KIM BARBOUR REFLECTS I
RCIA Coordinator Kim Barbour at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which she visited with Fr. John and a group from our diocese when she was going through the RCIA process herself.
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t’s never too late to find your way home to the Catholic Church. This great truth is something that our new Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) coordinator, Kim Barbour, knows from personal experience. Kim joined the Church through RCIA two years ago at St. John Before the Latin Gate. Although she had been a practicing Episcopalian for the first 50 years of her life, Kim came to a deeper understanding of Christ and His Church as a participant in RCIA. When Kim first enrolled in RCIA, she had no idea just how transformative the next nine months would be. “I thought I had it all going on,” Kim says. “I was very much a prayer warrior. I had parents who were very faithful and taught me Jesus’s message, and the Episcopal church was very reverent. But I had some questions about things.” The more she learned, the more Kim fell in love with the Catholic Church. “I was 50 years old when I felt like my eyes were opened up wide and it all made sense to me, the entire tradition from Genesis to Revelation,” she says. “I do believe in my heart that this is a faith that goes way back to the very beginning, and I love that. I love the apostolic tradition that the faith brings, and that has answered all of the questions and filled the blank spaces that I was feeling as I was moving through my adult years. That’s the background I bring to RCIA, and that informs this year’s program.” Thankful for her own experience in RCIA, Kim was thrilled to help Pat Netzer co-lead the program for 2019-20. This year, Kim has taken the lead while Pat continues to assist with the coordination of RCIA. Fr. John, Fr. Carlos, Deacon Dan, and Deacon Charlie lead the sessions, which are currently meeting in
