Prayer & Action teams to evangelize in Wichita and Independence this summer
Prayer & Action’s work gets done quickly with the team working together. (File photo courtesy Office of Faith Formation)
Want to take part in Prayer & Action?
To take part in this year’s Prayer & Action work, visit CatholicDioceseOfWichita.org/faith-formation/prayer-and-action. High school freshmen through senior age youth missionaries will serve at St. Joseph Parish from June 12-17 and June 19-24; and at St. Andrew in Independence from June 26-July 1, and July 10-15.
Youth taking part in this summer’s Prayer & Action will put their faith to work.
Liz Clark said Prayer & Action teams will serve and evangelize at two sites this summer: St. Joseph Parish in Wichita and St. Andrew Parish in Independence.
“It is an incredible opportunity,” she said last week. “It’s a little bit different from Camp Totus Tuus. They’re actually going out and working. We get a lot of kids who really love that aspect of it because it’s what your regular life looks like: you get up, you pray, you pack your lunch, you go, and then you come home and you can pray and have community life.”
The high school students taking part in one of the four Prayer and Action weeks will stay as a small community at the parish.
Specific work projects are being considered, Clark said, but usually, the projects, such as yard work and painting, are near the parish and often aid parishioners in need.
“A lot of it is obvious they just get that faith experience,” she said, “but I think they really get to see what it means to put prayer and work in action and what it means to serve our neighbors and people we see regularly.”
Mission work doesn’t have to be in another country, she added, it can be with people they see every day.
“The kids love the evangelization aspect of Prayer & Action,” she said. “A lot of times whoever’s house we work on they love to come out and chat with the kids who are working. They get to know the homeowner. That’s the idea, to be able to share the faith in a very real way.”
Often the homeowners are invited to pray with the missionaries at the beginning of the day and at lunch.
“And they’re Prayer & Actions missionaries so obviously they’re becoming ‘fully alive as missionary disciples,’” Clark said.
Becoming “fully alive as missionary disciples” is the vision of the diocesan Pastoral Plan.