Uncle John began to share with me about how his Roman Catholic neighbors had gotten saved. This had radically changed their lives, especially the father, who had been a wife and child beating drunkard. When my aunt died, they showed such concern and love to my uncle that he visited a Pentecostal church service with them. At 67 years of age my Roman Catholic uncle had never attended a church other than the Roman Catholic. He was deeply touched by the services and particularly by their clean-cut young people who were so different from the worldly Roman Catholic young people he knew.

After several visits to the church, one night he leaped from his seat and ran to the front of the church shouting, "My God, I'm lost, I'm lost, I'm lost!" He was a well known local businessman and it created quite a stir when he was saved. Later he received the baptism in the Holy Spirit. A childless widower, he promised to give himself and all his property to the Lord.

As he finished this strange narrative, I was thinking the old man must have gone crazy. However, I had no other place to go, so I just said nothing. That night I overheard him praying for me, and again the next morning. Each time he was asking the Lord to save me. This went on nightly and for the rest of his life.

Because I was so ill, my uncle put me in the hospital, paid my bills, took care of me, fed and clothed me. After I came home, my uncle became very sick and his doctor said he needed to be in the hospital. I begged the physician to let me keep my relative home and nurse him. It was my chance to repay him for his kindness to me. The doctor consented, however he steadily got worse and worse.

In a few days my uncle called me in and said, "Honey, I'm going home to be with the Lord. I want you to call your father and tell him that my funeral will be in this church here." He told me which undertaker to call and also mentioned what he wanted done at the funeral. I was stunned, scarcely believing what I was hearing. He smiled, looked in my face, then closed his eyes and he was gone.

When I realized he was dead, I was wracked with waves of awful grief. This man was all I had in life. All my precarious security was swept away. I was lost, and had been betrayed by everyone except this man. I felt I had been robbed of all I held dear and precious in this world. I fell across his lifeless body screaming furiously and hysterically, "If there is a God, why, why did you take him away from me? He's all I have. It's not fair! It's not fair."

I finally pulled myself together and began to carry out my uncle's instructions. I called the pastor; the undertaker; picked out the casket; sent telegrams and made all of the funeral arrangements. Uncle John never told his relatives that he had left the Roman Catholic church because he knew they would cut him off. Sure enough, when they learned this, not one single relative came to the funeral or sent flowers. People from the church knew of my deep attachment to my uncle and some stayed with me in the house for six weeks. When they had to go home, I was told to charge anything I needed at the grocery store and they paid every bill.

Seven months after Uncle John's death I begged the doctor to release me to go back to work. I hated being dependent and was anxious to assume responsibility for myself. I went to the neighboring state and took and passed a nurse's examination. In a matter of days I had been hired by a large Roman Catholic hospital to nurse. In spite of all of Uncle John's fervent praying and witnessing, I was still unsaved.

For three years I worked there and was able to support myself. What a glorious feeling after being sick and dependent on others for so long. An Assembly of God woman preacher came in for major surgery and I was assigned to be her special nurse. Following her operation she awoke praising the Lord for sparing her life and asked me to read aloud from the Bible. I began to shake all over for, as a Roman Catholic nun, I was never allowed to read the Bible. Nevertheless I read to her daily for the ten days while she was hospitalized. I was assigned to nurse her at home also.

When she was able, I accompanied her to a church downtown. I had been taught that all non-Catholics were heretics; therefore I only sat at the edge. Because I went each night, my employer gave me a Bible of my own. At the house I got in the habit of going down in the basement to read. Finally I dropped to my knees and said, "If there is a God, I want you to show me." Many nights I would read the Bible until the wee hours of the morning.

One night I dreamed about falling into the lake of fire and awoke screaming. My employer assured me God was trying to show me I was lost and needed to ask Jesus in my heart and be saved from all my sins. I dropped down on my knees and begged God not to let me die before I got saved.

I went to church one night, so under conviction that I was miserable. The preacher got up to read his text but I could bear it no longer. Leaping from my seat I raced to the altar sobbing and crying out repeatedly, "I don't want to go to hell! Oh God, have mercy on me, I don't want to go to hell!" I fell in a heap at the front and there I wept as I confessed all my rotten sins, my hatreds, bitterness, evil thoughts and deeds. I poured it all out, not caring who heard me.

What a refreshing and what a cleansing, as I asked for and received forgiveness. The Lord Jesus came into my heart and gave me salvation, full and free. Only those who have experienced being born again, being redeemed out of the hand of the enemy by the blood of Jesus Christ, can understand the supernatural glory, relief and joy which flooded my being that wonderful night.

My friend took me to the telegraph office where I sent a wire to my dad notifying him that I was no longer a Roman Catholic, for I had been gloriously saved by repenting of my sins and receiving Jesus Christ as my personal Saviour.

Three days later, sitting in my window at home, I looked up as a car screeched to a halt out front. My father and two Roman Catholic priests got out and came up the walk. Frightened, I ran quickly to the kitchen and told my friend that they were coming after me. She calmly told me to go to the door and invite them in. Because I was saved, she said there was nothing to fear.

I did as she said and ushered them into the living room. Dad immediately blurted out, "Charlotte, we're come to take you home." Incredulously I answered, "Dad, I'm not going home with you. I'm staying right here and will continue to attend the church where I found salvation. I want to learn more about God and the gospel of Jesus Christ." They had actually thought I was still the same mechanical robot I had been brainwashed to become in the convent!

My father looked distraught and said, "Charlotte, we've driven over 650 miles to come and take you home where you belong." After I again told my dad very firmly that, under no circumstances was I going to return with them, the older of the two priest leaped to his feet. He shouted furiously at me, "Of course, you know what you have done! You've damned your soul and you'll spend eternity in hell. One day you'll crawl back to the Holy Roman Catholic church on your hands and knees and beg for novenas to be said for you. One day you'll want to come to the confessional box and receive absolution for your horrible sins."

I had had enough of his raving and threatening. I thrust my Bible out in front of him and challenged him. "If you can show me one scripture in the Holy Bible where God says I am to go to a man to confess my sins, I'll get down on my knees beside you now and crawl back to a Roman Catholic Church!"

His face turned red as he sputtered in a towering rage, snatched the Bible from my hand and threw it to the floor. He slammed his foot on my beautiful Bible and spun around with all his weight, ripping it to pieces, breaking the binding. If he had put his foot on my face, I doubt that it would have hurt half as much as witnessing this. Through this Bible I had found the truth, and assurance of salvation.

If the Roman Catholic priests had the power, they would lead a house-to-house canvas, seize all the Bibles, soak them with gasoline and burn them all. When they come into power Bibles will not be permitted.

The priest began to pronounce all of the curses of the Roman Catholic excommunication upon me because I had worn a holy habit and dared to take it off. First he cursed my eyes, that they would rot and fall out of my head. I wept hysterically and fearfully, for as yet I did not know very much that the Bible teaches. When I escaped the convent I only had 4 percent vision in my left eye and eight percent in my right eye. I was practically blind because of the vicious treatment I received at the hands of the demonically driven Mother Superior; therefore this curse frightened me.

Next the priest cursed every vital organ in my body and commanded that maggots devour these organs. He droned on, "By the authority of God Almighty, the Father; the Son and the Holy Ghost, and of the holy canons and of all the undefiled; the Virgin Mary, Mother of God; and of all the apostles, evangelists and holy innocents, who in the sight of the Lamb are found worthy to sing the new canticles; and of all the holy martyrs and holy confessors; and all the holy handmaidens (those are the nuns and sisters) of the Lord, and of all the saints together with the elect of God; we excommunicate Charlotte from the threshold of the Roman Catholic Church; that she be tormented with eternal suffering forever, and that the fire which burns will never be quenched.

"May God the Father who created man, curse her; the Son of God who suffered for man, curse her; may the Holy Ghost Who was given us in baptism, curse her; may the holy cross which Christ descended triumphant over His enemies, curse her; may the Holy Mother of God, the perpetual Virgin Mary, curse her; may Saint Michael, Keeper of holy souls, curse her; may all the angels, the archangels, the principalities and powers and all the heavenly armies, curse her; may the praiseworthy rank of patriarchs and prophets, curse her; may Saint John the forerunner and baptizer of Christ and Saint Peter, Saint Paul, Saint Andrew and all of Christ's apostles, together with the other disciples, even the four Evangelists, who by their preaching converted the entire world, curse her."

"May the marchers and confessors, which by their good deeds are found pleasing to God, curse her. May the choirs of the holy handmaidens of the Lord, (nuns and sisters) who for the honor of Christ renounced as reprehensible the vanities of the world, curse her. May all of the saints who from the beginning of the world to the everlasting ages are found to be beloved of God, curse her. May the heavens and the earth and all the holy things remaining therein, curse her.

May she be cursed wherever she goes, whether it is in the house, whether she is in the field, whether she is in the roadway, whether she is in the path, whether she is in the woods, whether she is in the water, or whether she is in the church; may she be cursed in living, may she be cursed in eating, may she be cursed in drinking, in being hungry, in being thirsty, in fasting, in sleeping, in drowsing, in being awake, in walking, in standing, in sitting, in lying, in working, in resting."

All this was spoken in Latin and some statements were so filthy it is not decent even to repeat them. Of course, all of this comes straight from the pits of hell. The other more filthy parts, omitted here, were easily mouthed by a Roman Catholic priest in his "holy" habit.

The curse continued: "May she be cursed in all the faculties of her body; may she be cursed inwardly and outwardly; may she be cursed in the hairs of her head; may she be cursed in her brains; may she be cursed in the crown of her head; in her temples, in her forehead; in her ears; in her eyebrows; in her cheeks; in her jawbones; in her nostrils; in her teeth, both the biters and the grinders; in her lips; in her throat; in her wrists; in her arms; in her hand; in her fingers; in her breasts; in her heart and all the interior parts down to the very stomach; in the kidneys; in the groin; in the thighs; in the hips; in the knees; in the legs; in the feet; and in her tonsils."

"May she be cursed from the top of her head to the soles of her feet; let there be no soundness found in her; may Christ, the Son of the living God, curse her with all of the might of His holy office (this hurt me more than all the rest.)"

During all this tirade of cursing and denunciations, my poor father stood like a pale and tight-lipped statue. He was completely bound by the traditions, darkness, superstition, illiteracy and illegitimacy of Roman Catholicism. When the priest finished his horrible condemnation, I was shaking with fear and sobbing hysterically. Remember, I was just a babe in Christ and still had to be delivered of the terrible fears instilled by years of agony and pressure in the Roman Catholic system.

It was in 1946 when my father walked out the door with those two priests and I was left with a broken heart. I was numb, in a state of emotional shock, but went with my patient to a revival meeting that night. The message was on believers water baptism. This was all new to me, therefore I went to the pastor and requested a list of all the scriptures on water baptism.

I wanted to know the truth for I had come out of such gross error and needed to be sure of what the Bible taught. When we came home I went directly to the basement to search the scriptures and prayed that the Lord open my understanding. Through the night I studied and prayed, and by morning I knew I must be baptized in water as the scriptures taught.

The following night I went to church and was later baptized in the icy waters of the Mississippi River. As I came up out of the water, many infirmities, sicknesses and pains were miraculously removed from my body.