Stone finds home at North Bend's UPCby Nathan Arneal Sixty-four years before being installed as pastor to North Bend’s United Presbyterian Church, Connie Stone’s farm cat had a litter of kittens and it led to her first encounter with God. Four-year-old Connie was thrilled when the cat gave birth on the family farm south of Fairbury. She fell in love.
Soon after their birth, Connie and her younger sister went on a trip to visit their grandparents in Colorado. Her older siblings would be left in charge of the kitties, who were living in a rabbit hutch. When she returned for Colorado, the kittens were gone. The dogs got to them, an older sibling told her. “I was really angry,” Stone recalled. “I was so upset because my kitties were gone.” The 4-year-old ran into a nearby field and threw a tantrum as only 4-year-olds can do, yelling at God. Then she felt God answer back. “The Lord spoke back to me and gave me some peace,” Stone said. “That’s where it really started.” A few years later, she was the star pupil in confirmation class, asking so many questions that the pastor asked her parents if she could stay after class to continue the discussion and questions. “He actually told me in high school, ‘You’re going to be a minister,’” Stone said. “And I said, ‘No, I’m not.’” Spoiler: she did, eventually. Those two years of confirmation and the extra sessions stuck. To graduate from seminary you have to pass a series of ordination exams. One of them is a bible exam that really gets into the minutiae and the fine details of the bible. It takes most people a couple of tries to pass that test. Stone passed it on the first attempt, crediting all the effort she put into learning the bible during junior high confirmation classes. “I think the Holy Spirit just kept those scriptures in my heart and my head,” Stone said. “I believe God has his hand on each of us to direct us in ways that God intends for us to go. I think God has had his hand on me from the get-go, whether it was what I wanted or not. God knew what God wanted and I finally figured it out.” It took a while, though. After graduating from Fairbury High School, she went to Hastings College to study music and play the flute. She was good at the flute, but she found it wasn’t her passion and dropped out. By this time her parents had moved to Columbus, so she followed them up there and got a job at an archery factory. After four or five years of that she got bored and went back to college, this time to Wayne State. Her hometown pastor was right. She would become a minister, so she switched majors to counseling and after graduating from WSC, she attended Louisville Presbyterian Seminary in Kentucky. Read the full story in the print or e-edition. <<Back to the front page |
