Virginia's Story

Originally from Argentina, Virginia’s passion for life, people and technology, overflow into everything she touches.

It was a privilege and a joy to interview Virginia and to hear how she came into relationship with the Lord. She is an invaluable part of our the MORE Network Team and of Outreach Canada as she works IT & Communications.

Currently living in the greater Vancouver area of British Columbia with her husband and children, Virginia still cannot believe the amount of rain folks get here!

This is Virginia’s Story…

Growing Up…

Virginia grew up Catholic and would go to church regularly with her family. She didn't really have a relationship with God; she knew that "He was there" but could not be "bothered" for most things.
There was a disconnect between this God and the God of the stories she was told in Sunday school.

Many situations around the Catholic church she attended were not positive and she was not taught of a God that cared about her. Slowly, she distanced herself from her faith.

In university, studying to become a Profesor of Computer Sciences, she met many people who didn't believe in "a god" and were sceptic and scientific minded. Virginia was captivated by the scientific community and her love for Sciences grew while her faith became more of a "joke;" slowly she became an atheist.

A Scientific Approach

Virginia spent 10 years as an atheist, considering believers to be delusional and even tried to persuade them to come to their senses. She studied from fellow atheist who were sociologists, anthropologists and astrophysicists about why religion is "bad" for societies and dilutes the human intellect; so she started to share this with a passion. She felt deceived by the Church and started also to ignore the opinions of anybody who was a believer. "Being atheist felt freeing" but also felt a bit lonely in a way that was hard for me to explain back then. It was also very hard," -she shares- "I felt that it was only up to us find solutions for injustice, war, world-hunger, the environment, etc; this created huge anxiety..."

Because Virginia is very intellectual and quite gifted, she would, for fun, study anything to do with exact sciences; she is still quite passionate -and happy to join a conversation- about Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Astronomy among others.

It was during one her "deep dives" at one of the popular topics in Astronomy, (in this case, "about the earth formation, placement in the solar system, the asteroid belt placement, relationship and distance with the Sun, with the Moon and the lucky effect of the moon over the Earth that perfectly agitate the waters so they don't become stale; the chemistry of the water delivered by comets over time (lucky for us, the life-allowing type), etc, etc."), that it became harder for her to believe that these were all extremely lucky -while also statistically impossible- coincidences... "In Science, great claims require great proof, even if is just theoretical, it has to follow some logic, pattern; it has to fit somehow. There is no pattern in the facts we know about the universe and in our unbelievable place in the galaxy... is a myriad of events, one after one, with no rhyme or reason!" It was a high level of insult to someone like her, with a scientific, logical way of analyzing and understanding, to be expected to believe that ALL had happened coincidentally and that's it. "To be honest, I was a bit furious... I felt deceived by the minds I respected and quoted so many times..." she confides.

It was at that moment when she began to doubt her accepted collection of hypothesis and right then, a very intense spark led her to think the impossible: 

"Could it be that there is a planned (therefore intelligent) design behind it all? 

Virginia adds: "These events appear as if 'dictated,' as if following a plan: 'first, we need this in place, second, this other thing, third, we add this...' which sounds like what we do when we want to make a cake: to the unexperienced eye, there is no logic to getting these ingredients in this way, in this order, and mixing them like this or that or throwing them into an inferno... It only makes sense when we see the final product and then, we understand the plan or "recipe." What are the odds of getting all the right ingredients, what are the odds of getting them in the right order, what are the odds of getting them at the right time? What are the odd of getting the right ingredients, in the right order and at the right time when we involve unimaginable scales as the Universe? Moreover, what are the odds of getting it right? I don't know about you but I've screwed more than one cake..."

Discovering the true God

Virginia was very shy in her relationship with this "God" at the beginning but she knew something: "This intelligent being must have carefully come up with all the rules of the 'game' first, like Gravity, Electro-Magnetism, etc; written Math, Physics, Chemistry and all the the sciences and... has to be an impressive programmer... to later press "PLAY" (our Big-Bang)"

With this little bit of astonishment, she began to discover a different God:  first she saw Him as a Creator, a brilliant Scientist, an unapparelled programmer coding all the "while this happens" and the "if - if not" situations; she later started seeing Him in the nature away from the stars and closer to our ground: through her camera lens doing macro-photography of flowers and insects, she saw "a detail-oriented Biologist and Artist with a unique sense of wait.. is this humor?!" More and more the illogical and far-reaching "bunch of coincidences" that fellow scientists and authors had pushed onto her, were getting cracks and started to fall into pieces. These were no coincidences... these facts had a sensible and logical and scientific (provable) explanation: "they seemed to be ALL part of the same line of thought, the same recipe, part of the same plan, the writings of the same author..." 

Virginia started to find a hidden "elegant signature" of this detail-oriented artist who would go far beyond of what's absolutely practical or needed to allow for extreme beauty... EVERYWHERE! 

The deeper she looked into ANY science, the more she saw glimpses of God’s mind, His strategy and methods to orchestrate all the details involved over time.

Virginia fell in love with God’s “programmers mind” and with His "artist mind" and "with the LOVE He amply pours to every project!"

Because she was in love with God, Virginia was now more willing to listen to people talk about God. She discarded her former idea of God as a punisher and harsh being or a distanced being, and began with the information Science had given her: "He takes time, plans carefully and adds details JUST for beauty... He MUST CARE a great deal!"

Virginia still would never dare to listen to a preacher or go into a church but, while living in the US, while she was doing chores at home, she overheard "by accident" in the TV to some "weird guy" speaking about a "loving God" who dearly "loved His people." This idea was pretty alien to her but now she had some inkling about the true character of God: she knew that He cared so, she went towards the TV to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. 

It was a famous preacher, Joel Osteen, and he would not stop talking about this immense love that God has for people! At the end of the show, Joel said: "Look for a church, go gather!" she remembers: "and so, I didn't but, I curiously but cautiously started to look for whenever "this guy" would be on TV." As Virginia got to know more about this part of God’s character, the door was opened for her to have a "bi-directional" relationship with Him.

She began church hopping randomly, willing to listen to what people were saying about God. Eventually, at one church she was pressured to receive Jesus and afterwards was asked if she had "felt something." Because she hadn't and in accordance to her proven way way of analyzing processes, she determined that there was something wrong with the method, the pastors or the receiver! Virginia chuckles when she remembers and firmly states: "...looking back, the problem was in me: one cannot have two 'Jesuses': he had entered fully and completely when I SAW His Glory at the core of everything and my world was shaken. He was already there."

Surrendering to Jesus

Some time later, Virginia surrendered her life to God and accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior, concept that echoed her learnings from the Catholic church, but finally, making sense.

From the churches in Canada, Virginia has learned the concept of following God and needing community, going beyond Sunday attendance. She keeps accepting the invitation to surrender and recognizing her need for forgiveness. She eventually found a local church that would teach the Word of the Lord in an engaging way and is grateful to "Kingdom Life Community Church" in Langley, and for Pastors Josh Buys and Pastor Carol Griffiths. Their approach of preaching the Bible is similar to her way of learning anything: investigating, comparing, questioning and analyzing. It was their method that pushed Virginia to want to know more about the Bible (because Virginia doesn't go half way!) and she went on to study... Theology!

Virginia now also enjoys learning and discussing the Word of God which has become her “go-to” resource when in doubt about anything and everything.

Impacted to Impact Others

First Virginia had to come to grips with God existing and then with the fact that He loved her. She has grown to understand what she calls "what is all really about" and she loves to share her story of being lonely, scared and stressed to having "the peace that surpasses all understanding." 

She is now extremely happy and willing to share the "Good News" with anybody interested but particularly with suffering people and atheists because "she's been there." Virginia doesn't categorize people anymore according to their intellectual prowess, instead according to who they likely are to the Lord: a loved child, which as a mom, she can relate! :)

As Virginia shared with her family, neighbors, and friends about this "unknown" God, she heard things like: "You are a different person" and has also received lots of nice compliments she thinks she doesn't deserve: Virginia is quick to point to the owner of the achievement and author of her change of heart: "is not her, is the Lord." She has also seen many of these people change as God has been lifting the veil off their eyes too, allowing them to see things differently and live accordingly. She has witnessed many miracles occur in every member of her family and in friends, including many of her atheist, afflicted by an addiction and or enslaved by an idol, thanks to God using her to reach out to them with His Word through her new found love for people.

Virginia has a big heart for the unbeliever and if you are one, she has a message for you: 

"We still don't fully understand how electricity works, yet, we don't stop using its benefits... A relationship with God is the same: You don't have to fully dissect it or decode it or understand it to enjoy its mind-boggling benefits. Go after "this God," be annoyed, be angry, question, demand Him answers... and be attentive to receive a response or two or more in the most unexpected places and in the most unexpected ways. Eventually, with the same faith you put into your light switch every night when you flip it expecting sudden light -still not understanding how it really works- you will too, like me, be able to "connect" to this amazing source of everything that is good and... enjoy His life-giving light."

Virginia Ramunda provides technology and communications support plus training to the MORE Network team. Originally from Argentina, Virginia's passion for life, people and technology, overflow into everything she touches. Living in the greater Vancouver area of British Columbia with her husband and children, she still CANNOT believe the amount of rain folks get here!