CONWAY — Students and chaperones from St. Joseph Church in Conway were inspired during a weekend experience that has become an annual summer tradition for the youth ministry.
Youth minister Caryn Hoyt along with 17 chaperones accompanied 104 students from the ninth to 12th grades to the Steubenville St. Louis Mid-America Conference held in Springfield, Mo. July 16-18.
“We started going as early as 2001. Our youth minister at the time wanted to take students on a Christ-filled conference,” she said. “In fact, I went to them as a youth at St. Joseph and it impacted me in that I ended up attending Franciscan University.”
More than 6,000 teens attended over two weekends at Missouri State University. The annual event is sponsored by the Archdiocese of St. Louis’ Catholic Youth Apostolate’s Office of Youth Ministry. The Springfield location is one of 15 sites that Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, hosts summer high school conferences.
“The conference is very Catholic with a focus on adoration and is very well done,” she said. “The kids fall in love with the Mass and really learn about their Catholic faith.”
Prior to the conference students meet in small groups for five weeks with the chaperones to study a book, Hoyt said.
This year, the group studied “No Turning Back: A Witness to Mercy” by Father Donald Calloway, MIC. (See book review, page 13.)
The book is his conversion story, Hoyt said.
“We used the book as a way to get the students to open up since many of them had not met with the chaperones,” Hoyt said. “This was a way to get them to connect to the adults.”
Hoyt said during the conference students and chaperones break into small groups for faith sharing and the book study helps the students get comfortable sharing their feelings with the chaperones.
During the three-day conference, speakers and entertainment are provided as well as daily Mass and reconciliation.
“Seeing the kids so involved in their faith gives me goose bumps just thinking about it,” Jeff Shachmut, chaperone and religion teacher at St. Joseph High School, said. “The big session of adoration and praise and worship is so intense, almost like a concert.”
“This past year was my third year going to Steubenville and I never felt so close to God. I can’t put into words how amazing it is and what a wonderful time my friends and I had,” Taylor Perry, 16, said. “Once you get there you never want to leave and I will continue going for as long as I can.”
“My faith has grown tremendously because of Steubenville and my relationship with the Lord is better than it has ever been. I’m truly grateful for the experience,” Veronica Bausom, 18, graduate of St. Joseph School, said.
“The most important thing I learned was that God does love me. It may seem so simple to understand, but for me, it was the most complex thought I have faced in a while,” senior Rosalyn Moix, 17, said. “Steubenville was life-altering, and I couldn’t have asked for a better religious experience.”
Hoyt said the cost of the conference is around $165 and the youth ministry program provided scholarships for those who could not attend without financial support.
