Students starting or returning to college campuses across the country this fall face a similar concern: peer pressure, said Megan Roder, who is in her second year as a missionary with the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS).
“They’re away from home for sometimes the first time, making their own decisions and really deciding ‘what is important to me, what am I going to do for myself and what are my values?’” she said.
Megan Roder
The college experience can be similar across the board, she said, as young people discover their independence and make many choices. This school year, Roder is one of nearly 800 FOCUS missionaries serving 175 college campuses, 22 parish locations and eight “digital expansion campuses.”
After a year as a FOCUS missionary at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, Roder will serve this fall at Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota.
Roder recently joined “Practicing Catholic” radio show host Patrick Conley to discuss how she and her peers serve students on campuses around the country.
Based in Colorado, FOCUS describes itself as a Catholic, collegiate outreach whose mission is to share the hope and joy of the Gospel with college and university students. Missionaries are invited by the local bishop, Roder said, and work closely with campus ministry at each college.
“And then we’re just working as their hands and feet, trying to do outreach to the student population,” she said.
Roder learned of FOCUS when she met a missionary while a student at North Dakota State University in Fargo. She got involved at the university’s Newman Center and some of the programs FOCUS offers: Bible studies and discipleship, one-on-one and group mentorship, “learning what it is we believe as Catholics,” she said, and how to bring that message to other people.
Following “some of the most normal conversations,” students have told her how they viewed the world, that it changed their lives, that they wanted to live differently. The impact of a conversation, “can just be in the way that we’re living on campus,” she said.
One student told her, “You may not know it, but the way that you have been able to love me has been very healing for me, and showing me that you don’t have to earn anybody’s love.”
Roder said the missionaries are “really just trying to approach people with love,” sit down and listen to their stories — something she believes doesn’t happen often anymore. “People aren’t really seen or known on the college campus,” she said. “And so, we’re trying to do that and tell them about Jesus, and tell them about the joy of the Gospel.”
Roder said she can’t imagine doing anything else but serving with FOCUS right now. “I have just a very strong sense of security that this is what the Lord wants me to be doing. I’m experiencing a lot of joy in it. And that comes from when you’re living your faith fully alive, and that is something that I’m able to do, and then able to share with the students that I’m encountering.”
To learn more about FOCUS missionaries, including where they are located, visit FOCUS.org. If FOCUS missionaries are not located on a particular campus, Roder said, “digital missionaries” are available to work with students.
To hear the full interview, listen to this episode of “Practicing Catholic.” It airs at 9 p.m. Aug. 27, 1 p.m. Aug. 28 and 2 p.m. Aug. 29 on Relevant Radio 1330 AM.
Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the latest show also includes interviews with Bishop Andrew Cozzens, who gives tips to parents serving as primary educators of their children when it comes to faith, and author, Catholic speaker and retreat leader Liz Kelly, who previews her upcoming Cuppa Joe talk on “St. Joseph: Adorer of Christ.”
Listen to all of the interviews after they have aired at:
soundcloud.com/PracticingCatholic
tinyurl.com/PracticingCatholic (Spotify)
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