I am SO excited to be returning to serve at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona for my second year on mission! #skojacks!!

OUR 2025-2026 TEAM (from left to right): Pete, Grace V, Olivia, Grace W & Mark, in front of the iconic Flagstaff mountains!

OUR 2026-2027 TEAM (from left to right): Luis, Grace W, Pete, Olivia & Grace V!

The human heart desperately longs to be seen, known, and loved. 

I did not know how true this was until my freshman year of college, when I was with a friend on a college campus that was not our own. As we were walking down the sidewalk, we noticed that no one was acknowledging each other, not even in the slightest way. No one was greeting each other, and no one was even looking people in the eye as they passed by. Coming from a college campus that is often filled with joyful greetings all around (shoutout to the one and only Benedictine College), this left us a little heartbroken. My friend and I decided that the next person we came across, we were going to simply smile and say, “hi” to them. Shortly after, a woman was approaching us on the sidewalk. She had her head down and had no intention of looking up at us as she passed us by on the sidewalk. However, as soon as we said “hi” to her, her head immediately came up. She looked us in the eyes, and instead of instantly returning the greeting, the first thing she said to us was “Thank you.” 

“Thank you.” 

All I could think was, did she really just say, “thank you,” to us for simply saying “hi” to her?  This small interaction really hit me. It made me realize that perhaps her “thank you” was not just because we said “hi” to her, but perhaps it was because that small encounter was the first time she had felt seen in a long time. 

Loneliness and the pain of feeling unseen, unknown, and unloved is an epidemic of our time, and Mother Teresa once said, 

“The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. 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.” 

We are made for community, and it is in community that we may come to a deeper understanding and conviction of the Father’s love for us and who we are as His beloved. Countless college students experience this poverty on their campuses: poverty of authentic human relationships and poverty of a relationship with Christ. It is my hope to see, know, and love the men and women Christ intentionally gives and entrusts to me on campus, and to lead them to a deeper conversion of His sacred love for them!

                                                                                                                                                        A picture of our chaplain, Fr. Matt, and some of the women at our Newman Center after Sunday Mass (many of whom are involved with FOCUS)!

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Pictures from a group camping trip to Grand Canyon National Park (which is only an hour and a half away from Flagstaff) in the spring of 2026!

“Do you know how much I love you? For surely not even the highest mountain or the deepest, most grandest canyon could contain or reveal the depths of My love for you. For My love for you transcends.”