Do you wonder what youth ministry is all about and and wish you knew the behind the scenes work that goes into a youth event? Check out what the OYM interns have to say...
by Susanna Hasser
As my internship comes to a close, I look back and appreciate all that happened here this summer. I have come a long way from the timid young lady who started here twelve weeks ago. Through all the phone calls, copying, spreadsheets, and binders I have found a community that not many people in St. Louis know about. This is a group of people who are seeking to bring Christ to the youth of the area and doing it in the ways they can. We pray everyday at lunchtime in our little chapel for the youth and youth ministers. There is a library of resources available to youth ministers, and we make known the opportunities for youth to meet up with other teens in the area and throughout the country. Through the office I have experienced what it takes to put on events in youth ministry. So many little and not so interesting details must be addressed for something great to be accomplished. It is the small tasks that support the big ones. I have grown in my communication skills and have experience as an office worker as well. I know I am not nearly ready to move into the world on my own, but this summer had prepared me just a little more for the field I hope to fully enter into one day, if it be the will of God.
by Katie Lucchesi
I wish you'd had just 5 minutes in my shoes. Just 5 minutes. It's a funny thing - when I was chosen as the Steubenville intern at the Office of Youth Ministry back in January, I had NO idea that I would be wishing that everyone at that conference had the luck of spending just 5 minutes in my shoes - my incredibly blessed 3-year-old Adidas tennis shoes.
I was the girl who was semi-involved in my youth group since my junior year of high school at St. Clement of Rome. I never really took it to the next level back then, but recently have found my calling to be in youth ministry and declared myself a theology major when I started at SLU. When I requested working as an intern, free of pay, at this quaint, end of the hallway bunch of offices in the quietest building in St. Louis, I was completely terrified. It didn't take me long to realize that I was feeling the happiest I'd felt in a long time. Sure we worked really hard, but we also laughed and played, including a little soccer in the hallway (shhh...dont remind Sr. Consolata). One of the most enjoyable moments was the daily prayer at noon. Right before we stopped to eat, we spent about 20 minutes in a quiet, simplistic room praying for the youth of the archdiocese and everything else on our hearts. It was a perfect way to calm myself in the middle of the day and, more importantly, remind myself who I am living and doing all this for...our heavenly Father. Working at the OYM is one of those things where you wish you could find the right words; the real, powerful, meaningful words to tell everyone that your heart is just bursting from the seams with happiness because of working in this office with these people...but sadly, I can't find the words to do the true feeling justice. For once, money didn't matter. Even after my paying job was put off for weeks just so that I could do Steubenville prep, I realized that I still woke up smiling every day, despite knowing I wasn't getting paid. Everyone told me it was more about the "experience," which unfortunately I still didn't grasp the significance of. However, to be brutally honest, no matter how many times I loved getting up to go there to work and the bliss I felt leaving every single day, I was still burdened by the money that I was not making.
After hours, days, weeks and months of preparing for this amazing conference, I will totally admit that I became stressed. The sweat stains on my t-shirt showed within only hours of registration being open on Friday. After running all over campus and sometimes even driving that wickedly cool golf-cart doing little in-between jobs, Friday night finally came. I was overwhelmed by the teens. Sure, I had been to a conference before and I had seen the 2013 teens praising our Lord. However, the minute I got to my seat in the front row (yeah...OYM does have a lot of perks!), everything changed. If anyone saw me sitting down there, I was constantly turning my head around just to see everyone. To see all the teens with their hands raised screaming with Adam and the band the name of our amazing God. That is when it hit me. THIS is why we do hours upon hours of work. THIS is the reason the staff works in exhausting conditions, frustrated beyond belief at times, and does everything they do. THIS reason was all of you - the teens, the chaperones, the volunteers. THIS reason cannot even be described, it just had to be something you saw with your own two eyes. And yes, every seat in the house was a good one, but lucky for me, I got to see all 2000+ of them. For me, the whole weekend was a glimpse of heaven, but Friday night really did me in. The excitement had been building for months and the time had finally come. I cocked my head around to look at one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my almost 20 years. To look up at everyone singing at the top of their lungs and filling the air with more joy than can be described with words, I could truly feel Jesus around me. If I had the power, every teen in that auditorium would have sat in my seat for just 5 minutes. Five minutes to just see what I got to see. Five minutes in my shoes that completely changed my attitude and my reason for working at the OYM. Sure, driving a golf cart and having a radio headset weren't too bad either, but what it really came down to was seeing something so unforgettable that most people in our world will never get to see. Any day of working for free as an intern over the past 3 months didn't matter, any person who made the job a little harder, the hours a little longer, and the stress a little greater, none of those things mattered. Lucky for me, I got more than 5 minutes in those shoes, and I'm incredibly blessed and thankful for the OYM staff who gave me such a great opportunity. It was an experience of a lifetime working at the OYM, and especially at the Steubenville conference. It's one of those jobs you can't believe you got so lucky to land, and I did! I made some awesome friends, grew so much deeper in my faith, and gave my life back to God. Every day was completely worth it, and I could not be more excited to come back next summer! All I know is that God is so good, and He gives us so much happiness and so much joy in the simplest things, and it doesn't take that long either! Just think about it, the next time you're standing in your 3-year old Adidas wishing you could share with someone else just 5 minutes in your shoes, it probably means that those 5 minutes are life changing, just like the 5 I experienced that night.
by Erin McClanahan
When I originally emailed the Archdiocese of St. Louis in February about a possible internship with the organization, I had no idea it would lead me to the experience that I have had this summer. What was supposed to be a little bit of experience in administration with a non-profit organization has turned out to be a complete personal and spiritual metamorphosis.
I am entering my senior year at Saint Louis University, with a major in Political Science, a minor in Theological Studies, and absolutely no youth ministry experience. However, I feel like the past two months here at the OYM has given me valuable experience in case I ever want to venture down the youth ministry path. From Project Life 2005 to Steubenville St. Louis Mid-America, I now understand the behind-the-scenes work that goes into a non-profit organization function. But more importantly, I understand now that pure faith can drive people to perform tasks that others may say are impossible. I watched this office staff of four put on the Steubenville Conference at Southwest Missouri State University, with thousands of teenagers in attendance. After all of the hard work and long hours put in, it was so rewarding to look back from the first row at the Juanita K. Hammonds Center at SMS and see so many teenagers worshipping with joy. That sight alone makes everything worthwhile.
But back to my duties here at the OYM. I started my internship on June 6th, which happened to be the week before Project Life started, so needless to say, I did not get a chance to dip my feet in, I jumped straight in. That whole week consisted of putting together supplies that we needed for the service retreat, such as gardening and cleaning supplies, food, production equipment, and all of the necessary information that the site leaders would need, like release forms and insurance copies of all of the teens participating. Then, the Friday before the retreat started, we took everything over to St. Mary's High School, which was our dorming facility for the week. That entire day we unloaded everything and set up for the retreat, which was a TON of hard work since we have a small staff and only a few volunteers, but afterwards the gym looked amazing!
The next week was Project Life. This was by far my favorite event of the summer. Everyday teens were broken into groups and taken to different work sites, where they would perform service until around 2:30 in the afternoon, then head back to St. Mary's for mass, an evening session, music, food, and—FINALLY--bedtime. A couple groups worked to clean and rehab apartments in Kinloch, which is in North St. Louis. There, they found a diary of a woman who had lived there before the apartment caught fire, sometime in the 1980's (if I recall correctly). Just reading her life and learning what she went through made me appreciate and thank God for all of the blessings I have in my life, and it re-energized me to go out and perform service for the less fortunate.
After Project Life was over, it was planning for the Steubenville Conference, which was held at SMS in Springfield, in order to facilitate the two thousand (plus or minus a few) teenagers in attendance. This conference was put on by Franciscan University of Steubenville, so they brought the speakers and Fr. Dave Pivonka, who gave probably the most powerful homily that I have ever heard in my 20 years of going to mass.
This conference required much more administrative work, since it was on a college campus and had roughly 20 times more participants than Project Life had. The various work that I did was: assemble roommates for the dorms, put together passes for each individual who would be attending, send out letters to everyone attending, gather and pack up production equipment, and put together packets for all of the group leaders. All of this sounds relatively simple, but when there are over 2,000 people signed up, these tasks become long and complicated!
I felt that on registration day I was given the most responsibility yet in my internship, when I was responsible for printing up nametags for teens at SMS. When I practiced making the tags at the office before heading down to SMS, it was an easy task. No problem, I thought. Then, that Friday, I was overcome with confusion when group leaders would come up to me saying things such as, "Well so and so called and said that they couldn't go this morning, but so and so called and said they wanted their spot, so they aren't registered but they're here and need a nametag" or "Church A didn't fill all of their spots, so they are giving up two of their extra spots, and Church B is giving up three of their spots, so we have five extra kids that need nametags." Situations like that overwhelmed me because I had never dealt with anything like this, but Rosanne was calm and cool, and after watching her handle these situations, I slowly learned how to handle ANY situation a group leader would give me (ok, maybe not any, but if I didn't know, I would just smile, nod, and print off a nametag).
After registration was over, the hard part was done for me. Then I tagged along with Katie Lucchesi, my fellow intern and good friend, who usually was going 100 miles an hour, talking to Rosanne on her radio head set. We performed various tasks, ensuring that the conference ran smoothly, which it did, and, looking back, I would go through the stress of putting together Steubenville all over again, if I could see the looks on the teenagers faces when they were gathered together at Hammonds Hall, one more time.
Now that Steubenville is over, the office has quieted down significantly. The last event during my internship is going to be sending the groups from the archdiocese off to Germany for World Youth Day. However, with only 174 people going from St. Louis and this office not needing to take the amount of stuff that was needed for Project Life and Steubenville, the work load for us interns has decreased slightly.
These days, my work load has consisted of more generic administration tasks, such as: calling every parish in the archdiocese and finding out information about their youth ministers, if they even have one, and discussing financial information about the different events of the summer with the Archdiocesan Finance Office, and learning how to use excel in order to create databases.
My time at the OYM has been extremely valuable. Not only have I learned how non-profit organizations are run and administered, my spiritual life has improved, and my faith strengthened. While I think that government administration is what lies ahead in my future, I have learned, from the four staff members here at the OYM, that with any task you take on, pour your entire heart and soul in it and it will be successful. With whatever avenue I take after graduation, I am going to give it my all, and trust that God will be there to help me along the way. And that is something you cannot learn in a classroom, you have to experience it for yourself, and the OYM helped me experience that this summer.
by Julie Schneider
I have been on Project Life the past two years with St. Ferdinand and had absolutely amazing experiences both times. When spring time of 2005 came around, I started thinking about Project Life again and began wondering when it would be, and where it would be, and how many teens I will get to go this time, etc. etc... So, with all my curiosity building up, I began searching the good old OYM website for details. Unfortunately, nothing new had popped up yet so I browsed elsewhere and came upon an internship link. Hmmm, I thought to myself as I pondered on how wonderful it would be to help out this year in a different fashion. Within two seconds of thinking about it, I filled out the application and sent it in. A couple days later, I received a phone call from Sister Consolata and we set up our first appointment. After that, all I had to do was wait for summer to arrive so I could begin my work.
Summer arrived and the day had come for my first day as an intern. I stepped into the office and right off the bat, received the warmest welcome by everyone including Sister C, Liz, Joel, and of course Rosanne. Mieke, our Netherlands girl was there as well.
Within a week, I was joined by 3 other amazing interns whose stories you may have already read. I had a blast working with them and grew very close to them all, as well as the staff. If you are not familiar with the OYM office, there is a wide selection of cd's available to listen to, so everyday, we would choose a new cd and jam out while getting our work done. Sometimes, Rosanne would surprise us with some tasty treats after lunch. I won't dare reveal what it was, but boy was it good. I may make it sound as if it were all fun and games, which it was, but we really did get a lot of work done in the process.
From this experience, I have learned that to truly love and enjoy what you do at the OYM or with any job, you must first truly love and understand your faith. With every little task we did, we knew what we were doing it for, which in return made it worth the hard work. Sometimes, things got stressed, sometimes, carrying big boxes and objects into a truck on an extremely hot day, didn't seem to be worth my time, but by stepping back and realizing what I was doing this for, I was able to shift my negative thoughts into positive ones. I was able to make myself stronger, with the help of God of course.
Overall, my experience is unforgettable. I know I have gained an overwhelming meaning of what it is to be a servant unto God and to his people. God's love filled my life while serving my time with this faith filled community. I have carried this love with me everywhere I go and I try my best to pass it on along the way.
Thank you OYM for your love and kindness.