CHRIS PENA
EAST NEW YORK — Uber driver Chris Pena is putting Jesus in the driver’s seat of his life. A native of the Dominican Republic who came to the United States as a teenager, Pena, 31, is on the road to becoming a Catholic and is looking forward to his baptism at the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday at St. Rita Church in East New York.
As an Uber driver, he said he enjoys meeting people and hearing their stories. Now, he is writing a new story for himself. He has faced hardships at times, but he is now determined to stay on the right path.
“I used drugs, cocaine, pills from meeting the wrong people,” said Pena, who lives in the Bronx. “That was a bad experience.”
A year ago, he decided to turn his life around. “I was confused,” he said. “I believe in God, but I was confused, so I started to come to church.”
Pena said a friend led him to St. Rita, and he started attending Mass.
“I started to feel different, so now I’m here, and I want to be a part of the community,” he said. “I want to follow Jesus, and now I see life in a different aspect.”
Pena was not baptized into any religion, although members of his family attended services at Evangelical Christian churches as well as Mass in Catholic churches in the Dominican Republic.
“When I was a kid, I grew up in a Christian family. They have a strong faith,” he recalled.
At age 16, Pena moved to the United States with his father and two sisters. Religion took a back seat, and his drug use began. Eventually, however, he realized that drugs weren’t satisfying his needs. Specifically, he said his needs were spiritual.
“I want to find something like identity. I want to connect more with God, spirituality, physically (and) meet different people, Pena said. I want to be a real Christian.”
“I say that because I made a lot of mistakes in my past. I think I made the wrong decisions. I did bad things,” he added. “I want to be more mature. I want to do good things, not for myself, (but) for my family, for the community, for society.”
Pena said he views his baptism as an opportunity to “start again” and “do something different” with his life. Meanwhile, he drives for Uber and counts his blessings.
“I like the job. I can’t complain. I feel thankful because I have a job and dignity,” he said.
JAZMIN AND KENWYN RAMROOP
SHEEPSHEAD BAY — Jazmin and Kenwyn Ramroop point to their 4-year-old son Karter and his school, St. Mark’s Catholic Academy in Sheepshead Bay, as two of the biggest reasons they are joining the Catholic Church.
The Ramroops are preparing for their baptism, holy Eucharist, and Confirmation by taking classes in the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults program at St. Mark’s Church every Sunday morning after 9 a.m. Mass.
Jazmin, a paraprofessional in the New York City public school system, was raised in the Pentecostal Church in Brooklyn, while Kenwyn, a maintenance worker for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), grew up in a Catholic family on the Caribbean island of Trinidad but was never baptized.
The couple struggled to conceive a child and then lost a son, Gabriel, when Jazmin was six months pregnant.
“We just decided, let’s take a step back, start praying, start getting our lives together, and we ended up having Karter in 2020,” she said.
When Karter turned 3, and the Ramroops were looking for a school to enroll him in, they visited St. Mark’s Catholic Academy and fell in love, even though it was more than four miles from their Prospect-Lefferts Gardens home.
“Every school we took him to, he was nervous, hiding behind us,” Kenwyn recalled. “We decided to give St Mark’s a try … and as soon as we got there, he was so comfortable.
“He went playing with the toys and the books, and we looked at each other and said, ‘This is it. This is a school for him.’ ”
The couple decided they wanted Karter to go to a Catholic school because of the strong support system the schools provide. Karter has a delayed speech issue and sometimes has trouble forming words.
“We wanted him in a setting where he can feel comfortable and be with people that know him and understand him and know where he’s coming from,” Jazmin explained. “I didn’t want him to get lost.”
Like Karter, Jazmin and Kenwyn said they felt comfortable at the academy, highlighting the sense of community it provided. It also convinced them that becoming Catholic was their next move.
“The reason why my husband and I decided to go through a journey together to become Catholic was really because of our son, Karter,” Jazmin said. “This school has given us the opportunity and the encouragement to want to be there for our son in a spiritual way, as well.”
She added that it will allow her and her husband to become Karter’s spiritual teachers.
“It’s so great, and now we can be there for our son when he goes into kindergarten and into first grade, and we can talk about the Bible,” Jazmin said. “We can talk about the Lord. We can continue on and go through that Catholic journey together, and I’m just excited for it.”
She said she looks forward to being baptized with her husband at the Easter Vigil.
“It’s going to [be joyous] because we went through this step together as husband and wife,” Jazmin said. “We’re deciding to become a part of a whole community together, and it’s just going to be so great.”
Kenwyn also said he is eager to join the Church. ”It is a wonderful journey to becoming a Catholic with my family,” he said. “I’m looking forward to getting baptized.”
AMANDA DENNISON
EAST ELMHURST — The Easter season will be a whirlwind for Amanda Dennison.
Not only is she undergoing the Sacraments of Initiation at the Easter Vigil at Blessed Sacrament Church in East Elmhurst on Holy Saturday, but she will return to the church a week later to get married.
Dennison and her husband, Jonathan Guaman, were married in a civil ceremony last year and are looking forward to their church wedding. Guaman, a lifelong Catholic, and Dennison met while attending Flushing High School.
Dennison is in the unique position of taking pre-Cana marriage prep classes at Blessed Sacrament while also taking part in the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults program.
Calling her husband “my best friend,” Dennison said he has been a pillar of support as she prepares for the baptism, holy Eucharist, and Confirmation.
“I can’t imagine, to be honest, doing this without him. He’s really been there for me through everything, supporting me, talking me through things, encouraging me, praying for me,” she said. “I’m so grateful to God that he put him in my life because I feel like God really knew who I needed and he matched us up in that way.”
The Dennisons plan to “put God at the center of our marriage,” she added.
Dennison said she is also joining the Catholic Church to fulfill her spiritual needs. She grew up in a Pentecostal household with parents who were Sunday school teachers.
“I had a really strong foundation, but as I got older, I had Catholic friends and I would get invited to different sacraments for confirmation and things like that. So as an adult, I started to question my tradition,” she said, noting what the Catholic faith offers.
“Compared to my Pentecostal background, the faith is there, but we are missing pieces. So for me, coming into Catholicism, it was like I had a puzzle and pieces were missing,” she added. “But then once I started to understand the Catholic faith, I was able to take the puzzles that I had with the missing pieces and use the knowledge that I had from Catholicism to fit in all those missing pieces.”
“That is the reason why I would love to become Catholic,” she continued, “because I really want to fulfill God’s will for my life and the purpose and the plan that he has for my life.”