Patty Bonds: our Friend and Fellow-convert

Last week we had the privilege of joining Patty Bonds for dinner and then spending an evening with her very nice family. (Click on the current family picture for larger image.) She is a delightful lady who really loves Our Lord and the Catholic Church. After been raised as a Reformed Baptist (her  father was a "pastor") she found the Catholic Church seven years ago and has never looked back — like untold hundreds, if not thousands I've heard from over the last few years (for hundreds of such conversion stories, click here.)

She has appeared with Marcus Grodi on The Journey Home twice. You can listen to her first appearance here where she tells her conversion story. (You can read her story at Free Republic here and another version here.)  Especially interesting is her second appearance on The Journey Home here where she tells the story of incest and abuse she suffered as a girl and how she overcame it by the grace of God. She's a very intelligent and very deeply spiritual woman. The obstacles and betrayals in her life have only served to bring her closer to Jesus and deeper into the spiritual life – which becomes obvious the moment you begin speaking with her.

Her three daughters – Kim, Sarah and Esther – are following in her spiritual footsteps. In the picture you can see me and my wife Janet, then Patty. To the right of Patty is her daughter Kim with  husband Mike and their boys Gabriel and Isaac. Patty’s daughter Esther is holding Isaac. Sarah was not home during this visit.

We met Patty about six years ago, after her dramatic conversion to the Catholic Church, while working at our video production studio is in Mesa Arizona. Since then we try to visit with her family whenever we're in Phoenix. Last week we made this visit while editing our 7 current Footprints of God DVDs into 21 30-minute segments for airing on EWTN. So, we met up with their family last week, not only to encourage them, but also to be encouraged by them and their sincere faith and love for Jesus and the Church.

Patty asked me to let people know about her blog. She is going to be posting what she referred to as “some important things” over the next few months and wanted to get the word out. Her blog is "Abba’s Little Girl" at http://abbaslittlegirl.blogspot.com/