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Although a life-long Christian Scientist, I didn’t embrace it fully until I had to deal with a number of challenges in college. After graduation, I was accepted into The Mother Church chaplain training program, attended seminary, and had a variety of assignments in the Army, including military prisons, hospitals, and a tour of duty in Vietnam. The public practice of healing naturally evolved and I became listed in the Journal in 1976. After completing active duty, my wife and I moved to California, where we raised two sons.

In common with many people, I am sure, the two most important things to me are my family and my faith. In fact, I can say that I would not have one without the other, since they came to me about the same time and were very much connected. Seeking help after a succession of three miscarriages, I came across the book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science. A whole new, more spiritual perspective on life began to open up to me, and I learned that healing through prayer is as possible now as in Jesus’ day.

I was raised in Angola. In 1971 I finished secondary school, received a certificate in general pedagogy, and started working as a teacher.

Attending Christian Science Sunday School as a child, I loved what I learned there of God—He’s everywhere, always Love, and All. But going out into the “cold, cruel world,” I couldn’t reconcile what I was seeing with a God who is Love. Putting my Bible and Science and Health on the shelf, I forged ahead, just trying to live a moral, meaningful life. I married, had children, was happy, but missing was a depth to life.  Science and Health beckoned to me. Opening it, I saw my grandmother’s note inside: “Judith Ann—Read this.  You owe it to yourself.” I did, for the first time. When I came to “The calm, strong currents of true spirituality.

Christian Science and community service were strong influences in my home growing up.  I found fulfilling ways to help disadvantaged people over the years, but in college I became convinced that the best way to accomplish lasting justice and peace was Jesus’ path of breaking through the illusion of evil and many minds to the perfection of God’s spiritual universe.  I wanted to devote myself to Christian Science healing, but wasn’t sure how to launch. My next step was to become a Christian Science nurse.

Having been raised in Christian Science I always expected to become a practitioner. While my path may not have been as quick and direct as it probably has been for others, there were always signposts that I was on the right track.

In one of my earliest memories, I’m climbing onto my dad’s lap. I wasn’t feeling well and though I don’t remember the exact words, we talked about how God’s love was all around me.

I live in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, with my wife, two daughters, a son, and nine grandchildren. I ran across Christian Science at college at a time when I was starting to doubt the usefulness of religion in life, after having attended a Christian denomination since childhood.

As the universal Pastor for the Church of Christ, Scientist, the Bible and Science and Health embrace church congregations with a message of Christian love, preach the Word with clarity, minister to those needing care in every place and circumstance, and prove their worth through healing transformation.

Interactive stories highlight profiles of people around the world making a difference in their communities. Each story from the pages of The Christian Science Monitor highlights universal qualities that nurture progress, including hope, resilience, joy, gratitude, compassion, generosity, courage, and forgiveness.