By Dennis Kellogg
Director of Communications
The Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) is bringing its national new staff training event to Lincoln for a month starting May 24.
About 1,000 FOCUS missionaries and staff will be based at the Newman Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) for both spiritual and educational training through June 22. Those attending will reside in dorms and spend time in classrooms and around campus.
FOCUS is in its 25th year of working on college campuses and in parishes across the country. It has more than 850 missionaries with nearly 4,000 students in mentorship in 216 locations.
“We send missionaries to college campuses to spread the Gospel, and we do it by investing deeply in college students and raising them up to become leaders who can then invest in others,” said Father Kevin Dyer, S.J., the organization’s senior national chaplain based in Denver. He added FOCUS also works with parishes and its alumni.
Father Dyer said those working with FOCUS are considered new staff for their first two years in the program. Many of those coming to Lincoln in the next few days for new staff training will be coming straight from college campuses. Others will have already served as missionaries on campus for a year.
Levi Rash is a senior regional director for FOCUS who lives with his wife and children in Lincoln. He has been with FOCUS for more than 12 years, serving on the campuses of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston University, Tulane University in New Orleans and the University of Missouri in Columbia.
Rash said recent new staff trainings have been held at Ave Maria University in Florida and the University of Mary in Bismarck, N.D. Because of the growth of FOCUS, the trainings have often been split between two sites.
“So this year is pretty special because for our 25th anniversary, we are bringing all of our new staff together in one location here in Lincoln,” Rash said. “So not only is it special to be in Lincoln for the first time, we typically don’t host staff on this large of a scale.”
Lincoln was selected as the site for this training because of its association with FOCUS for many years.
“We have a long history with UNL,” Father Dyer said. “FOCUS has served on that campus for a long time and served very fruitfully and we have great relationships with the diocese because of all those years. And so for the 25th anniversary, we wanted to find a place where we could bring everybody together and UNL offered us the facilities to be able to accomplish that.”
The students will have class sessions in the morning and afternoon each weekday. They’ll also have Mass, a holy hour, lunch and some free time which can be used for spiritual direction. Their evenings will include organized recreation like soccer tournaments and more free time.
The FOCUS missionaries will be preparing for the assignment of leading students on college campuses closer to Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church, so that the students can spend their lifetime doing the same for others.
“Step number one is divine intimacy. The most important thing we can do during this month is deepen their spiritual life and lead them toward a deeper trust in God. Because if they have that, everything else will flow from it,” Father Dyer said. “From there, it’s a matter of equipping them with what they need. How do you do that? They need people who know them and who invest in them. So we have a college system where they are divided into small groups and can wrestle with and talk about the things that are going on in their life and in their heart as they prepare for the mission they’re about to undertake.”
Christine Cremer has been working with FOCUS for five years. She spent her first year at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, S.D. and the last four years at UNL. She is now the FOCUS team director at the Newman Center.
As part of the new staff training, she will lead the missionaries in small group discussions, interact with them and help prepare them for what is ahead on college campuses.
“(The training) prepares you to go out and be bold and to have conversations with students who you may not naturally have conversations with, and be equipped to speak in a charitable way and to launch into mission come the start of the school year,” Cremer said. “It really is a beautiful experience and kind of a blending of… apostolic, human and spiritual formation.”
That formation will then help the FOCUS missionaries to share the Catholic faith with young adults at an important point in their faith journey. The Pew Research Center has found almost 80% of those who leave the Catholic faith do so by the age of 23.
“College students in particular are thirsting to be known, seen, and loved. And that’s just a ripple of all of humanity. We are all aching to know that we are lovable, that we have a purpose,” Cremer said. “I think two of the most handy things to have are an open heart and a willingness to see the face of Christ in the person in front of you.
“We start every day here at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a walking rosary on campus to entrust our work of evangelization to the Blessed Mother, knowing she will run to Jesus in all of our conversations and provide the graces necessary,” she continued. “I think that truly has been a game-changer in conversations in whatever it is that Jesus sends our way each and every day.”
It’s not just the college students on campus who benefit, either. The missionaries themselves continue to grow and be formed in their faith. After their time in FOCUS is done, some may go on to pursue a religious vocation, while many will continue to use their gifts as faithful lay Catholics in their parishes.
“I like to think about so many times in Scripture, men and women encounter Christ, and then they go, their lives are changed and they go, they’re sent and they tell people,” Rash said. “So John 4, we see the woman at the well. She encounters Jesus, the living water, and then she goes back to her community. And the Samaritan woman tells them about Jesus. A lot of our staff are like that. They have a conversion that’s very radical and then they go and tell others. However, unlike that woman at the well, we are blessed to be able to support their efforts, to give them great training, to give them great formation, and to inspire them to continue that throughout their time as a missionary and beyond.”
The new staff training during the next several weeks will serve to equip the missionaries for a lifetime of Christ-centered evangelization and discipleship. Father Dyer said Lincoln is the right place for that to take place.
“We have so many leaders within the organization who came from UNL. So this really feels like a homecoming for a number of them,” he said. “I think it’s going to be a great blessing.”
Cremer, the FOCUS team leader at UNL, said everyone locally is excited to have the opportunity to host these missionaries and help with the training.
“Father (Robert) Matya (Newman Center director and director of vocations for the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln) has been such an amazing example of hospitality to myself and our team,” Cremer said. “We’re so excited to be able to share that spirit of hospitality with our brothers and sisters coming from different parts of the country.”
Rash said the 25th anniversary for FOCUS is a big moment in time. He thinks UNL and the Newman Center will be great hosts for the training and he looks for more blessings to come from the FOCUS evangelization efforts on campus.
“The Diocese of Lincoln is such a special place. It’s such a faithful place,” Rash said. “If you ask a lot of our missionaries from across the country, they’ll say they have a lot of respect for this diocese—the way that it’s shepherded by Bishop (James) Conley and the bishops and leadership before, the true faithfulness that exists. We are so grateful and fortunate to be coming together in such a special place.”
