WELLS (LUFKIN DAILY NEWS) – A 28-year-old Arkansas woman who left her church in Wells, Texas after being away from family for nearly two years has now returned to that church and is engaged, according to the Lufkin Daily News.
Catherine Grove left the church in Wells and was reunited with her family on April 3 at the Angelina County Sheriff’s Office in Texas. She was uninjured and traveled back to Northwest Arkansas with her father.
She stayed with her family for six days before returning to Wells, where she intends to marry church member Ronnie Saltsman, the Lufkin Daily News reported. Grove told the newspaper she left the church to rebuild a relationship with her parents, as long as they respected her decision to stay with the church.
“That evening [I called my dad] I just wanted to remove this pressure upon me. I wasn’t trying to leave the church,” she said.
In September 2013, Grove’s parents, Andy and Patty Grove, told reporters they were worried their daughter had been brainwashed by those belonging to the Church of Wells. She had gone missing from Fayetteville in July 2013, according to the website of the University Baptist Church in Fayetteville.
According to a 2013 report in the Texas Observer, the Church of Wells is an evangelical church “born of discontent with mainstream Christianity.”
When Catherine Grove left the Wells church on April 3, Sean Morris, one of the three elders at the Church of Wells, said church members offered to give her a ride (she left on foot and called 911 for a ride to the sheriff’s office).
“I know that she was upset because of some disagreement that she had with one of the individuals in the church,” Morris said. “And as she often does when she’s not yielding her soul to Christ and trusting in Him, she will be rash with her behavior and uncalculated with her decisions. And I’m not certain that she knew what she was doing necessarily, but I want to say that we don’t condone that kind of behavior, and we did offer to give her a ride anywhere that she wanted to go when we perceived that she was upset and that she was going and walking and was going to make a scene in this small town.”
5NEWS spoke with Morris concerning Grove’s decision to leave the church on April 3. That interview can be heard below.
