2020/2021 Missionary Disciple Team
How Can we pray for you?
An essential aspect of our mission is prayer. We will pray for your needs and intentions in our hours of daily prayer. Please fill out the form below with your name, email address, and prayer intention.
May God bless you.
TJ - Missionary Disciple Coordinator
I come from the Detroit suburbs, where my two brothers and I grew up in a practicing Catholic family. After high school, I traveled to the California desert to attend Deep Springs College, a 2 year liberal arts college on a working ranch. At Deep Springs, 29 classmates and I learned to live in a tight-knit, self-sustaining community. Now I’m a rising junior at Harvard College studying religion, although I’ve pressed pause on Zoom school for the year. Instead of schooling, I feel called to meet these difficult times by growing a community of prayer as the Missionary Disciple Coordinator at Santiago Retreat Center. As a Missionary Disciple, I am deepening my own faith in prayer and study, while inviting youth and young adults in Orange County to join me on my faith journey.
From hanging fiber-optic cables in a bucket truck to hosting monthly young adult fellowship events to adoring Christ in the quiet of 2am nights, I have been able to encounter God in so many ways at Santiago Retreat Center. My favorite part of living at Santiago Retreat Center is the location. It is so evident that we are living in God’s creation, and, as a result, I am under constant reminder that I am created. This stirs within me a feeling of humility and gratitude.
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John Paul (JP) - Missionary Disciple
From the heart of the Midwest (Omaha, Nebraska), I grew up the second eldest of a strong Catholic family of thirteen. My family has been the foundation for my faith and is the origin of my evangelizing mission: to exemplify my Catholic faith for my younger siblings. I moved to California to continue following Christ’s call to evangelize by developing the Missionary Disciple Program at Santiago Retreat Center. I am hopeful for the program’s future and enthusiastic to expand the retreat center’s facilities, services, and outreach, while growing in my faith and evangelizing in this age of spiritual need.
At Santiago Retreat Center, I help to run retreats such as Quo Vadis, Blossom FIAT, and young adult groups, either as a counselor, organizer, cook, or maintenance worker. I also maintain our beautiful property and serve at altar in daily Mass. Team projects are an important part of the Santiago Missionary Disciple Program, and I’m eager to move from the designing to building stage of the altar project on top of Santiago’s Mount Zion.