WSU students to focus on Jesus next fall

Four from among the hundreds of seniors graduating this year from Wichita State University are at peace. They’ve found work. They’ll be working for the Lord.

The foursome will pack up their cars this summer and drive to campuses around the United States as Fellowship of Catholic University Students missionaries.

Helping young adults encounter Jesus

Fr. Drew Hoffman, pastor of the St. Paul University Parish at WSU said one of the goals at St. Paul “is to help facilitate an encounter between Jesus Christ and our college students, help equip them to facilitate that encounter with others, and then send them out with a passion for evangelization. These four are a great example of that coming to fruition. They have experienced the difference Christ makes and they want everyone they know to experience it as well.”

All the faithful are called to follow their example, he added.

“While these four are becoming missionaries in the technical sense, we are all called to become FOCUS missionaries in one way or another, whether that is at the accounting firm or our law office or in our homes. We all have the responsibility to share our personal encounter with the Lord with the people in our lives.”

Sharing a gift of Jesus

Jarett Pemberton of Kansas City, Missouri, said he volunteered to become a FOCUS missionary because he was given a great gift, a gift he wants to share.

“My greatest expectation is to grow in relationship with the Lord – and to connect with other students where they’re at in life,” he said.

Pemberton said he’s a little nervous to travel to a campus where no one knows him. “But it’s a great opportunity for a fresh start, with no expectations.”

The virtue of poverty drew Aaron Fater to become a missionary.

“I have experienced the poverty of the college campus and have been in relationship with others who are willing to sit with you in that poverty, and to carry you out of it. I want to do that for others because I know that the college campus can be a scary place.”

Some rejection anticipated

Fater, who is from Chicago, said he anticipates a lot of rejection as a FOCUS missionary from those who will send text messages to those who reject him face to face. “But Jesus assures us that we only experienced that because he was the first one that was hated. So we’re in good company.”

Fater will be spreading the Word at the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville. The other missionaries have not yet received their assignments.

Ryan Von Hoene of Wichita said he is becoming a missionary because for part of his college experienced a “gnawing ache” from chasing something he thought would make him happy.

“I realized that growing in communion with Jesus and with people who follow him is way better than anything else I could expect,” he said.

FOCUS changed his life

The FOCUS missionaries he’s met changed his life, Von Hoene said. “They sat with me and just wanted to know me. That’s a reflection of how God does the same thing for me. I want to have an opportunity to bring that to people who have been in a similar place.”

He said he hopes his love for God grows during his missionary work. “I want to be able to have him take me on the adventure he wants me to have. And because of that love, I want to go to share it wherever I go.”

Jesus: hope and light

Shayna Smits, also a native of Chicago, said as an engineering student she was always put in seemingly hopeless situations. “The one thing that gave me hope and gave me light was my relationship with God.”

She added that she hasn’t experienced many of the challenges other students have had but that she wants to be able to offer hope to others, to let them know they aren’t alone.

“I’m really hoping to grow in my faith with God,” Smits said. “It’s such a unique job to go into after college. I get permission to dive deeper into my relationship with the Lord and go forward and share that with others. That’s probably the best job I could think of.”