I will be serving as a first year missionary in University College Cork in Ireland. This is the first year that there will be a FOCUS team in Cork and I am so excited to have the opportunity to serve here!

I was blessed to be raised in a loving, faithful family where God was very much a central part of my family life. As I got older I had a good knowledge of the Catholic faith, but this didn’t really translate into a deep personal prayer life. As a teenager I went along to a number of retreats that would always reignite a desire to put God at the centre of my life, but I really struggled to stay consistent with this in my day to day life. While I wanted to prioritise my faith, I could see that in reality there were many ways in which I was not choosing God.

I met the FOCUS missionaries in University College Dublin before I had even started in college, and the Catholic community that they had fostered in UCD was one of the factors that drew me to studying there! When I started studying in UCD I quickly became involved with the Catholic society and the FOCUS missionaries. The friendship and encouragement of the missionaries led me into a deeper relationship with God as I began to build stronger habits of daily prayer and grow in genuine Catholic community. This deeper relationship also began to highlight to me in a new way that the transformative power of God’s love wasn’t just something that was important in my own life, but something that everyone should to be given the opportunity to encounter. From this realisation my desire to invite others into this relationship grew. This desire ultimately led to me saying yes to serving with FOCUS!

I have witnessed firsthand the incredible impact that missionaries can have in giving students the opportunity to encounter God in a deeper way, or for the very first time. I believe that all people should be given the opportunity to experience the transformative love of God that I have experienced, and I would be honoured if you would join me in this mission. In my decision to serve as a missionary with FOCUS I have also chosen to rely entirely on the spiritual and financial support of mission partners. If you would be interested in partnering with me in this journey or would like more information please do not hesitate to reach out to me at [email protected]! I would be so delighted to meet with you.