By Reagan Scott
for the Register
This summer, 230 diocesan students, from incoming ninth graders to recently graduated high school seniors, attended one of two Steubenville youth conferences in Springfield, Mo.
The weekend conferences, held across North America during the summer, allow high school students the opportunity to grow in their relationship with God, and in fellowship with one another.
Beth Nemec, the campus ministry director at Aquinas High School in David City, was one of the organizers for the group of nearly 200 students who attended the conference July 7-9.
The group included 50 students from Aquinas, 20 students from St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Seward, 23 students from St. Cecilia in Hastings, 59 from Bishop Neumann High School in Wahoo, five students from St. Leo Parish in Palmyra, three from St. Benedict Parish in Nebraska City, one from the Church of the Holy Spirit in Plattsmouth and 32 students from Lourdes Central Catholic in Nebraska City.
Nemec said she saw a lot of value in bringing the diocese’s Catholic schools together for the conference. Her original goal for the weekend had been to fill two charter buses. However, thanks to the recruitment efforts of campus ministers and parents, the group ended up needing four buses and two vans to make the journey to Springfield.
Nemec said that prior to this summer’s conference, the largest number of Aquinas students who had attended one of the Steubenville summer conferences was 11. But she emphasized that the weekend wasn’t about the numbers, but the experiences that the students had during their time there.
“The Steubenville conference has been a greater experience than anything else for our youth, for me personally and for chaperones who attend,” Nemec said. “There is something really, really special about it and the Holy Spirit is there, God is there, and it’s felt. It’s palpable.”
Nicki Wintz is a member of St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Seward and has two daughters in high school. Wintz heard about the Steubenville conference from Nemec and had the opportunity to attend for the first time last year, chaperoning a group of four students with another mom. This year, she was able to recruit a group of 24 people – 20 students and four chaperones.
Because Seward doesn’t have a Catholic high school, Wintz hoped to give students who attend public school the opportunity to share an experience with fellow Catholics from across the diocese and Midwest.
“Without Beth’s encouragement I don’t think our parish would have pursued this, or even really known about it,” Wintz said.
The conference begins on a Friday night with dinner, a speaker, Eucharistic adoration, and the opportunity for students to meet in small groups with other boys or girls from their travel group.
Wintz and Nemec each had the opportunity to lead a group during the conference, and both noticed their students’ increase in openness as the weekend progressed, especially after Saturday’s events, which included speakers, Mass, a block party and adoration, which Nemec said is always the high point of the weekend.
While the speakers for each conference may vary, Nemec said students loved having the opportunity to hear from well-known presenters such as Father Mike Schmitz, Sarah Swafford, and Sister Josephine Garrett, CSFN, to name a few.
“This year, the theme for Steubenville was ‘refuge,’ and you think of all of the different avenues kids go to for refuge, and you just want Jesus to be their refuge,” Wintz said. “You want them to know him and have a relationship with him and not feel that he’s this far-off, distant, fairytale person. That he’s real and he’s with you.”
When given the opportunity to give their testimonies on the bus ride home, almost all of Nemec’s students had something to share.
Nemec said one of the girls had a deep puncture wound in her thigh at the start of the conference. When the students were going through an exercise in learning to be quiet with the Lord, she closed her eyes and asked Jesus to heal her leg.
“And He did,” Nemec said. “She told us, ‘The next time I looked at my leg it had closed up and just had a little scab.’”
One girl reported seeing a heart palpitating in the Eucharist at two different points during adoration. Other students had experiences of feeling God’s love, the presence of the Holy Spirit and of even hearing a call to the priesthood.
At one point, the girls in the room were asked to put their hand on the shoulder of the boy next to them and pray for them.
Nemec said that a boy told the bus, “When the girls were praying for me I could feel God, and it was the happiest time of my life. I was happier than I’ve felt before. I can’t really explain it, but I could feel the presence of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
Nemec said it wasn’t uncommon for those students who originally hadn’t wanted to attend the weekend to have profound encounters with the Lord at Steubenville.
“They just want to be seen, heard, loved, and I’m overjoyed with the fact that all of the students, at least that were in my group of 50, I feel like they really were seen, heard and loved by God, by their peers and their chaperones,” she said.
During the weekend of July 14-16, Sara Racicot, youth ministry coordinator at St. Joseph Parish in Lincoln, chaperoned a group of 41 incoming, current and recently graduated Pius students to the conference.
The group included students from parishes across the city of Lincoln, and the students were accompanied by Father Joseph Bernardo and Father Robert Johnson.
Racicot said a lot of her success in recruiting for the event came from the students themselves, particularly St. Joseph’s “Torch Team,” a group of students tasked with helping set other young parishioners on fire for their faith.
“They did a really good job of being brave and inviting other students,” Racicot said. “We went from having 12 kids signed up to 40 in a single week.”
While she has chaperoned many Steubenville conferences, Racicot said the weekend’s lack of “celebrity” Catholic speakers, as compared to the weekend previous, really led to a unique experience for the students.
She said, “I have never been to a Steubenville conference where the focus is so much on Jesus and the students’ desire to encounter Jesus. The kids were so motivated and dedicated to having an encounter with Jesus.”
Racicot also said Father Bernardo and Father Johnson had a big impact, taking the time to hear confessions for the group after their scheduled confession times for other conference goers.
“A lot of the students found a new love for confession after that,” Racicot said.
Now that they’ve returned, Racicot has encouraged the students to work to keep the fruits of their experience alive, and not just leave what they’ve learned or encountered behind at Steubenville.
Nemec encouraged her students to unite with one another to keep their experiences alive.
She said, “I told them, ‘What you’re feeling right now, this is real, and if you build it up among each other, organically, you’re going to share it with others. You don’t want it to be just a happy memory. Keep it going.’”
Wintz said she hopes the students from Seward will lean on each other as they go back to school in the fall, and that they will all have the courage to stand up for their faith and to keep walking in it.
Nemec, Wintz and Racicot are looking forward to seeing the fruits of this year’s conference next summer. Already, they have heard from students who can’t wait to attend again, and who are looking forward to encouraging their friends to attend as well.
Nemec also stressed the importance of parents’ encouragement in getting students to sign up for Steubenville. “The students whose parents made them go had some of the biggest encounters,” she said.
Wintz agreed.
“Put your kids on that bus,” she said. “They’re not going to regret it.”
Courtesy photos
