2025 Evangelization Supplement
A summer road trip: College students lead teens and children on a journey to Christ
Maggie McBride, left, Katie Alley and Gabby Bickford show the joy that marked their involvement in the archdiocese’s Totus Tuus program in the Tell City Deanery during summer vacation of 2024. (Submitted photo)
By John Shaughnessy
There’s no doubt that many of the children who will return for the weeklong, faith-filled Totus Tuus summer vacation program will miss one of its fun-filled rituals this year.
In the past few years on a Friday afternoon, a water truck from a local fire station approached the hill by St. Mark Church in Perry County in southern Indiana, where the children waited in anticipation. And when the firefighters unleased the water onto a slip-and-slide, the children took turns giddily heading down the hill with huge smiles.
That ritual will end this year. But the change is also an indication of how what seems like bad news is actually good news in more important ways for the archdiocese’s Totus Tuus program—a program that’s designed to bring children and teenagers closer to Jesus, the Blessed Mother and the Church.
Participation in the program in the Tell City Deanery is growing so much that it’s being moved to St. Paul Parish in Tell City, where more classroom space is available for the estimated 90-95 young people who plan to attend the program from June 15-20.
Besides, there’s good news on the water front, too. The program-ending water balloon battle will continue again this year, with Tell City mayor Chris Cail planning to participate.
While the number of children and teens participating in Totus Tuus—Latin for “Totally Yours”—is growing, it’s the growth that she sees in the participants that most excites Megan Rust, the catechetical leader of St. Paul Parish in Tell City.
‘They had so much fun’
In her seven years of leading the program, Rust has seen more involvement from participants in Mass during the week of the program, which has also led to more attendance at Mass throughout the year.
“I think Totus Tuus is a great jumping point,” she says. “For our youth group program, it lights these kids on fire. They’re excited. They had so much fun at Totus Tuus, they’re ready for the next thing. We’ve seen our numbers increase in the youth group, especially from kids who attended Totus Tuus.
“We had one young man who was on the fence about coming into the Church.
He attended Totus Tuus last summer, and we just baptized and confirmed him at the Easter Vigil.”
Jennifer Beyer has seen Totus Tuus have a similar impact on the children and teens who have participated in the program at St. Michael Parish in Greenfield.
“I had a parent come tell me, ‘Thank you,’ at the end of one of our Totus Tuus weeks,” says Beyer, the parish’s religious education coordinator. “She shared with me that during the past week when she would go to check on her son going to bed, he would have his rosary out praying—completely on his own initiative.
“Another fun story is I received an e-mail earlier in the year from a parent asking about the dates for Totus Tuus. She apologized for asking for the dates so early, but her child was just chomping at the bit. She said that her kiddo talks about Totus Tuus more than their Disney trip.”
Those stories reflect the overall power that the program has had at St. Michael.
“The program has encouraged students to live authentically as disciples and discern their vocations,” Beyer says. “It deepens their prayer life by emphasizing the importance of the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, and Marian devotion. The missionaries bring not only their knowledge and love of the faith, but their excitement and energy. The students are just sponges, soaking it all in.”
That impact brings joy to Anita Bardo, the coordinator of evangelization and discipleship for the archdiocese. She’s excited about the six parishes across central and southern Indiana that will host the Totus Tuus program for a week this summer.
‘They build these friendships’
Besides St. Paul Parish in Tell City and St. Michael Parish in Greenfield, the program is being offered at
St. Gabriel Parish in Connersville, a combined effort by Holy Family and Our Lady of Perpetual Help parishes in New Albany, and St. Joan of Arc Parish and St. Michael the Archangel Parish, both in Indianapolis.
Bardo is also excited about the potential impact on the four young adults who will lead the program throughout the summer: Mia Tyler, Ethan Szajko, Stephanie Gonzalez and Nathan Huynh.
“When they say yes to being a Totus Tuus missionary, they’re saying yes to sharing their faith and building upon it,” Bardo says. “It provides an opportunity for the college students to discern what God is calling them to do. They’re also able to share more of their faith journey with the young people they lead during the week.”
There’s also something about the bond between the young adults and the children and teens they teach that makes a deep impression on everyone involved.
“It’s like, ‘Wow!’ ” Bardo says. “They build these friendships for the whole week. To see the bond from the first day to the end of the week, they don’t want them to leave.”
For Rust, that bond is the essence of what she calls “relational ministry.”
“When you can put a young person who is not necessarily familiar to those kids but is a shining example of their faith, you are planting seeds in these kids, in these teenagers,” she says.
“They see that faith, that commitment to Jesus that these young people on the team have. Do we see results two days later? Sometimes, but not necessarily. But it’s planting those long-term seeds about the importance of having that relationship with Christ.”
‘It’s really a joy’
As one of the young adults who will be a Totus Tuus missionary in the archdiocese this summer, 20-year-old Nathan Huynh has several hopes for his involvement in the program.
“I’m looking forward to teaching the children about our faith,” says Huynh, a student at Marian University in Indianapolis and an archdiocesan seminarian at Bishop Simon Bruté College Seminary in Indianapolis. “It’s something I’ll have to do in the future as a priest, and I think this is a good way to get me started on that.”
The member of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in New Albany also hopes to form lasting friendships with the other three young leaders of the program. At the same time, he wants to help the children and teenagers in the program grow in their relationship with Christ.
“I’ve always wanted to bring people closer to Christ, even if their relationship with God hasn’t been the strongest,” says Huynh, a 2023 graduate of Our Lady of Providence High School in Clarksville. “There’s always time to turn to him.”
In her third year of leading the program, Bardo will once again strive to be a guide for the Totus Tuus missionaries.
“I get to walk alongside them on their journey to every parish,” she says. “I get to know them. It’s like being a mom. I treat them as my own. It’s really a joy. I tell them I’m here for them if they have any struggles, if they need to talk. I stay connected with them after Totus Tuus, too. I’ve had a couple kids get engaged, and two of my former kids are in seminary.”
Bardo also hopes to expand the program to more parishes in future summers.
Rust vouches for the difference the program makes.
“Totus Tuus is absolutely worth every penny, every act of sweat equity you put into it,” she says. “You see the ways the kids grow through the course of the week. You see both the little kids and the teenagers grow closer to Christ. All because we introduced four unknown college students to them and let them lead them to the Gospel.” †
