Story by Reagan Scott
LINCOLN (SNR) - When Victoria and Garen Miller adopted their son Timos from Uganda four years ago, they had no idea the impact that he would have on their lives. As a result of their son’s faith, the Millers would convert to Catholicism, and came into the Church on the Easter Vigil.
The Millers, who had two sons at the time, adopted Timos when he was 4 years old. His mother and father had passed away, and his aunt had been unable to care for him. He had lived in an orphanage since he was 2 years old.
A month or two after the Millers had brought Timos back from Uganda, they were in a museum in New York when they passed by an image of one of the popes. Instead of just walking by, Timos stopped and looked at it, made the sign of the cross, and continued walking. The Millers knew that this was something new.
Victoria Miller said, “I reached out to Timos’ social worker and asked if Timos had been born Catholic.”
The social worker revealed that yes, Timos had been born Catholic.
“From the time he was 2 to about the time he was 4, he had nothing Catholic in his life,” Miller said. “Two is a really young age to remember some of these things.”
It was about two months later, when the Millers were at the farmer’s market in the Haymarket at Lincoln that Timos saw a man handing out rosaries—as part of the St. Paul Street Evangelization ministry—and began to ask his mom if he could have one. She told the man that she wasn’t Catholic, but that her son really wanted a rosary. She said he seemed happy to give Timos one.
Later that day Timos asked his mom to pray the rosary with him.
“Having not been Catholic myself, I had no idea how to do that,” Miller said.
At one point, the Millers tried to take Timos to a Methodist Church, but Miller said that Timos began to ask them not to take him anymore.
“We knew his heart was longing for more than what we could give him,” Miller said.
Things would change radically for the Millers when Timos was in the first grade. It was during this time that boys in Timos’ class began to racially bully him. The Millers wanted to put him in a different school but had no idea where to turn.
It wasn’t until a friend suggested North American Martyrs Catholic School in Lincoln, where his wife was a teacher, that the Millers considered putting their son in a Catholic school. Miller said that even though they wanted to dismiss the idea, they couldn’t.
Their friend ended up talking to Sister Janelle Buettner, M.S., the principal at North American Martyrs, and she gave them her contact information, telling the Millers to reach out if they had any questions. Victoria said she was struck by Sister Janelle’s willingness to help, but asked her husband to make the call, since she was too nervous to talk to a nun. They arranged a day to meet, and Sister Janelle gave the Millers a tour of North American Martyrs School and Parish.
Miller said that eventually, they ended up in the sanctuary of the church.
“Timos walked in and just stopped,” Miller said. “This peace just settled on him and I thought, ‘This is where we’re supposed to be.’”
When they were back in her office, Sister Janelle began to talk through options the Millers had to apply for a scholarship, and Victoria saw the letters RCIA, what she assumed was a Latin word. She asked what it meant.
When Sister Janelle explained what RCIA was — Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults — Miller said, “I asked, ‘Do you mean I can be Catholic, too?’ and Sister Janelle just kind of laughed and said, ‘Well, yes!’”
The Millers had both grown up in Christian homes, but the act of questioning their faith when their older sons were 2 and 5 years old led to them being kicked out of the church they were attending at the time.
“That broke something vital inside my husband’s heart and we began our very long 15 years of being ‘spiritual’ but not ‘religious,’” Miller said.
At first, Garen wasn’t interested in joining the Church like his wife was. The Millers had both heard anti-Catholic sentiments growing up, but after seeing Victoria and Timos pray the rosary and attend Mass together, Garen asked his wife if she would sign him up for RCIA.
Victoria Miller said, “From the very first class, we were hooked. We have so looked forward to going and learning the truth behind what we’d heard growing up. It has been a joy.”
Miller said that throughout their journey to adopt Timos, she could see that God had been nudging her and pulling her toward the Catholic Church, and their son.
“People always ask us ‘Why Uganda?’ and we say that we only adopted Timos from Uganda because that’s where he was born. If he had been born in China, we would have adopted him from China,” Miller said.
Last year, something kept tugging at Miller’s heart. She asked Timos’ social worker Aggrey to ask Timos’ aunt if he had been baptized. His aunt said that he had, but something still wasn’t sitting right with Miller. She asked Aggrey again and again to ask Timos’ aunt if he had been baptized, and she kept saying that he had.
Finally, Miller told her that if Timos hadn’t been baptized, it was okay. He could be baptized in the United States. His aunt finally broke down and admitted that no, Timos had not been baptized. She said she had been worried that if she didn’t lie, Timos wouldn’t be able to go to his Catholic school.
“God cared about that sacrament, and he wouldn’t let it drop,” Miller said.
Timos was baptized Nov. 24 last year and received the sacrament of confession this year. Then, he was in attendance, along with his older brothers, as his parents entered the church on the Easter Vigil.
Father Luke Fleck, the associate pastor at North American Martyrs Parish, said that the USCCB and the Vatican have extended the period for reception into the Church, given the logistical challenges due to the coronavirus pandemic.
After speaking with Father Brian Connor, the pastor at North American Martyrs Parish, the decision was made to bring the parish’s RCIA candidates into the Church on different days during the Octave of Easter to ensure that each group had fewer than 10 people in attendance to comply with state COVID-19 regulations.
The days were first-come, first served, and the Millers happened to get the Easter Vigil.
Father Fleck said, “God chooses the time and the place. If anything, He’s prepared them for this moment. If anything, this will be a great moment of grace. There’s a lot of hope and a lot of beauty in what God is bringing about in this Easter Season.”
