On Tuesday night, UVA President Jim Ryan, Abundant Life Ministries’ Director Eddie Howard, and Cato Institute’s Walter Olson all shared personal testimonies about the role faith has had over the course of their lives.
The event, hosted by the Blue Ridge Center, a Charlottesville organization dedicated to viewpoint diversity and empathetic engagement, served to bring community members together for an evening to discern how “faith-based initiatives of many kinds help mend American society.”
Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, began the evening by speaking about his long-prevailing skepticism toward religious organizations.
Olson’s perspective towards faith changed with the adoption of his son.
Touching on the politics of adoption, Olson highlighted two groups that adopt more than cohorts: the LGTBQ community and the devoutly religious.
While Olson still slightly harbors some of the skepticism from the past, such doubt is overshadowed by his concern for the kids.
When he sees that religion is on the decline, Olson finds himself asking about the effects this trend will have not only on the community, but the kids waiting to be adopted.
Following Olson’s story, a new wave of sentiment was ushered in with Jim Ryan detailing his own adoption story.
Ryan said he knew his entire life that he had been adopted. His adoptive parents never shied away from this fact, and even expressed their willingness to help him find his biological parents. However, Ryan said that he really wasn’t ever interested.
His mindset shifted slightly when he found himself in a Seattle bookstore in his early 20s. Stumbling upon a section of books dedicated to adoption, Ryan remembers the moment being the first time it occurred to him that his birth mother might also be thinking about him.
Years later, with further convincing from a friend, he took the leap and decided it was time to learn more about his biological parents.
Reaching out to the Catholic Charities office, the agency through which he was adopted in New Jersey, Ryan was able to unravel not only pieces of his birth story, but his mother’s story. The documents shed light on the circumstances on why Ryan’s biological mother, Ann, had to place him up for adoption. The document concluded with the sentence, “she left the hospital broken-hearted.”
Encouraged by his wife, Katie, Ryan further enlisted Catholic Charities for their assistance to track down his birth mother. Nearly a month later, he received a call from the agency informing Ryan they had found her.
Learning that her son was looking for her, Ann drove to the agency’s office where she tearfully revealed, “I had prayed for him every day of his life. And my only prayer was that someday we would meet in heaven.”
When Ryan was finally able to meet his birth mother, he learned that all the time he had lived in New Jersey, Ann had lived only 15 minutes away from him.
With age, Ryan has been able to look back on his Catholic upbringing with a more greater appreciation for the values it instilled in him throughout his life.
“The church that I went to, you heard the same two messages every single time you went to church. And it had nothing to do with social issues, nothing to do with hot-button issues. The two messages are, it’s not about you, and the most important thing you can do is serve others, and especially those in need,” Ryan said Tuesday night.
To Ryan, it was clear that those at Catholic Charities served with the same two messages in mind, as well.
The third and final story of the night came from Abundant Life Ministries’ Director, Eddie Howard. A native of Charlottesville, Howard found himself often in quite a bit of trouble. Eventually, Howard ended up in the penitentiary. Yet, he credits certain individuals for seeing “the good” in him, even when Howard was questioning himself.
After serving time, Howard was still trying to discern his path moving forward, then he met the then Director of Abundant Life Ministries – a moment Howard describes as a “turning point” in his life.
From there, he was introduced to the rest of the ministry, a moment Howard recalls as being powerful for him.
“They weren’t judging me,” Howard said. “I lived my life wondering how other people thought of me.”
Instead, the ministry embraced him.
The more Howard became involved in the ministry, the more he realized just how good it felt to give back.
Around 17 years later, near the end of the pandemic, Howard received a call from Abundant Life asking if he would consider being Executive Director of the ministry.
“And again, here’s the faith community that took a chance on me,” Howard said.
Taking the opportunity to describe the goals of Abundant Life Ministries, Howard spoke to the audience on the satisfaction that comes from a life centered around selfless service.
“That life of service, that life of giving back, it will impact you and it will take you many places, and you will remember it for the rest of your life.”
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