I am in my eighth year as a FOCUS missionary and I serve on the Retreats team as Retreat Partnerships Sr. Specialist! The mission the Lord has invited me into with Retreats involves launching retreats in parishes and on campuses where we do not currently have missionaries. Our team accompanies those who attend our retreats in living out mission within their campus, parish, and/or diocese, so they can continue to build on the habits of a disciple of Jesus that they began to develop while on retreat. Our hope is that by hosting more retreats, we can facilitate more encounters with the Love of Christ that will lead to the raising up of more missionary disciples of Jesus in the US and abroad!

As I entered college, I felt a bit lost in my faith and attempted to search for my identity in the things of the world. Nothing sufficed, which was when I had an encounter with love Himself. God is love (1 John 4:8). These three words changed my life. Through authentic friendships and the FOCUS missionaries on my campus, I was able to reorder my life to be Christ-centered that led to an encounter with Jesus so transformative that I couldn’t help but share Him with others! I discovered my identity as a beloved daughter of God and I thought, “How many people are feeling lost or just going through the motions of their faith and do not have anyone to reach out to them and speak the truth of who they are and who He is?”.

Everyone deserves to hear the Gospel and have an opportunity to respond. I am on mission to share the reason for my hope and bring light to the darkness found in the lives of so many university students and parishioners around the world. When we say “yes” to Jesus and His mission, He fills us with a joy and love for souls that allows us to truly encounter each individual person we meet (1 Thessalonians 2:8). We then invite those we encounter on mission into a relationship with Christ and teach them to do the same with others (2 Timothy 2:2). This is the method of mission Jesus models for us in the Scriptures with His disciples as He invests in a few and then sends them out to the corners of the earth to evangelize. Jesus also calls us to the great commission in Matthew 28:19-20 when He says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” What a gift it is to be a vessel of Christ’s love and accompany His children in becoming the beloved sons and daughters they were destined to become in Him!

 “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”

– St. Catherine of Siena

As FOCUS missionaries, we have a team of mission partners who support us through their financial gift and prayer that enables us to be on mission full-time. Financial support allows us to be radically available to those we’re accompanying on mission and prayer is what carries our mission, because only Jesus can transform hearts. As mission partners, you are able to join me in the mission of raising up disciples and reaching souls for Christ. If you are interested in becoming a mission partner, please let me know the best way to reach you and I’d be happy schedule a call to share this wonderful mission with you! I hope this mission will be as transformative for you as it has been for me.

“Some give by going to the missions. Others go by giving to the missions. Without both, there are no missions.”

– St. Mother Teresa