It was the shopping cart full of Doritos that caught my eye... We were grocery shopping on a Sunday morning after mass with our three kids when we encountered another couple with three kids, pushing a shopping cart with bags and bags of chips and several large bottles of soda. My husband Jim stopped to talk with the man behind the shopping cart and introduced Tim as someone he knew from the Bible study he had recently started attending at Abbott Labs.  I asked about all the Doritos and soda, and Sandy, Tim's wife, said they were after-service snacks for their church gathering that night. I asked them what church they attended, and Tim said it was a new church, meeting about a year, the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Mundelein. I asked if it was “Vineyard” as in “John Wimber.” I had listened to some of Wimber's teachings from a Catholic Charismatic Conference he spoke at several years before so was familiar with his teaching. Tim said, yes, it was that kind of Vineyard.  We should come and check it out, he said. We politely said maybe, found out the church was meeting in Mundelein High School, and continued with our shopping. Jim and I were uncertain if we wanted to put our kids through a second church service that day, but in the end, we decided to go. At least there would be Doritos afterward... At this point in my life I had been a Catholic born-again Christian for almost 20 years since being involved with Catholic Charismatic prayer groups in high school and college.  Jim had become a believer two years previously at a Billy Graham crusade supported by our Catholic parish and had attended a followup Bible study. We had recently moved from Rochester, New York, to northern Illinois and had been struggling to find a Catholic church and a Catholic prayer group that felt like home.  That night, attending the Vineyard service at the high school, I felt we had found something that would fit us as a couple and as a family. It was a small group of people, about 40, all very friendly and outgoing, and lots of kids. Tim and Sandy were there, and Jim recognized another man from the Abbott Bible study.  We were approached by one of the friendly women who introduced herself as Jan and asked if our two oldest children would like to go to children's church, the youngest to the nursery. Being used to cry rooms and fidgety toddlers next to us in the pew, we readily said yes. Jim and I were able to sit together during service, unencumbered with kids for the first time in years.  The service consisted of worship (Many of the songs we were already familiar with.), communion (We would come to find that it was a weekly occurrence here, rare in most non-Catholic churches, but important to us.), and a solid biblical teaching. At the end of service, there were people available to pray with anyone who wanted prayer. Since so much of my spiritual growth had come from being prayed for and in turn praying for people in prayer groups back in New York, this part of the service really did feel like coming home for me.  Jim, more of a Bible study guy, liked the biblical teaching and the promise of more Bible study in the small groups. Our kids loved being with other kids in their own “church” time. And there were Doritos... As much as we loved the Vineyard, we Napiers were slow, cautious movers when it came to change. For the next year we got up early every Sunday morning, went to mass and then to Mundelein High School cafeteria in the evening, and later on, in the morning when the Vineyard moved their service to earlier in the day.  During that time, the church transitioned from a visiting teaching pastor to a full-time regular pastor. The sermons continued to be biblically strong and encouraging. Worship was led each week by two musicians, two different ones each week, causing Jim to wonder if we were the only non-musical family attending the church.  Worship segued into a time of listening to the Lord and letting the Holy Spirit do His thing, leading people to share prophetic words and seek prayer for healing and other needs the Spirit brought to mind. This was a church where God showed up every week... Jim and I joined a small group that met weekly for fellowship, worship, Bible study and more prayer ministry time.  We developed relationships within the group and within the church, finding true “family” among the congregation. Our kids grew spiritually in the children's ministry, developing relationships of their own.  We usually left the high school with the same number of kids we came with, but often they weren't the same kids. The church felt more and more like home with each passing week. After a year of small group and doing two church services on Sunday, my “born a Catholic, gonna die a Catholic” husband looked at me and said, “I think we both know where the Lord wants us...” It will be 29 years this summer since the Dorito shopping cart encounter that changed our lives.  The church's name has changed from Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Mundelein to Vineyard Community Church to Trinity Community Church.  Our worship venue has been the cafeteria of Mundelein High School, the auditorium of Mundelein High School, the old Mundelein movie theater and the present location in the former First Baptist Church in Libertyville.  Small groups have been called kinship groups, housegroups, LifeGroups and now Community Groups. People have come and gone and come and gone. The power of the Holy Spirit has ebbed and flowed. There have been many opportunities for prayer and ministry over the years. I have prayed with another mom through the childhood and teenage years of each of our children.  Now I pray with a group of moms for our adult kids and their significant others. Our kids have grown up, moved on and attend churches of their own. The son who would somewhat impatiently interrupt his parents' conversations after service to ask if we were ever going to leave, now, as an adult, is often the last one in the church building, in conversation with someone while his parents wait, somewhat impatiently, in the car for him. Many things have changed over the years, but the things that initially drew us to this church are still here.  Strong biblical teaching has never ebbed, worship and communion still bring us into God's presence and there is always, always someone willing to pray with you...