Answering the call

All relate their calling to their youth and to the influence of family members, clergy members or friends.

A pastor Raised in a Christian home in Kailua, Hawaii, Smith remembers thinking a lot about God as a kid.

His thoughts turned into behavioral patterns.

Smith doesn't remember the sermon topics to his stuffed toys ("Like so many others would, they slept through it," he says.), but he gets into specifics about another game he played with neighborhood kids.

Smith always played he was a missionary "who also was a doctor," he says.

Smith says his parents weren't aware of the spiritual nature of the games that he played - and that he never felt the need to ask them about the certain tugging in his heart.

"I just knew," Smith says of God's calling.

After his family moved to California, Smith says his faith grew while in high school, when he got involved in Bible studies and other spiritual activities with other students.

"For me, it was the knowledge that nothing else would satisfy me than by fulfilling this calling," he says.

Smith enrolled at Pennsylvania State University to prepare to become a Seventh-day Adventist pastor. But, in his studies, Smith says he realized he had concerns with some denominational doctrine. He sought out a school adviser, who told him: "Change churches."

Smith says, "It was like a light turned on for me."

He switched to the United Methodist Church, enrolling at Fuller Theological Seminary in Southern California and earning his degree in 1992. Two years later, in Fresno, his first job was as Christian education director at The Cross Church. He moved to St. Luke's in 1999, where he has remained.

Smith says, "I can look back and say, 'Wow.'"

A student rabbi

With Passover beginning at sundown today, Steinman takes delight in talking about her journey to Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles.

Passover is the Jewish holiday celebrated for eight days, commemorating the deliverance of the ancient Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. At Congregation B'nai David in Visalia, Community Passover Seder will be presented at 6 p.m. Sunday for the Jewish community. An interfaith Seder will be offered at 6 p.m. Monday for the non-Jewish community.

Steinman won't be at either event. A lay leader from the congregation will perform the duties each day.

Steinman was raised in a Jewish family in Los Angeles, where she says "it's easy to have Jewish friends" because so many Jewish families live in the area.

At 11, Steinman moved with her family to a suburb of St. Paul, Minn., where she says it isn't as easy to be Jewish.

Steinman remembers she and her family's only connection with other Jewish people was at their synagogue, Mt. Zion Hebrew Congregation.

Two years later, Steinman says her bat mitzvah caused her to feel something that she hadn't felt. Steinman doesn't use the word "calling."

"It's more a sense of wanting to serve the community and to be a leader of the Jewish community," Steinman says.

It wasn't until Steinman was a student in high school that, she says, another spiritual change took place in her life. She was 15.

The synagogue she attended hired a new rabbi, with a wife, also a rabbi, and four children. The energy that they showed and the new ideas that they implemented served to transform the congregation, including Steinman.

"They were incredible role models to me and showed me what a rabbi could do," Steinman says. "It was in that midst that the rabbinate appealed to me."

After graduating from high school, Steinman went to Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., earning a degree in history. Then, she completed a yearlong Jewish social-justice project, called avodah,working for a nonprofit in New York City.

She is currently in the second year of a five-year program at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion at Los Angeles. She spent her first year at the college's Jerusalem campus.

Since September, she has been traveling monthly to Visalia, where she is student rabbi at Congregation B'nai David, with more than 100 members.

Steinman says, "I'm enjoying it. It's lots of phone calls, lots of e-mails and learning to time-manage."

An imam

Born in Karbala, Iraq, Ghazvini was raised in a family devoted to Islam. His father, Seyed Mordha Ghazvini, remains an imam.

The oldest in a family of six boys, Seyed Ali Ghazvini remembers watching his father give sermons based on the Quran. He also remembers sitting on his father's chair (mimbar) and preaching.

"As long as I can remember, I thought: 'This is my future; this is my life,' " Ghazvini says.

Not only did Ghazvini study five years to become an imam, all five brothers followed behind him to become imams.

It wasn't until recently that their father shared a story with Ghazvini. "He said, on his wedding day, that he prayed sons to come would be sons of the faith," Ghazvini says.

"This is something we're all proud of, serving our faith and passing it to future generations," Ghazvini says.

Ghazvini has had an impact also on his son, Jawad. At 3, Jawad put on his father's robe (abaa) and pretended to be an imam. At 15, Jawad enrolled to become an imam. At 21, he now is an imam, serving in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Ghazvini says he didn't feel pressure to become an imam. Some of his brothers' sons also became imams, but not all of them.

"God has to see it through," Ghazvini says.

A priest

Petersen is the youngest of five children. His oldest sister was in a convent when he was born, and a second sister also entered a convent.

Petersen says six first cousins, an aunt and a great aunt also were nuns.

"I come from a terribly Catholic family," he says, crediting his Irish Catholic mother, Maryellen. His father, Edwin, was a Lutheran who converted to Catholicism.

"My dad was doomed," Petersen says with a laugh.

In 1937, when Petersen was 4, he moved with his family to Randsburg, a small town in eastern Kern County.

That's where God intervened, Petersen says.

"Out of the blue, we got a little resident priest in our little town - out in the middle of the wilds," Petersen remembers.

The priest, the Rev. Francis Pointek, galvanized the community.

"There were people coming out of the woodwork that we didn't even know were Catholic," Petersen says. "Why did they send him? There were so few of us. Then we became full."

Petersen was 11.

The next year, the priest asked Petersen, "Would you be interested in going to seminary?"

"When you're out in the sticks, the thought of going away isn't something that comes up," Petersen says.

Petersen said yes.

"He triggered something that was already in my head," he says

At 13, Petersen left for Columbus, Ohio, where he entered the Pontifical College Josephinum. Petersen spent 12 years there.

Upon his return to Randsburg, Petersen says, he was spiritually encouraged by a Methodist minister, Carrie Ovall.

"She sent me a birthday card every year until she died - at 95," Petersen says.

Petersen has spent 45 years in the priesthood. "I know to this day that I owe my priesthood to Francis Pointek."

The reporter can be reached at rorozco@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6304.