Thank you for being someone who goes looking.

“God is not unjust; he will not overlook your work and the love that you showed for his sake.” (Heb 6:10)

Paul walked into Athens and found an altar inscribed to an unknown god (Acts 17:23). The Pacific Northwest has not built the altar. Thirty-eight percent of adults in Washington claim no religious affiliation at all, nearly ten points above the national number, and the students arriving on these campuses have not so much rejected the faith as never once been handed it. They have not been told they are sons and daughters. They have not been told what they were made for. Nobody has asked. The harvest here is plentiful and the laborers are few (Lk 10:2), and I work every day to work alongside and bring more laborers into the harvest.

I am the Director of Apostolic Outreach for FOCUS in Region XII, the Pacific Northwest: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska. Ten campuses and three parishes across five states. My work is the formation, accompaniment, and sending of the missionaries who go find these students and parishioners. I also coordinate with the Church (Bishops, Chancellories, Pastors, chaplains, and campus and parish staff) across Region XII to further Christ’s commission to “make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19).

I grew up in a devout Catholic home. I knew the prayers and I knew the answers, and not long after I arrived on campus I had traded all of it for a life of worldly pleasure that promised far more than it ever delivered.

I decided I was not searching or open, and I never found what I was ultimately looking for.

At the beginning of my junior year, a FOCUS missionary decided my decision was not final.

He did not argue with me. He befriended me.

Through his friendship and his example I saw what I had refused to see: that living out of my identity as a beloved son of the Father is the only way to true joy, and that the Church I had dismissed is the place He has chosen to give Himself away. I had to change my plans, my priorities, and my whole life to pursue Him. Surrendering completely to His will remains the most freeing and life-giving decision I have ever made.

I said yes to FOCUS because there are men on these campuses tonight making the same decision I made at twenty, just as certain and just as wrong. Someone has to go tell them. Someone has to stay long enough to be believed.

The campus is where a life turns. The parish is where it is lived. Nobody is more reachable than a nineteen-year-old who has just left home and is deciding everything at once, which is why FOCUS puts missionaries on campuses. Then that young man or woman graduates into sixty more years, a marriage, children, a mortgage, a pew on Sunday. We want to accompany people in living lifelong Catholic missionary discipleship, so we also send missionaries into parishes.

When I answered the call to join FOCUS, I made the decision to rely on the spiritual and financial support of Mission Partners to help me through this mission. As Mother Teresa said, “Some give by going, and some go by giving. Without both, the Mission does not exist.” Through your investment in the Mission, the Pacific Northwest and the world can be reached for Jesus Christ! Thank you and God Bless!