Denise Harper, a cradle Catholic, moved to Arkansas from her native California with her husband, a native of Arkansas. She knew there would be a culture shock, but discovered a “whole different world” as a Catholic in the Bible Belt.

Her husband converted to Catholicism after they married, so although he grew up in Arkansas, he now was learning to live in Arkansas as a Catholic. He, too, discovered a whole new world.

In Arkansas, people from other faith traditions don’t understand Catholics because they don’t know many Catholics. As a result, there are many obstacles to face when it comes to religion. One of these obstacles: Many from other Christian traditions feel a need to “save” Catholics.

 “It’s sort of an isolated feeling sometimes,” says Denise, now the parish secretary at St. Mark, Glenmary’s mission in Monticello. The Harper’s two daughters feel it too. They don’t have Catholic friends and have said they feel like they are the “only Catholics” in the area.

So what’s the solution? How can Denise and other Catholics help educate their neighbors about Catholicism without having it be confrontational? That’s what Denise says she hoped to find at the National Council for Catholic Evangelization conference in June.

She has tried to reach out to her Arkansas community—and  even joined a local Bible study group. But she found it to be “too fundamentalistic for me.” As the only Catholic in the group, she was very often asked to defend her beliefs, which became very uncomfortable.

When she heard Father Paul Minihan, the keynote speaker, explain evangelization as simply “witnessing to our faith in our everyday life,” some of the pressure was taken off.

While she says she still hopes to reach out to the larger community, that will come in time. She left the conference thinking that an Isaiah 43 Mission seemed like a good place to start within the St. Mark community, sparking their enthusiasm for renewal. Then, she said, she will see where the Spirit leads after that.

“I am a Christian and I am a Catholic,” she says. “I’ve been trying my best to express that, and now I see that I do it without even knowing it. I see others from my parish doing it—expressing their faith in the small acts of kindness I witness or the helping hand offered.”

Friends of the Harpers have noticed, too. They were searching for a faith community, and Denise gave them a book to read about Catholicism.

Whether they convert to Catholicism isn’t the main point for Denise. “The exciting part isn’t the number of people who convert but it’s the look on people’s faces when they come to know the Catholic faith as I do and what wonderful surprises and revelations come from that knowledge.”