religious class.
(02:34):
It was a Catholic class.
And, I only knew about Jesusfrom Christmas stories.
a lot of the childrenwent to this religious class,
but I didn't, and so you didn't. So why?
I don't know.I just didn't know what to do. There.
And my parents were not interested.
So I just was out with the teacherbecause it was after school.
(02:54):
So it was like an after school thingthat you can choose to go to or not.
But I was very bored, so I was like,
all my friends are in this classand I want to go there too.
And I want to learn about Jesus.
Like it would be nice to knowwhat what is it about more.
And he's a nice guy.
Just those little innocent thoughts.
(03:15):
And so I ask, mom, can I go?
And she was like,okay, she just let me go.
I don't really remember any details.
Like, did she have objections or not?
But then it turned outthat this religious class was about
children getting baptized
because childrenwere not being baptized back then.
(03:36):
So they wanted new people to startattending church and stuff like that.
So yeah, I was ten years old
and I asked my mom, can I get baptized?
Because I started to like Jesus.
He became my friend in a way.
I learned how to pray.
I was going to church with my friends.
(03:58):
My family didn't go to churchbecause So just you then?
Yeah, it was with your friends.Yeah. And again, this is Catholic.
This is Catholic, Yes.
We just had churchvery close to our house,
so it wasn't a problem to go therewith my friends.
And,
Yeah.
And then I ask, mom, can I get baptized?
And she didn't want me to get baptizedbecause she didn't believe in it.
(04:19):
She didn't think it was necessary,
or she was worried that I was goingto deep into it or something.
And she told me thatI had this look of horror
on my facethat I didn't want to go to hell
and so when she saw my face, she said,
okay, you can get baptized.
And I started the processof getting baptized.
(04:40):
I was,
we had several
meetings with the priest and,
yeah, he was justpreparing us on the journey, and,
yeah, I got baptizedand I still believe in God.
I still attended this class.
I was way older.
And then you go to your first communion,and then you go to confirmation.
(05:03):
And that waswhen I was in my teenage years.
I was about 13 or 14.
And then the priest said
that if you want to get confirmed,you have to be very serious
about your faith, because that meansyou were beginning your journey to live
like God wants you to live,and to follow the Catholic,
how would say faith
(05:25):
and, you know, like the rules and stuff
not just the basics of the Christianity,but like what the church would say, right?
Like what the Catholic Churchwould, would ask you to do.
Yeah. Okay.But I started having different,
different I
would I say interests,you know, teenagers.
They're influenced by television and music
(05:48):
and magazines and your friends especially.
And so I said to myself that, you know,
I am not serious and
I don't think I will be able for it.
And I would not be honestif I went ahead and got this confirmation,
and I told that to the priestand he was very disappointed.
(06:10):
But maybe he felt like, you know, better,
to be honest, than doing itand then just do it for the wrong reasons.
And yeah, ever since thenI just abandoned the whole
like I didn't like I did like Jesus still,
but I just got deeper into other things.
So Christianity
kind of falls out of your lifeso to speak.
(06:32):
Right.
It just regular life starts happening
and you get involved in other thingsand just, it just kind of disappears Yeah.
In a way.
Yeah. Especially when you don't have it inyour family.
It's very easy. That's true. Yeah.
So so like you so you had a sibling,you know, and your parents.
So they never really got involvedin any of this.
No, no, I my brotherused to make fun of me a lot about it.
(06:55):
So, you know, I was like, oh, okay.
I didn't find it.
I know, I guess I didn't havea relationship with Christ at the time,
and I just knew itfrom the Catholic point of view.
I didn't really read the Bible.
There were just the songbookthat we had or whatever.
How the mass goes every time.
And it's always the same here.
(07:17):
And I didn't know much abouthow Christian lives or anything like that.
So I find other things to do.
I got into sorry.
So Yeah, that's what I was going to ask.
So what happens to you at this point?
So you're in youryour teenage years? Yes. Yeah.
So life continues on.
You get involved in other things like.Yeah.
Where do you go then from this point?
Well,I started being interested in subcultures.
(07:41):
So subculturesas in the music subcultures,
either the alternative
scene where there was a lot ofit was kind of new
because, yeah, the 90sand the early 2000s were like kind
of like the boom in the Western culturecoming into the country.
(08:02):
Oh, true.
Because again,the fall of communism in 89,
I guess, is when I would have or 89, 90when that would really start up happening.
Yeah.
So there was a lot of new musiccoming in and
I really liked it at the time.
Like I like the rock music and differentthings you know, the different bands.
And I got different friends.
(08:24):
And then you know
there were interests like in differentlike paganism
was very like hand in handin with the subcultures and the music.
Oh, interesting.
So okay, I wouldn't have I guessthat kind of makes sense now you say.
I just have never thought of that before.
So when you started getting into the musicscene, did you start getting these other
(08:49):
ideas, world views,I guess getting pulled in with it.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
And everything just startedto be so interesting and even
the television started being like, likethe Harry Potter came out in the 2000s.
And then there was like the differentlike the witching movies.
(09:09):
It was a lot of them in the early 2000sand and on.
But like a lot basicallywith almost a a genre It was in a way.
Yeah.
And so that was like well I wonderyou know the internet came out.
Yeah.
You know
it was very dangerous times I guess for itfor, for, for kids at that time.
So yeah there is different
(09:31):
people meeting in different placesand that had the same interests as you.
So you learn a lot of different thingsthat you don't want to learn about.
So you then find out that,you know, witchcraft is true.
I like what if we could,you know, look into it with their parents.
Sure. What can you do?
We didn't know the real witchcraft. Where
people hurt other people.
(09:52):
But just like this watereddown, like, a pop culture
where witchcraft is kind offor entertainment witchcraft.
I like Harry Potter, for example,and that's an entertainment thing.
I mean, it's a movie.
Whatever It wasn't serious in any way,because I knew that there are
demonic forces from from,like, the movies, but whatever.
(10:12):
But I believe in them.
And so I didn't want to go deepinto that kind of thing.
Yeah. So then there was like the white.
The white, they call itlike the white witchcraft or whatever.
It's all the same.
But like, you know, the Celtsand the Vikings and their, their pagan
things and death, you know, the druidsand the herbs and things like that?
That was very interesting.
(10:34):
But I again, I only saw itas I was just romanticizing it.
You know, it was just in that kind of like
the culture, the music, the clothes,the people, how they used to live.
That's what drew me to that.
So how how deeply involved thendid you get into this, did
this turn into a major part of your lifegoing forward,
(10:57):
you know,through your teens, into your 20s?
What did that look like for you?
because I was from the capital city.
There was a lot of placeswhere you could meet
with people that are interested in this.
Different things.
Like there were people that were doing,like, historical reenactments.
And so they were very interestedin this mythology and whatever.
(11:18):
Then there was this Gothic subculture,and they used to have like,
like different pubs.
We used to go to different pubs, and weused to have this thing called bat caves,
whichwere like kind of like a discotheque,
which was like underground and in
a, like a dungeon.
And it was.
(11:39):
Yeah, it's a bit embarrassing.
Sorry.
No, no I understand thoughbecause there's, this is a significant
undercurrent of culture. Right.In a lot of places.
I mean there's a lot of people
that get involved in thisor become part of it, whatever.
But then Satan then taints your mind.
So you start finding these things very
lovely.
Like, not lovely, but like you were.
(12:01):
You find the dark thingsbeautiful in a twisted way,
like you romanticize death, you know,you don't see it as what it is.
You see, there's some
people in this black dress, whitein forever frolicking through the forest.
I don't know how to say it, but,
yeah, it's not the real thing at all.
(12:22):
Yeah.
You just go on tourslike the horror movies and, you know,
then, like, it's like
it's like Satan is working in your mind,but you don't know about it.
You know, nothing
significant is really happening,but you find yourself getting, like,
depressedor you're not doing well at school,
or you don't get on with your parentsvery well.
(12:43):
You're a loner.
You just want to be with your friends,or you want to drink or you want to smoke.
You know, these kind of things.
So that's where a lot of my friendswent down that road.
You mentioned Gothic
previouslywas that also part of the picture.
Oh yeah. Part of the story.
Yeah.
That was very much so like you would haveidentified with that at an for a while.
(13:08):
Yeah.
Oh yeah I would,yeah I would, we would go to,
we would
go to cemeteries and drink thereand it would be just
that would be our pastime.
And we just love places like that.
Abandoned housesand just things like that.
There's that is
(13:29):
I don't I don't fully understand all the,the forces involved, obviously, but,
you know, Christ coming in and defeatingdeath and conquering the grave.
And, you know, either the core fundamentaldoctrines of Christianity
about how death is a great evilthat, God has conquered
and Christ has conquered,but then you have these other groups,
Gothic, you know, neo paganism,I guess, you know,
(13:51):
some of these groups that are say,oh, well, no, that's not that.
They reinterpret what death is and turn itinto something that's they glamorize it.
Yeah.
There you go. That'smaybe the word I'm looking for.
And I as a Christian,I've never understood that.
They just seems I don't get it at all.
But hearing what you're describing.
Wow. That'sactually starting to make sense.
(14:13):
You know how someone could get into that?Yeah.
You know,if they don't have the Christian framework
of how death is viewed through, you know,in the lens of Scripture, they say that
they see it as a bad thing,like they don't want to live in the world.
Like, for me personally,I didn't like the world that I was in.
I thought people were judging me.
I couldn't identify with people.
So I thought, well, well,
(14:34):
these people understand me.
It feels good to be when you are downand like they're
the loner stage of life.
It it is just appealing to, you know,I don't understand it.
Now either,
but yeah, it was just some
it was just,I don't know, it was different.
(14:57):
And you can escape into that.
Reality almost like, like escapism.
I hesitate to use that termbecause I'm sure there's more involved.
But escapism is very realfor a lot of people.
They just want to get outof whatever situation they're in.
You mentioned loneliness too.
It feels like that'san important part of this story.
(15:18):
Like looking for friends,looking for a place.
Well, yeah. Looking for a place.
A place to belong. To be a part of.
Would have that...
Maybe at the time,you couldn't have articulated like that.
But that would have been a one of thedriving factors for you, I assume.
I suppose, because I don't know,was I too emotional or a deep thinker?
(15:39):
But I felt like that subculturein particular understand me.
Like when children are sadand then they hear sad music.
And I was like, oh yeah, that'sexactly what I'm going through.
Even though it was just a really.
Teenagers reallysometimes have silly problems. But anyway,
yeah, I guess that's what gets you.
These people understand me.
(16:00):
They know exactly what I'm going through.
They're not trying to help me.They're just being. Misery loves company.
And that's how it waswhen we were sad together.
You know,
was there any particular worldviews thatyou would have started associating with?
I mean, you mentioned the Gothic scene.
Were thereothers like, you know, New Age,
(16:20):
different formsof the New Age, movement, and
there's different spiritualist movementsand so forth
that tend to get wrapped in with,as you mentioned, paganism.
But were there any in particularthat you would have said?
Yeah, I identify with that.
I'm a part of this group.
Maybe later on when I met my husband.
Okay.
So that story goes well in my 20s then,
(16:42):
because I would stillwas in the subculture until like the 2012
when, like the end of the world and theMayans were you in on that, a little bit.
Yeah. That. Yeah.
That was I looked into that a little bit.
And for those listening, I may not havea clue what we're talking about.
Yeah. That was really a thing.
Yeah.
You know, because the Mayan calendarsupposedly ended in the year 2012.
(17:03):
And so that means the world'sgoing to end or something,
or there was all kindsof different interpretations.
So I read some of the literature on it.
Just be like, what what is going on?
And yeah, that wasthat was really a thing for a while.
Obviously it's not anymorebecause that has come and gone and
but yeah, so
it was that,
it was that kind of a turning pointfor you, like it was supposed to end
(17:24):
and it didn't,
it was more that it was supposed to liketransition into, like this better place,
like the world was supposed to bea better place or something like that.
well, that didn't happen. No, it did not.
You see, when you when you strivefor your problems to disappear.
And the easiest way would be for the,for the world to end
or just to transform into a better place.
(17:45):
Oh, that is profound.
Yeah.
Yeah, that makes so much more.
And then, you know.
so no wonder a lot of peoplereally probably latched on to that,
to looking for hope.
Yeah, It's like, oh, well,I don't have to.
I know I'm
in so much debt now when this world ends,or if we go into the four dimension
or whatever they were calling it, I'mnot into that anymore, I am.
(18:07):
Everyone's happy.
I can start over.
I don't know, things like that.
So that
that was a pivot pointthen for you that year.
Yeah. Because at the time then I know
my now husbandand we were talking a lot about it.
So I guess we were learning the different
spiritual
(18:28):
things about New Age,like how there is, I don't know,
I don't want to go into detailsbecause I don't want to influence anybody.
So but that that's where the new ageelement starts coming in
which, which also for anyone listening,we did interview your husband as well.
Got some of his story.
So Enda yeah, his his name and I'mnot sure which order we’ll release.
Which one will come first.
(18:49):
But anyways,
because he was describingsome of the new age and its appeal,
you know, to, to people and, and I canI honestly, I can see that
like if you didn't have a community or a,
the Christian setting or,you know, close friends like that,
you're looking for something,you know, well, okay.
To back up a little bit because he's, he'sIrish, you're Slovakian.
(19:13):
How did you all meetand then start doing this new age thing
and yeah, walk me through that
because those two countriesaren't exactly close to each other.
Yeah.
Well, I wanted to learn English,
I went prior, I met him,I went to England for two months,
and so I wanted to kind of push offand to keep going.
And so I just was looking for
(19:34):
like some sort of a chat roomthat with native English speakers.
And that's where I met my husband,
and I was 16 at the time,
and he was 19,and the year after I went to Ireland
and, yeah, we met as well.
In Dublin.
We met twice, and then we kind of just, had a relationship online mostly.
(19:57):
So it was a long distance relationship.
And it went on, I was going to Ireland
every summer holidays,and then I will come back.
And then eventually
my husband would come to Slovakia for,I think, about eight months or so,
and we would just go back and forthuntil 2014.
That'swhere I came to Ireland permanently.
(20:19):
Yeah.
again,this is where the new age element starts
coming in right after this
point after the 2012,
thing, you know, and,and so that gets involved.
Were you doing this,you and your husband together?
I assume there's that element.
Yeah, yeah,
yeah, because there was this lady thatwe were influenced by and she had some,
(20:43):
Now, when I think about it, it was.
It was real.
I'm not saying it wasn't,but the things she thought she was talking
to was not,
some ascended master aliens up in the sky,
but they were demons,
basically, she was channelingand she didn't know about it.
(21:04):
She thought she was talking to, like a
like a group.
How would I say a group
awareness of some sort like the, there's.
Yeah, there's teachings on that, likethe divine conscious ness of whatever,
you know, it might be.
And we can access it through different,different means.
(21:25):
And that would that would be very partof the New Age movement.
Right?
They all get jumbled in my mind.
Yeah.
You know,But the basic theory about that,
like everyone is a partof this consciousness and,
and you are here to raise vibrationsor something like that.
And it's very selfish,self-centered religion.
It's basically,
you are a god in a, in a center,a part of your part of the divine.
(21:49):
Yeah.
Do you have the role to to help people toto be enlightened or something.
I don't know.
But it'svery it's a very self-centered setting.
Yeah.
But again that just strikes me as
you know you were searching,
you were searching for something and
without guidance or, or the right peoplein your life it's easy to, to.
(22:13):
Well we should try this.
Well and you knowyou're trying things like okay is this it,
is this the real thing. You know.
And I'm guessing this, this lady
that, you were connecting withprobably had many things
that she did that sounded reallyconvincing or or were very convincing.
Maybe they were the real.
They seemed very real.
I don't knowif you want to speak into that, but,
(22:33):
because if there's dark forces involved,I'm guessing there's
there are elementsthat are quite convincing.
Very, because we got so deep into itthat we wanted to do it as well.
So we paid a lot of moneyto get the course.
And she then she had like an, an,a private recordings of these things.
And,
(22:53):
she would
interview somebody in this stateand then she would
interview somebody in a different state,somebody completely different.
And they will talk about whatthat person left off.
So it was very convincing.
But she thought she was talking tosomething that was good.
Here she was channeling the same force,
the evil force.
(23:14):
And the penny dropped.
And later on, when we found out
that they told her that she would liveinto a certain age or whatever,
and she didn't,she actually die quite tragically.
And that was just like, oh, wow, they werejust playing with this poor lady.
The whole time.
It was very sad.
But I would say we were seeking a lot,especially because my husband's
(23:36):
sister was very sick at the same time,and we wanted to help her.
We thought this would help her. Didn't.
So, yeah,
there was there was a hard time,
Yeah I think
humans are and have this
drive to try to understand things
(23:58):
or to cling to somethingthat will give them hope.
You know
I'm guessing you can you,you and your husband
would have been able to very much relateto this and during that time.
Yeah. Looking for something?
Oh yeah. We wantbecause we wanted something good.
We were also at that stageI was just really tired of the whole
the things that I used to like
(24:21):
the ugly and the like then
and this poor sister passed awayand then I seen the real face of death.
And that it's not so glamorousand so beautiful.
It's actually really horrible.
And that made me feel like,you know, I'm not immortal.
Yeah.
She was very young. And look at me.
(24:43):
I thought it's just old peoplethat get sick and die, you know?
There was very.
That impacted me.
Really deeply.
And that made me want to I,I just started to dislike
everything about it,and I just wanted something nicer.
Something better.
But again, we were still quite blind
(25:05):
at that stage because, yeah, that's.
After that, when we were with Enda’s,my husband's mum for a little while
just to support her, and that's when the,
the paranormalstarted happening in the house,
where we were, and I was there.
(25:25):
Do you want to talk about that.
Yeah. Yeah.
Like what. Like what.
What was that like. Because.
Okay.
So in in America you know in Hollywoodthey like to make movies
about these thingsand oh, the paranormal, the ghosts that.
It's that. Yeah.
And on, one level, it'smarketed as entertainment.
Right. It's just entertainment.
(25:46):
But on on another level for a whole,for another group of people.
It's not. It's real for them. Yeah.
And it's pretty easy to just be like,okay, that's just kind of Hollywood
trying to make money or whatever.
But there is an element to thisthat I think we can say is very real.
I mean. Yeah.
Like from what you all experienced,
but yeah, if you wantto describe that for us Well, you see,
(26:09):
I knew that there and Enda was mentioninga venue was even when he was younger
or when they were just living there,things would be happening to them.
And I was like, okay.
At the time I was like,oh, that's kind of cool. You know?
As silly as I was,because I couldn't understand the whole
I couldn'timagine it. It didn't happen to me.
I don't think I even
experienced anythingwhen I was in Slovakia.
(26:32):
So it was pretty new to me.
Like I knew these things happened,but I didn't quite seen it in real life.
And so yeah there were a few instanceslike I remember
like the knocking on the window,like when we were just, just chillen
in, in Enda’s room and next thing
it was darkand I think his mom went somewhere
(26:53):
and we just heard this real three knockson the window, and it was a split second.
He opened the window.
There was nobody there,and there was nothing outside.
So that was quite scary.
We couldn't understand itbecause we knew that demonic
always does things in threes.
So the three knocks. Was this like, okay,
next thing,
we had the kitten at the time as well.
(27:17):
We clearly see a kittenclimbing up on the bed,
just like the how the claws.
I just trying to get up.
And then I look across the roomand the kitten sleeping in the bed,
its ownbed, fast asleep away from the bed.
So there was like, okay, well.
And it's still, you know,I still kind of like, you know,
(27:39):
I wasn't too scared about it,but I started to be kind of curious
in a way.
Then Enda’s uncle's picture
that he passed awaywas turned to the wall,
and no one turned it around.
And his mom was very upsetabout that hanging on the wall.
No, it was it was...
but it was just me and and his mum.
(28:01):
And no one touched the pictureand it turned itself.
I was turned to the wall facing the walland she was very upset about it.
I was like, I would not dare to do that.
You know, that's very disrespectful.
And then another instance
was I heard Enda’s mum calling him
and he just would not go.
(28:23):
So I just wanted to like, why don't you goand like your mum is calling you
and he said she's not at home.
And at that point I was like, okay,well there is something going on in here.
Yeah.
And ya’ll both heard that No, I askedyou just I heard it and I came to Enda
and I said, why aren't you goinglike she's waiting for you?
Oh my. Okay.
That must have been, that must have beenterrifying when you realized.
(28:45):
Wait.
She's not even in the house. Yeah,she wasn’t in the house.
So somehow like then starting to be
instead of, like, not be in the house.
We started to get interestedin the whole paranormal thing.
And I know there were differentapps on the phone that you could download
and like,
you know, ghost boxesand isn't like, like ghost hunting
(29:07):
and some of these things like it's
actually a thinglike I thought it was a joke.
And then I started looking at I was like,no, people take this very seriously.
They do all you can getall sorts of equipment for that.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
I mean, in my naivete,I just kind of a, you know.
Okay. Yeah.I mean, nobody takes this seriously, but.
Yeah.
Oh, no ghost huntingand all the equipment that comes with
it is very much a real thing,which is terrifying.
(29:30):
And Yeah.
But some people just get some sort of how would I say
not enjoyment, but it's like an adventure.
It's kind of like curiosity.
Yeah.
Like this isbut but even you said like before you went
and experienced ityourself. You're like, oh, okay.
Like it didn't really it didn't. Yeah.
(29:50):
As as something, wait,this is actually horrifying and not okay.
Because you might think
that maybe it's just ghostsand they may want to say something,
you know, because I knew they were demons,but I thought demons were different.
I thought demons
do worse things
than just knock on windows,you know, like, yeah.
Now, now, youyou would have known there's demons.
(30:11):
Like, why is that?
From your experience, going to churchright early on or the music
or something like that, but.
okay.But you didn't put the two together that.
Hey maybe, perhaps the demonic element is behind
these things with the new age stuffyou're involved in and, and so forth.
The connection hadn't been made yetfor you at this point.
(30:32):
no, I didn't think that at all.
That's in it.
That's it.
That's I think a very important pieceI think because I know
there have been plenty of times in my life
where I just thought,oh, anybody involved in this stuff
must clearly knowthat they're involved with dark forces.
And I've been hearing more and more.
No, it's actually deceiveslike, it's deception.
(30:53):
Yeah, yeah.
Again,when I was interviewing your husband,
he was saying we were trying towe thought we were trying to do
good things, and we were completely off,you know, I mean, very dicey,
you know, just just,you know, clearly had it wrong.
But at the time, it felt like we weretrying to do what was right, you know,
Wow. Wild.
(31:13):
Yeah. Yeah.
Now, I think that these are reallyimportant pieces because it's so easy to,
misunderstand these things
or maybe not take them seriouslyor whatever the case may be.
Yeah.
So with the paranormal, situationlike the.
Yeah, that must have.
Did that have a pretty big effecton your worldview and,
and how you thought about these things.Yeah.
(31:34):
Because it introduced me to like, oh, wow,the spiritual world is true is real.
I still didn't think of Godor heaven or hell,
but it just opened the possibilityof of life after death.
You know that there, there,there is more to life.
Like you just
made it, did it.
I believed, like I just had an idea of it.
(31:55):
But now I believe thatthere is like when you die, you, you,
you are still going to live.
So we were then going
into deeper into the paranormalbecause I don't know why I was so curious.
But yeah,we watched hundreds and hundreds of them,
and then we started
to see a pattern inhow these things operate,
(32:16):
how they just subtly startwith just making
people argue or,
you know, sometimes
paranormal things or, or demonic forcesdon't just necessarily move stuff.
They usually work on your emotionsand they separate people
and, yeah.
(32:36):
So start to see different patternsand then different ways that help people
who are dealing with these things,how they were trying to get rid of them.
So our mission was to get rid of it.
And so, we started to see that,
like these people, they were smudgingthe place with sage and things like that.
(32:56):
The things always came back.
So we abandoned that ideawith a straight away.
And then and then this man,
he washe was like a self-proclaimed exorcist.
But he was a man.
Like he believes in God,you know, we know him. We know him.
he started ordering
these things in the name of Christ.
(33:17):
And I was like, that's very interestingbecause Jesus was in the new age,
but he was just like an ascended master,you know?
Oh, so like, not divine in the sense thatChristians would say he is and so forth.
Yeah, he would be divine, but more
with the knowledge that he had, ratherthan him being the savior of the world.
Okay, that's a critical difference. Yeah.
(33:37):
Yeah okay.
And then we were like, well,why weren't they saying,
like, in the name of Budhaor somebody else?
It has never come up inany of those videos that we were watching.
There was nobody there was called.
They were either doing this shamanic stuffor they were using Jesus,
but nothing else.
(33:58):
Like at leastwhat we have seen, there was nothing else
but the name of Christ was working,you know?
And so I was like,wow, that's that's very interesting.
And at the time, we had this friendthat used to work with us
and he was the, he is a Jehovah's Witness.
And, you know, he kept telling Enda that,you know,
these are demons, you know,and they're like, yeah, okay.
(34:21):
The ghosts, they're not demons.
And, you know, and then soand there was on the mission to prove him
that he, he started reading the Bible.
And,
then he got interested in Christmore and more.
Oh, was hewas he started reading the Bible to.
I want to prove this. This personwrong. Right?
necessarily that wrong but I just want tolearn more and yeah to have a debate
(34:43):
because he, he loved to debate,you know that friend in particular.
So Enda wanted to be ready for him.
So the more he wants to debatethe more Enda read the Bible.
Oh. That's incredible.
What what a, hey, it getsyou reading the Bible.
That was.
That's amazing. Yeah. You know,that's amazing.
So, you know, it says every knee will bowin the name of Christ.
(35:04):
And it did.
And we went.
And then,we heard that the paranormal activity
which came back to in this mum's houseagain, she was experiencing things.
And so we said to her, well,you know, maybe you can say to it
to leave in the name of Christ,
which is say, say, go in the name of Jesus
(35:26):
and really believe it.
And so she said, okay.
And then one night she rang usand she said
now, I don't know, sorry.
But she did see, like a figure,
appearing from underneatha blanket or something.
And then she seen this handput towards her
(35:47):
or going towards her, and she was so scared she couldn't speak.
And but she rememberedwhat Enda had said to her.
And she did say
eventually for itto go away in the name of Christ.
And she said it just went like.
Like that was sheshe wasn't a Christian? No.
(36:08):
At the time. She wasn't a Christian.
But she believed in the powerthat God can do it.
It's almost like,do you believe that I can do this?
Yeah. Oh, that is that is amazing.
It's incredible.
And at that point I was like,wow, Christ is real.
You know, God is real.
And it was like,oh, we need to come to church.
We have to find church.
(36:29):
And we were just so shocked
that that's where the Christianjourney for us started.
that is kind of
phenomenal to me, that the paranormalor whatever you want to call it,
and it's response to the name of Jesusis really
a significant part of you allstarting your journey to Christianity.
(36:50):
Yeah, well,that's not the normal path people take.
Christianity.
But it connected with you.
I I'm getting a senseit connected with you and your husband
because you had been in this world before.
This probably was really stuck out to youas whoa, We've never seen this before.
No. And it was just so incredible.
(37:11):
Especially the way I believed herwhen she told me to start.
Because I knew, you know, why would you?
Why would she lie. Yeah. She.
Yeah.
Like,I have experience it myself, I know. Well.
And at the time,she was in such a bad place
that I think that it wasmanifesting in a bad way. So
it it confirmedher like it converted her to really.
So she became a Christian then?
(37:31):
Yeah, but we were very.
How would I saynot a like we were Christians,
but we were we'd still we're likeat the very, very, very beginning.
So we still were in our old ways.
Well, I was I, I don't thinkI was reading a Bible at the time much.
I just know I got inspired by my husbandreading it.
And so we were kind of
(37:53):
going on that journey together.
And then after this, we found a church.
And because we wantedto learn more about the faith,
but I didn't want to go backto the Catholic Church.
So any church will do at that stage,
and it was very charismatic church too.
So it really helped me to buildthat relationship with God and Christ.
(38:16):
But then,
we were learning more about the Bible,
and then we seen the heretical teachings
of that particular churchthat we were in involved with.
So that was disappointing.
There was like this whole Christian worldthat opened up
with all these different denominationsthat we just were.
So we were lost.
(38:36):
oh, that must have beenincredibly confusing.
Very confusing,because neither you or your husband
had interactionreally with Christianity to this point.
I mean,not not to a meaningful level, at least.
So you're coming in with
having read the Bible and some of thethings that a Jehovah's Witness told you.
And that's
(38:57):
and a little bit of Catholic background,so you don't have much teaching
or context, I guess I would sayfor Christianity to begin with.
Yeah, that must have been hard.
Yeah it was, but my husband has sucha great ability to research.
Yeah, yeah.
There's he had.
Yeah, he
could, he could discuss with this friendfor hours.
(39:20):
Why what he believes in some certainthings is not
the way the Bible says it.
You know, because the Jehovah's Witnesseshave their own Bible.
And then there is
the other Bible, like, Oh, I betthose were some interesting conversations.
They were very long ones, too.
But, you know,it was good for something like it
was it definitely helped us in our,our Christian journey.
(39:42):
And then we had the problemswith this church that we were part of.
Yeah, we were learning.
We were still learning.
We were still looking for answers.
It was very difficultin that church for us.
Well because, because then that, thatmust have started you on a journey of okay
you've, you've read the scriptures,you've become convinced that it's true.
You're starting to follow Christ
(40:02):
now like you saidyou're in the very very beginning.
Yeah. Steps. You know, of that journey.
And now you have a pretty, complicated
process of, okay,what does church look like for for you?
I can't even imaginewhat that would be like coming in with
with so little context about Christianity,you would have so much to learn.
(40:22):
That must've been quite the process.
was a lot.
Yeah, it was like the churchwhere we were part of it was still kind of
bells and whistles, like in thein a way that you still felt like the
it was like from going from the new ageon all the, the wonders and the
and the paranormal and everythingwhere you could kind of see and hear
and touch and so, you know, it was
(40:44):
it was very similar in to thatcharismatic church to, you know,
people were speaking in tonguesand there was music
and people were spontaneously laughing.
And it was, you know, but it was notin their eyes that that was that was God.
There was the Holy Spirit,there was the opposite.
But I started feeling like, well,I don't feel that way.
(41:04):
I don't feel like bursting outlaughing, or
speaking in tongues or am I not believingenough?
You know, if I, I,I started just feeling that way.
It's like I just couldn'tfeel what those people were feeling. Ooh.
And that that must have been disorienting.
Yeah. It was. And so I was kind of like
how would I say I just had to go to God.
(41:26):
Like how do, how do Christian live.
Like I know there's Muslimsand they have their communities
and they have their different clothesand they have their culture
that they had their faith,but they live in it all the time.
I go here, and I feel good for the Sunday.
And then I come home, back to my own bedand my life, you know.
(41:47):
Yeah. And I wanted something more.
I wanted to live it every daybecause it just felt right at that time.
It's like, God takes
the the darkness out of your eyes and the
you want him more and moreand you don't find you love.
I used to hate color.
Like I was alwayswearing black and stuff, and
(42:08):
it just I started to enjoy things.
I loved flowers, everything lovely andcolorful, and I just wanted to be in that.
And it wasn't when I came back homefrom church, like we had no community.
Those people just went backto their own work.
And yeah, we
then had a very complicated relationshipwith the pastors and the people in there.
(42:30):
The more we knewand the more we were questioning.
So and I was asking Godabout how to Christian live
and so, yeah, I seen people head covering.
Then when I was trying to figure it out,I think I just stumbled across
one lady and she said she was a Christianand she was head covering where
I was on YouTube.
(42:51):
Sounds like rain.
Oh yeah. Yeah,well that lady. really. Okay.
So just searching.
Yeah. On the internetand you just find things.
Yeah.
So I was like, all that is interesting.
Were they.
When I looked at their vlogs,they were a Christian family.
They had their community.
They talked about God all the time.
They had all of this music or whatever.
(43:13):
And I wanted
and I, and Iso I learned why she's head covering
and I wanted toI felt like I want to do it too.
And but I couldn't find anybody in Irelanddoing it.
Like even in our church,no one was talking about head covering.
If anything, it was more like,I don't know what they were thinking,
(43:36):
Because Ireland would be
at least nominally very Catholic.
Right.
But beyond that it's actuallyjust pretty secular.
Right.
And there isn't that much no Christianityas we would think of it.
Right. The kind that’s lived out.
And and so forth.
It's almost more like a boxthat's checked.
(43:57):
You know, I'm a Christian, kind of like.
Is that a fair assessment?I don't want to.
Yeah, there is,
but then when you're like in the,I would say in the Pentecostal circles,
you do have churches like that,
but I never like I did look likeI told you, it's not too bad, you know,
but I just couldn't find anyone thathead covers, and that was my requirement.
(44:18):
Like, if they do obey this from the Bible,I'm sure they will obey way more.
And they would take it really seriously.
So are we just searching on the internet?
Like, I don't know, head coveringChristian in Ireland and things like that.
Nothing came up.
And but then when I wrote the headcovering
a bunch of Anabaptist people came up.
So, there was.
(44:39):
Yeah, that's what, that's what that'swhat opened the door to all everything
through all the struggles we hadand the searches of the searching
of the different churchesand denominations. And we can be part of.
And I really,
I found this particular ladythat I really enjoyed watching her vlogs
and the way she was presenting herselfand the.
(45:00):
Like, she was wearing a cape dressand she was wearing a head covering.
And I was really interested in that.
I was like, that's very nice.
and presented it to my husband andjust like, what do you think of this user?
I think she was like, she's a Mennonite.
And then,
so I was like,
I wonder if there's any Anabaptistin Ireland.
(45:20):
And sure enough, there wasand I just could not believe it
that there is church in Dunmore East.
And so we have looked in their websiteand then there was,
listening to their sermons as well
as you were tryingto figure out what they believe in,
because we were just like goingfrom denomination to the other,
and they believe in this,but they don't believe in that.
And these go to war and these, you know,
(45:44):
so but then the Anabaptists, they,
they value the Bible so much.
We really like the way
it's not just about the outwardlyappearance, but like even the, the,
the nonresistance was very is like, wow,they, they, they're even non-resistant.
And so yeah.
(46:05):
And they had, got a contactwith the pastor Dan
at the time and
they became really good friendsand he helped us to answer questions
that we had that we couldn'ttalk to our pastor about.
And, yeah,we then decided to leave the church
we were in, and we came to visit here
(46:29):
and this church here.
And then that begins the whole that,that next part of the journey.
Right.
Because ultimately, had to movethat I'm assuming from a different place
to join the community here and,and so forth.
I'm guessing that this whole process,this is probably a pretty long process
from first coming to Christianityto begin with, to ultimately
(46:50):
where you are now here in the south ofIreland, now in Dunmore East.
That was
probably a long processabout how many years was that?
I'm trying to think I was pregnantwith my first child, so that was 2020.
So I think we kind of madethe contact in 2019.
And since then we, we, we were maintainingour relationship with the church.
(47:10):
And because we lived so far away,
we tried to make it our businessto come every two weeks.
But it wasn't it just wasn't working out.
Yeah.
And so we were like,we know we have to make a decision.
Do we want to stay.
And who knows what Yeah, we will be doing?
Or do we want to join this churchthat we want so badly to be part of?
(47:33):
Because we we, we likednot just the community,
but just theyou live Christ every single day.
And I just really, really liked that.
And it was like the answer to my prayerthat I was talking to God about,
about how the Christian lives.
And this was the answer.
Wow. And, yeah.
So we decided to move over to New Ross.
(47:54):
At first because for a very long timewe couldn't find any house to stay in.
So the the move was very dramatic,
especially,
Enda’sparents were not very happy about that.
So yeah, that's we moved there.
And then we got baptized in 2022.
(48:17):
So what a what a journey.
You know from Slovakia you know and
some interactionsearly on with the Catholics
and then on to these other thingsyou were part of, and then ultimately
finding the scripturesand how that completely changed your life.
Yeah. Just completely. completely. Yeah.
(48:39):
It is just a testamentto how powerful God's word is.
Very, You know. Yeah.
So I'm, I'm guessingthere's people listening to this episode
that are on different pointsof maybe a somewhat similar journey.
You know, they're trying to findmaybe they're testing.
Is is Christianity true or whatwhat church should they consider joining?
(49:00):
You know what community should theywhat should they join in?
And these journeys are sometimes long
and not always a straight path, you know?
But what would you say to to someonein that position to encourage them,
or any advice you would like to give tosomeone like that?
Well, I’m not the source of wisdomor like, you know, not very good
and encouraging people,but I would definitely say that
(49:22):
please keep seekingand there is no wrong questions
and that God meetsyou where you are and he
he gives you.
If you are serious about your journeyand if you're
serious about looking for God,he will show himself to you.
If you're doing it for the good reasons,
(49:42):
then he will meet you where you are.
Be being in a Pentecostal church,being out in the world somewhere.
He will meet you thereand he'll lead you home.
And just don't give up.
Sounds like, faithfulness
to what God is calling us tois one element, but also patience.
Yes. Patience.
(50:03):
Yeah.
Because it didn't happenjust immediately for you.
Yeah. This was a long process.
Yeah, definitely.
It's nothing radicallike I always thought it would be.
Just this profound. Radical change.
But now I just see it's not.
I don't think
people would really handle it thatwell if it was a radical experience.
And yeah that's true.
(50:23):
I hadn't thought of that.
It’d be almost too much of an adjustmentall at once.
I'd say. So.
I think people just need timeand God knows that.
He knows everybody intimately,and he knows what works with other people.
you know there's athere in revelation it talks about how,
Christ followers overcome
(50:44):
through the word of their testimonyand through the blood of the lamb.
And then you've definitely shown usboth of those today.
You know, on, on this episode,you know, that our testimonies,
our stories have power,because of what Christ has done.
Because because of who he is,not who we are.
As we bring this, this story, you know,
(51:04):
pull this package together and,and bring this episode to a close.
Is there anything else you would liketo leave with the listeners?
I just pray that everyone will findwhat they're looking for.
Yeah.
If you're if you're struggling,I do pray that you will get in.
You'll have peace.
But God is good.
(51:24):
And he sees you when he sees your pain
and he will lead you home.
Just be faithful.
Well, Susie thank you so muchfor sharing with us today.
Thank you.
Thanks for listening to this episodewith Susie.
If you found this interesting,you should go to our website
at Anabaptistperspectives.orgwhere you can find all our content.
(51:47):
We've recorded a number of other life
stories on this podcastand I hope you find those interesting.
Thanks again for listeningand we'll see you in the next episode.
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