I’m so excited to be serving at Emporia State University! STINGERS UP🐝

“Who are you?” “What are you doing here?”

When I was a freshman in college at the University of Nebraska-Kearney, I had a philosophy professor who asked me these questions on the very first day of class and actually expected me to answer.  At the time, my answers would have been, “I don’t know,” and “I don’t know,” because I had spent little, if any, time thinking about who Candace Coleman was. As far as I was concerned, I was just a student going to school to get a job. Little did I know what the Lord had in store for me during my 5 years on campus.

I continued to take philosophy classes in undergrad, which consequently introduced me to the Truth.  In these classes, we read several Russian novels, books, and essays by G.K. Chesterton, the Divine Comedy, Nietzsche, Hume, Karl Marx, Aristotle, Plato, Darwin, Einstein, and many other authors with various perspectives on what exactly the truth is.  Reading and discussing these literary works had me asking questions about my Christian faith ultimately resulting in the question, “What do I believe?”  It wasn’t until 2023 that I began praying, “Lord, please show me who you REALLY are.”

God answered my prayers by way of a very tall philosophy professor with a large white beard, who also happens to be a Deacon in the Catholic Church. Outside of class time, once a week, this professor would spend a couple of hours with me reading books and discussing ideas. At one point, we began talking about the Apostle’s Creed and what a creed even is, then my professor looked at me and asked, “What would you die for?”

All of these questions were whirling around in my head as I began to learn more about the Truth, which ultimately led me to the Catholic Church.  I began going to daily mass at the Newman Center on campus where I met a FOCUS missionary named Shayna Smits.  We went and got coffee one morning, and I grilled her with all of my Catholic questions for an hour straight.  She invited me into Bible study, became my dear friend, and showed me that I am a beloved daughter of the Most High King.  

Through Bible study and OCIA classes, I learned that “God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created me to make me share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to me.  He calls me to seek him, to know him, to love him with all my strength.  He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church.  To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In his Son and through him, he invited me to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted daughter and thus heirs of his blessed life.” CCC1 (adapted with “me” and “daughter” to make it more personal, and it is true of YOU too!) Then I joined the Church at the Easter Vigil Mass in 2024! Praise God!

This is the message of the Gospel.  In college, through my education and my friend, a FOCUS missionary, I was welcomed home to the Catholic Church, where I fell in love with Jesus Christ, and I hope to share His infinite love with others.

“There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty — it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There’s a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.” St. Teresa of Calcutta

The souls of students on college campuses are starving for Love in its truest and most infinite reality.  The Lord has called me to go out, meet these souls, and bring them to Him. He desires them, and He desires you.  By spiritually and financially partnering with me on mission, you will walk each student to the foot of the cross with me, where they will meet the Love of Christ.  I quite literally cannot do this without you.

Will you join me?