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When I look back the most decisive events that dictated the course of my life, I cannot think a more impactful decision than the one I made to be a counselor during the summer of 2000. I was a high school teacher in Altoona, Pennsylvania, enjoying my time teaching AP Gov and World Cultures.
Fr. Michael Nasser asked me to use my summer off to serve as a counselor, saying he wanted older staff to be role model for the younger counselors, I agreed. I had no idea how much that decision would change everything.
There were two things that I learned that have shaped me and approach to youth ministry. One, Fr. Michael did an activity during staff training with a ball of dough, asking how the dough was like the campers. We replied that the dough was formable, moldable, etc. Then he turned the tables and asked how the dough was like us. The answers were the same: moldable, formable, etc. He explained that while we were working to form the campers, God was using the experience to form us. I thought I was there to use what I thought were my areas of expertise and experience, but I realized that I was going to learn as much (ended up being more) as I would teach.
The second lesson came when Fr. Michael talked about the daily schedule of what we were going to be doing: morning cleaning, church services with no pews, mornings of Christian education sessions, dress codes, no technology, etc. I wondered quietly to myself: What kids go to this camp? I thought that I would spend my summer in constant battles of will with campers over all these rules. What surprised me to my core as the old, wise teacher was the unfolding realization that when you sincerely offer the gospel of Christ and the life of His Church, children thrive. They deeply desire it. When I saw roughneck teenage boys being vulnerable with each other, loving chanting along with the hymns in church, and shedding tears on the last night before heading home, I realized that I could not keep doing what was doing, and I heard the call to pursue the priesthood.
After leaving my profession, I returned to the Village for the summers I was a seminarian. During that time, I fell in love with ministry. I fell in love with a young woman I met at camp, Sonia Daly. During our walks around the track at camp and through the trails at the Center, I knew that she was going to be my wife. After her passing, the community of friends I made there held me and supported me. Over the years, I watched our son growing up summer after summer, loving the same place his mom and I love so much. Unbelievably, he is a camp counselor at Camp St. Raphael, and I just saw a picture of him with his first cabin. I have no words to express my joy and pride in him, and my gratitude to our beloved Antiochian Village Camp for this life God has given me through this beautiful ministry.
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