Lenten Campaign 2025
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"I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” These are the words that thousands of catechumens around the world are preparing to hear on Easter night when they are baptized. Throughout Lent, Aleteia is sharing with you the stories of some of these men and women, who are happy to become children of God. Read all of the testimonies here.
Shelby and Travis Cannon, along with their three children, are set to be baptized and received into the Catholic Church this Easter – a move that comes after a year of heartbreak and miracles.
Both Shelby, 32, and Travis, 36, of Pittsburg, Kansas, were raised in nominally Christian homes, but neither regularly attended church. When they began dating, they tried, unsuccessfully, to find a church home.
“Then we were busy with life,” she told Aleteia in an interview, with neither making church attendance or religion a priority.
Then, tragedy struck.
When the Cannons’ youngest child, Benny, was five months old, he was left alone at daycare and suffered a hypoxic brain injury.
The prognosis was grim.
“Originally, they had told us that our son wouldn’t live,” Shelby told Aleteia. “And then they told us that if he did survive that he would never breathe on his own again.”
While Benny was in the hospital, the Cannons began to see God differently, in a way they did not even know was possible. Travis began reading the Bible from the very beginning, and the community rallied around the family.
“We saw our community come together, and pray for us in ways that we never knew possible,” said Shelby. “We felt like God was right there with us through all of those really, really hard moments.”
Benny, who is now 14 months old, beat the doctor’s predictions. He was released from the hospital and he breathes on his own, although he still has complicated medical needs due to his brain injury.
Shelby and Travis’ journey to the Catholic Church included quite a bit of good timing. After praying, she and her husband “felt led” to contact the local Catholic school and inquire about enrolling their eldest daughter.
“I emailed, and asked about schooling, and about how we could become members (of the church) or what that looked like,” she said.
Be it luck, serendipity, or plain old Providence, RCIA classes were beginning at the parish the following week. They signed up and began attending.
For Travis, Catholicism just made sense – especially after he read the Bible.
“As I was reading the Bible and learning about the religion, I mean, it’s spelled out pretty clear on how you’re supposed to worship and live life,” he told Aleteia.
“We’re very black and white people, and it seems pretty black and white to us,” he added.
The elder Cannons will receive all three sacraments of initiation at Easter, and the three children will be baptized. Their older two children will also begin kindergarten and preschool at the local Catholic school this fall, something Shelby told Aleteia she was looking forward to.
“We're going to learn so much right alongside them,” she said.
Everyone, said Shelby, has been “so welcoming to us” as they learned more about the Catholic Church and prepare for their upcoming baptisms.
“We’re excited (to join the Church),” she said. “We have something to look forward to every Sunday morning with our family.”
