I’m leaving the Midwest to serve at East Tennessee State University in the incredible Johnson City, Tennessee!! Being in the heart of the Bible Belt, there are so many people on campus who haven’t ever met a Catholic, let alone been invited to a Catholic bible study. And, many of the Catholics are pressured to abandon their beliefs in exchange for more popular or pleasurable forms of worship. Alongside my teammates I’m able to meet them and invite them to know Christ Jesus in His fullness.

^^^Team ETSU! From left to right: Me, Caroline, Maria, Mikayla (Ryan’s wife), and Ryan holding his son Phinehas!

My faith was fostered in a Catholic parish with lots of exciting opportunities for young people to encounter Christ. I even spent time with Jesus in Eucharistic Adoration weekly! Each time I attended an event I felt a massive rush of happiness, that kind of “Jesus high”. Yet, I was in constant need of that next experience to refill my unsatisfied heart.

At Northern Michigan University in the fall of 2020, I showed up to our Catholic Campus Ministry secretly hoping to find a happiness that lasted more than a weekend. But, I struggled in freshman year amidst a lot of change, a dorm room constantly full of fruit flies, and some friendships that pulled me away from God, meanwhile everything I’d been expecting from the faith just didn’t satisfy. I was lonely, anxious, uncomfortable, and I threw my hopes for God away in exchange for counterfeit love elsewhere. When everything fell apart though, the Lord put some FOCUS missionaries in my way.

Over the next 3 years they accompanied me and challenged me to embrace the heart of Christ whether life was smooth sailing or really challenging. My missionary, Alek, invited me to go to a conference with about 22,000 Catholic college students in St. Louis and it was there that my heart was convicted of mission. 

At this conference I was struggling to believe I was worthy to be called God’s son. I couldn’t let him into my heart because it was full of so much shame and I couldn’t shake the lie that I wasn’t good enough to do his work. I begged him to take away the pain and the discomfort, but he had a greater plan. In that moment I heard him speak back to me words I wasn’t expecting, “You weren’t made for comfort. You were made for greatness”.

He assured me that there are men out there who he has set in my path and by embracing this gift of suffering, I am carrying my cross alongside him. Since then he’s proven over and over again that there are people who need me exactly as I am, with all of my flaws, fears, and failures so that they can come to know Jesus. Christ himself has called me to serve his people, to enter into the darkness as a light, radiating His love to all. Everyone deserves to know they are perfectly and personally loved by God. And WE can share that with them together.

As a missionary, I have boots on the ground to serve those who most need Christ. To do this though, I need a team of people like you who are willing to be a missionary with me in your own way. By supporting our mission you are taking an active role in sharing Christ’s love on campus alongside me.

I have taken the responsibility to raise all of the funds required for mission and I also deeply rely on your prayers to be able to enter into students’ lives and meet them where they’re at – both physically and spiritually. If you are interested in supporting me, please reach out to me. I’d love to hear your story and share mine in person! I would be honored to share this mission with you!

Please email, call, or text me at [email protected] or (269) 438-1443.