The West River Catholic sat down with the Fellowship of Catholic University Students team at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology to meet the new team members, find out what their new goals are and to get to know them better. FOCUS was founded in 1998 and uses campus missionaries to invite college students into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ, equipping them for a lifetime of Christ-centered evangelization, discipleship, and friendships in which they lead others to do the same. The goal is to have students take the skill, formation, and encounters with Christ and share them for the rest of their lives. Missionaries are college graduates that range from newly graduated, to families, to adults who feel a call in their lives. Look for the missionaries on freshman move-in day, at the Campus Ministry Welcome Picnic, or find them at the Newman center for the first Mass of the school year on August 25 at 7 p.m.

Joseph Allen, Team Director
Originally from Nebraska
Number of years with FOCUS: 3

Kevin Baltzer
Originally from South Dakota
Number of years with FOCUS: 2

Alice Major
Originally from Colorado
Number of years with FOCUS: 2

Abigail Mason
Originally from Illinois
Number of years with FOCUS: 1st year

How did you become involved with FOCUS?
Abigail: We didn’t have a Newman Center, but we had a Newman Club and Focus was on my campus. My best friend, she was super involved, but I wasn’t. She introduced me to the missionaries. They had a huge impact on me and my faith. 

One of the missionaries in college joked about me becoming a missionary ever since I first started getting involved. I didn’t take it seriously and then another missionary, who I was in discipleship with, started putting the idea in my head. I have always wanted to help people. I used to have a job working with college students too and I like working with that age group. 

How did you react to your placements when you found out you would be at engineering school?
Joseph: Well, my story is a little bit interesting because Father Mark wanted me to come. We became friends in Medjugorje. We were on pilgrimage together and we were talking one day, probably eating pasta and drinking espresso, and he said, “Joe, do you know anybody that wants to be a team director? I’m looking for a new team director. Do any of your friends want to come to South Dakota?” And I said, “Well Father, I’m looking to become a team director, and I want to come back to the Midwest, so I think this is very providential that you and I are sitting here together. I don’t have any power to make this happen, but if you get back to America and make some phone calls and make it happen, I’ll say ‘yes.’” And sure enough, two weeks later I got a phone call. I said, “yes,” and now I’m here. 

Kevin: I served last year in Birmingham, Alabama. I wanted to come back to the Midwest. I’m getting married in September, so I wanted to be closer to family. When they asked if I would like to go to School of Mines I was like, “whoa, I get to serve at my alma mater.”  I’m super excited. I love this school. 

Alice:  When I got the placement card in 2023, I thought, “Where is Rapid City?” Once I figured that out, I realized that this is the school, where my grandfather, my dad’s dad, went to school. He graduated in the 50s and was an electrical engineer. 

Then I realized it was only an engineering school and then I thought I have a performing arts degree. Why on earth? But it worked out really well. I’m a classical musician, so my brain works in a very similar way

Abigail: Going to college in Nebraska, a lot of people from that area would talk about all their vacations to Rapid City so I am excited. Finding out it was an engineering school, it made me a little nervous. 

Alice, since you are returning, what are you hoping to build on from last year?
On a smaller level, relationships with students in Bible studies. On a larger level, the women’s community here is small. The beginning of last year it was barely existent and throughout the year, we just had more and more women coming around and coming to Bible studies, coming to daily Mass, coming into discipleship. 

Kevin, what are you looking forward to most being here as a missionary?
I need to branch out from the way I was as a student here. The average demographic  really likes a bunch of other things that I would never have done. I think the Lord would want me to branch out and maybe explore those things. 

Also, I was confirmed when I was a student here. Before, I was a pretty anti-Catholic Protestant, and I was involved in Campus Ventures and Intervarsity for a little bit so I’m also excited to do ecumenical type stuff.

How do you see last year’s leaders stepping up and how do you encourage that?
Alice: I’m really excited about it. I have two ladies I think are going to be ready to start leading this semester. I spent a lot of time planting seeds of leadership. They have encountered Christ personally and that personal encounter is transforming their lives. How much do your friends need that? How much better would it be coming from you? Then it wouldn’t be coming from me because I don’t know your friends, right? You know your friends and you know their hearts and you know how much they need this light in their lives? 

What do you want to say about your time here with students that you think our readers should know about FOCUS: Joseph: We’re excited and nervous. We’re ready to have a lot of fun on campus and attract students to the Newman Center and to Jesus through our joy, through our fun, through our happiness, and through our friendship. An effective way of winning the hearts of college students is through friendship and through love. We are that gateway, or the middleman, to Jesus. So, we are excited to meet new students and make lots of new friends. That’s the primary way we evangelize is through friendship. Just loving our students through deep authentic friendship. That’s what we’re going to do. 

We are professional friends.

Why do you think that kind of a friendship is so important to college students?
Joseph: They don’t have it, they don’t know what it is and once they have it and they know what it is, then they love it and they don’t want to lose it. 

Kevin: That authentic friendship, where you invite students into your ordinary life and then get into their ordinary life is when they realize, “Oh, he’s not just in it for me to be a number, or to be this convert, or to lead this Bible study and then leave me alone.”

I want people to come to my house and walk the dog with me. We were made to live life with people. We were made for relationships.  We were made for our communion and our modern world. 

Alice: For a lot of people, no one’s ever shown them that. When we are with students, we’re showing that yes reading the Bible is so important, but also, we’re running errands with them. We are willing to be there in their ordinary lives. We build up the idea that this kind of relationship is possible and then it opens up a new window to the relationship with God and how he is with them in their ordinary lives, not just in church.

Abigail: I’ve seen this approach in action. When the missionary I was introduced to suggested dinner I thought, “Oh she’s probably something crazy Jesus Freak or whatever” and I found my best friend in this missionary. The first time we all went to dinner together and I was nervous. I thought she was going to try to change my whole life right there and then, but we became friends before I was ever  invited to a Bible study or discipleship.