On Mission

September 2023

Your Caring Heart Is Inspiring Young People To Follow Christ

This past year, you gave more young men the freedom and confidence to serve as missionaries with FOCUS — and you helped FOCUS hire more men to serve more campuses!

Thank you for giving these men, and their female counterparts, the opportunity to share the Gospel on 23 new FOCUS expansion campuses and bring many more souls to Christ!

Through your gracious giving, 351 new FOCUS missionaries — 177 women and 174 men — will have the chance this 2023 – 2024 academic year to witness to Christ and form others for lifelong Catholic mission. What a gift!

How You are Forming More Virtuous Men

The St. John Bosco Project

FOCUS is currently partnering with the Archdioceses of Denver and Lincoln to create new ways to prepare more men for life as a missionary. The St. John Bosco formation houses are new opportunities for FOCUS missionaries to serve on campus while participating in deeper, ongoing formation with some of the best minds and mentors FOCUS has to offer. The Bosco formation houses are intended to help prepare these missionaries to serve with freedom and confidence in their human, intellectual, apostolic and spiritual formation.

During the 2022 – 2023 school year, FOCUS formed ten men who served the Auraria campuses in Denver. This meant that following their completion of the program, FOCUS was able to serve at least five more campuses with highly trained, competent and mature men during the 2023 – 2024 academic year.

Additionally, through key benefactor support, FOCUS added a second formation house this year in the Archdiocese of Lincoln, through which ten more men are growing in virtue and serving the students of Doane University.

While serving the students at Auraria and Doane part time, these men are being formed for mission:

Receiving additional intellectual formation, strong mentorship and a rich communal life
Living a clear, structured plan of life and engaging in virtue-building labor
Establishing habits of daily prayer, regular attendance of the sacraments and spiritual direction

Lifelong Fruitfulness and the Ability To Invite Other Men Into Freedom and Virtue

The St. John Bosco Project looks for men who are contagious, teachable, desiring faithfulness and natural leaders. Through their formation, these men have the potential to be strong leaders on campus and for the rest of their lives!

Your Long-Term Impact With the Bosco Project

Reaching More Men and Campuses
Additional houses of formation in other cities and a new platform for missionary formation will increase male recruitment and allow FOCUS to reach more campuses.

Increasing Vocations
Implementing similar formation houses in conjunction with seminaries across the country will mean more qualified candidates for seminary formation and future priests.

Changing the Culture
This initiative will draw men back to true masculinity, virtue and faithful leadership and will inspire them to help restore morality and virtue in the lives of their peers.

The Young Women You are Crowning with Grace

On FOCUS campuses across the country (and internationally!), young female hearts are learning what it means to be a daughter of God because of the FOCUS missionaries you have sent on mission. Of the thousands of testimonies we’ve received, here are two that we know will encourage you to read. Thank you!

Bible study has been going so well. I have the great privilege to lead the upper-class women through the FOCUS Salvation History Bible study. We are almost done and have learned so much. Through this study, the participants will come out knowing the six covenants that the Lord made and their place in God’s plan.”

STUDENT AT BLACK HILLS STATE UNIVERSITY

In this retreat, we invited women to come away with Jesus and ponder the cross and resurrection in their lives. We had an amazing crew of young adult women helping us [so that we could offer students] adoration and confession, praise and worship, an opportunity for healing prayer, and talks accompanied by prayer time and small groups. [As students shared the] graces [they received] at the end of the retreat, it was evident how deeply God was specifically working in the hearts of these women. Many of them shared how they experienced healing, new revelations and breakthroughs in their struggles, a new feeling of belonging, freedom in bringing struggles into the light and a new perception of themselves and God.”

JESS FIGONI, FOCUS TEAM DIRECTOR AT MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY

Host	Retreat Type	Start Date	End Date
Tulane University	Way of the Disciple	09/05/24	09/07/24
University of Nebraska Lincoln	The Sanctifier	09/13/24	09/15/24
Parish Outreach	The Father’s House	09/16/24	09/18/24
Kansas State University	The Father’s House	09/20/24	09/22/24
University of Delaware	Rec	09/20/24	09/22/24
University of South Carolina – Columbia	Rec	09/27/24	09/29/24
St. Francis University	The Father’s House	10/04/24	10/06/24
Nicholls State University	The Father’s House	10/04/24	10/06/24
Northwestern State University	The Father’s House	10/11/24	10/13/24
University of Memphis	The Father’s House	10/11/24	10/13/24
Southern Illinois University – Edwardsville	The Father’s House	10/18/24	10/20/24
Ohio State University	The Father’s House	10/18/24	10/20/24
University of Dallas	The Sanctifier	10/24/24	10/26/24
Central Connecticut State University	The Father’s House	10/25/24	10/27/24
Universidad de Monterrey	The Father’s House	10/25/24	10/27/24
California State University – Fullerton	The Father’s House	10/25/24	10/27/24
Sts. Anne and Joaquim, Fargo, ND	Way of the Disciple	11/01/24	11/03/24
University of Krems	Men’s	11/01/24	11/03/24
University of Mary	The Father’s House	11/08/24	11/10/24
DePauw University	Rec	11/08/24	11/10/24
Philanthropy Engagement	Way of the Disciple	11/15/24	11/17/24
University of Passau	Rec	11/21/24	11/23/24
Texas A&M University	The Sanctifier	02/07/25	02/09/25
FOCUS Greek Southeast	The Father’s House	02/14/25	02/16/25
FOCUS Greek Midwest	The Father’s House	02/14/25	02/16/25
Worcester Polytechnic Institute	The Sanctifier	02/14/25	02/16/25
FOCUS Greek Southwest	The Father’s House	02/21/25	02/23/25
Wayne State University	The Father’s House	02/21/25	02/23/25
University of Illinois-Chicago	The Sanctifier	02/21/25	02/23/25
Queens College of the City University of New York	The Father’s House	03/07/25	03/09/25
Nicholls State University	Way of the Disciple	03/07/25	03/09/25
Grand Valley State University	The Father’s House	03/28/25	03/30/25
University of Northern Iowa	Way of the Disciple	04/03/25	04/05/25
University of Nebraska Lincoln	The Father’s House	04/04/25	04/06/25
Arizona State University	Men’s	02/07/25	02/09/25
University of Nebraska at Kearney	Rec	09/27/24	09/29/24