My parents claimed to not like the church I started going to in the 8th grade. They said it was too big and cold feeling. I personally, never noticed that & actually felt accepted in a youth program for the first time in my life. I went to Sunday school & church on Sunday mornings, youth choir on Sunday night & youth group on Wednesday nights. We did things together outside of church, we were all friends & I loved my youth group. In between my freshman and sophomore years, our youth group went on a mission trip to teach Vacation Bible School to underprivileged miner’s children in Wyoming. We stayed at a couple of houses in Superior and traveled to a trailer park at Point of Rocks every day & taught our VBS in a room above a bar & grill.

We behaved like standard Baptists. We began to self-destruct halfway through our time there,  and I’m ashamed of my behavior during that trip to this day. Our Youth Minister had to step in and mediate between the two factions and hold a special service to give us all a chance to apologize for the hurts we had caused each other. We learned a lot about ourselves and each other that week & it was one of the most life-changing events of my life, quite frankly. We got even closer as friends in the summer that followed.

I continued to attend that church through my Sophomore year & my parents started attending the UFO church towards the end of that school year or the beginning of my Junior year. I had my own car, so transportation wasn’t an issue and they really didn’t seem to mind that we were going to different churches. In February of 1983 I started dating the boy would be my first ex-husband and shortly after that, my mother insisted that I start going to their church, because “the family that worships together stays together” or at least that’s what her pastor said in a series of sermons that winter and spring. I wasn’t given a choice and I wasn’t asked my opinion, I was told I’d go to church there or I’d be removed from public school & go to school there, too. I went to Sunday school once and didn’t fit in. No one talked to me, or seemed to even care that I was there, so after that I only went to the church service and nothing else.

I missed my friends & I missed  a program that I truly enjoyed and gradually began to hate Sundays again. I dreaded getting up to go to church and started to look for every possible excuse not to go. I was “sick” an awful lot & sometimes even went to church with the first ex just to get out of going with them. I often wonder who I’d be today if they had just left me alone & let me go where I wanted to.

Tomorrow: The Beginning of the End