Supplements

 

Supplements

Catholic Schools

Althoff Students Share Their Mission With Student Body

Story and photos by LIZ QUIRIN
Messenger editor

Althoff Catholic High School students jostled and laughed Jan. 29 as they moved into Heritage Hall for an assembly as part of Catholic Schools Week in the Belleville diocese.

Soon, their silence would be deafening as they listened to three of their classmates share their personal stories and how they came to tell them.

All seniors, the three had just completed their service projects with REAP ministries in the St. Louis archdiocese. REAP (Retreat, Evangelization and Prayer) is a full-time ministry for young people, involving young volunteers who take part in REAP’s activities. They participate through skits, drama, personal testimonials and prayer.

The experience they gained with REAP helped them decide to speak to the student body.

With this year’s Althoff theme — “On a Mission From God” — the girls said they believed that telling their stories was part of their mission, that keeping others from making their mistakes was part of that mission as well.

First, Alex stood at the podium and began to talk about her freshman year at Althoff and her attempt to “fit in.” It began with drinks at a party the second weekend of her high school career and escalated to drinking after school, then before school.

“My ‘party’ soon turned into an addiction,” Alex said.

The tipping point or turning point came when she lost five hours of her life. “I blacked out and couldn’t remember what happened during those five hours,” she said.

Being told that “drinking is bad” doesn’t have much of an effect on young people, and Alex was no exception.

“I pushed God out of my life and tried to write my own story,” she said.

After that lost night, Alex said she quit caring what other people thought about her, and “I let God back into my life.”

Alex’s story is not unlike the other two when she described acquaintances at school who judged her without knowing her, who made decisions about who she was without bothering to find out.

In making presentations during her senior service project, Alex found her voice and the courage to step forward to tell her story.

“I challenge you to reach out to someone and let them tell their story,” Alex said.

Jenna’s story, different from Alex’s, begins with a photo of her family, a photo that she tore to pieces in front of the student body.

While the people in the photo looked like a family, Jenna said it was not. Her mother left, and Jenna believed she blamed her children. “I really had a hard time forgiving her,” Jenna said.

As a seventh-grader she just didn’t fit in. People told her she always frowned and looked sad.

With her voice trembling, she said: “I was really lonely. I thought if I was dead no one would really care.”
As a senior, Jenna looks back at that time as “really hard” and wishes “I didn’t have to go through it.”

These days she still admits to having problems, but “I have amazing friends.”
Jenna asked the student body what their mission is.

Ivory’s story begins like Jenna’s — she comes from a family broken by divorce, but that’s where the similarity ends.

Her parents divorced when she was young, and she doesn’t remember the events leading up to the break. Ivory lived with her mother.

At the time, Ivory was still a young girl and said she was sexually abused by an adult. “He told me not to tell any-one, and he told me it was my fault,” Ivory said.

Ivory’s mother didn’t know what was happening. “It was like a bad dream that plays over and over in my head,” Ivory said.

After a few years, Ivory said she found the courage to tell her mother who confronted the adult, but she said he was not prosecuted. He no longer has contact with Ivory, she added.

At her sophomore retreat she realized everyone experiences hurt of some kind. Her anger at God began to melt.

“For those who have been hurt,” Ivory said to the students, “find someone to talk to; it helps so much — more than you think.”

Ivory challenged the students to “reach out to someone you don’t know. You can be changing someone’s life; you could be saving someone’s life.”

After the assembly, another student reached out to Ivory because she said she too had been abused. The two girls met and talked for several hours after school that day, and now can find support in their friendship.

At the assembly, campus minister, John Bouc, wearing his “Mission from God” T-shirt, told students: “Each of us is born with a mission; all of us have gifts and talents. We live the mission when we use those gifts. Our lives depend on the mission.”

For more information about REAP visit www.reapteam.org.

For information about counseling, please call Catholic Social Services in the Belleville area at 394-5900; in the Carbondale area at 351-0743; in Mt. Vernon at 244-0344.