"Don't be the star of your own life. Let Jesus Christ be the star and you be the best supporting actor."
This year, I am blessed to be serving at Georgia College & State University with my wonderful teammates Zach, Alyssa, and Jessica. We will be spending most of our time building discipleship-based relationships, working with student Bible studies, and generally supporting the campus ministry. Our mission of spiritual multiplication is based in personal relationships and witness of our own personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and I look forward to sharing this with the students of GCSU.
As a missionary, I have been gifted with the call to share my own relationship with Jesus Christ with the young men around me. This relationship helped me turn my life away from destructive habits and allowed me to begin building character supported by my faith. This year, I will have the opportunity to share this with the students placed in my life and hopefully help them to do the same.
I first encountered FOCUS as an organization through a good friend, Herman Cornejo. Through our friendship, he invited me into a deep authentic relationship with Jesus Christ. Herman helped me connect my faith and relationship with Christ to my actions and my habits. Once this connection was made, and because of my personal relationship with Christ, it was impossible for my life not to change radically. I followed Herman through a discipleship program for a little more than a year before deciding to fully commit myself to the Catholic Church through the ministry of FOCUS.
College campuses today are places which are extremely hostile to Christianity in general. Most young people who grew up Catholic have either solidified wholly or completely lost their faith while attending university. The latter was definitely the case while I was still attending the University of Minnesota.
Thankfully, I was encountered by a FOCUS missionary after transferring to Stephen F. Austin in Nacogdoches, TX, and given ample opportunity to rediscover my love of Christ and relationship with Him through His Sacraments. By similarly encountering college students, I will be able to foster authentic friendship with them so that they may be opened to a personal encounter with Christ.
As a missionary, I am also blessed to have the task of fundraising for my own salary. In the early church, the apostles followed Jesus's example in being funded by their followers (Luke 8). This was fulfilled through gifts to the Church by various evangelized peoples. In the New Testament, Paul is the perfect example of a simple idea expressed by St. Therese of Liseaux: "some give by going, others go by giving," by offering opportunity to large groups of people to fulfill Christ's Great Commission without abandoning their homes and families. I hope that you prayerfully consider joining me on mission in serving the students of Georgia College.