I’ll be serving as a first year missionary at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

As a missionary, It is my greatest desire to to know Christ and to make him known to others.

Despite being raised Catholic and practicing for most of my life, I didn’t encounter the person of Jesus until I was 26. At this point in my life I had served 5 years in the Navy, gone to college for a bit, dropped out, worked various jobs across different states and wound up back in school at the University of Colorado. During the 3 years between getting out of the Navy and ending up back at school I had succumb to tremendous amounts of self hatred that drove me away from the Church. I always tell people its not that I didn’t believe its just that i felt like a worm in God’s presence. To cope with all this self hate I turned to alcohol and marijuana. Three years of self soothing with substances and running from my problems left me a shell of a person. I was like the walking dead. Some how by God’s grace I accepted an invitation to go on a retreat put on by the Catholic students at CU Boulder called Buffalo Awakening. On October 22nd 2022 the feast day of Pope St. John Paul II I encountered the mercy of God in confession, and met the love of Christ in Eucharistic adoration. Jesus healed something very broken inside of me that day. I was raised from spiritual death and my immediate response was to decide to give my life to him. I decided then and there that I would spend my life in service to Christ and his Church. From that point forward I lived differently. Two months later a FOCUS missionary named Mark Harrington asked me to lunch and invited me to share my story with him. When I finished he said “Sean we are trying to revitalize the men’s community here. I think that you have a lot to offer and I want you involved.” From there I began to pour myself into the campus ministry and it was through that that I discovered the burning love that Christ placed in my heart for college ministry. I have joined FOCUS as a December graduate and look forward to getting to serve the students at CU Boulder for one more semester before graduating and going to serve wherever the Lord calls me next.

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Col 3: 1-3

I currently have the great honor of walking with 7 men in discipleship at CU Boulder. Justin Dasher is a Philosophy undergrad and just entered the Church this past Spring. James Greenwood is a Chemistry PHD student who just entered the Church at eater vigil after a few years of discovering the beauty and richness of Catholicism. Alec Kolodziejczyk is a Chemistry PHD student who lives in an ambulance outside of our local parish. Josh Camp is and Aerospace masters student who came back to the Christ last fall. Liam Ryan is a Music undergrad who plays the tuba and sings in our parish choir. Sam Hagele is a Physics undergrad who also sings in our parish choir. Finally, Cruz Keefner is a Philosophy undergrad who recently got engaged.

Your support makes it possible for missionaries like myself to invest full time in students like this across the country. Because each missionary in FOCUS fundraises their complete salary from Mission Partners like you, in just 25 years FOCUS has been able to expand from one campus and two missionaries to over 200 campuses and more than 1000 missionaries.