Ross and Debbie have been married for 23 years, and they are members of Immaculate Conception Parish in Dardenne Prairie, MO (aka ICD). Ross has been volunteering at SteubySTL for 12 years, and Debbie has been for 13 years.
At our conferences, their forte is Speaker Hospitality. They find it fun to get to know the speakers personally and enjoy serving their needs by taking logistical concerns away from them and allowing them to focus on the spiritual emphasis they are so good at providing.
Oscar is a lifelong Catholic who always had a good relationship with God. Everything was going well for him, until one day his sister shared with him that their dad had cancer. While he knew that his dad would fight it, his dad eventually passed away. Then, in his anger and frustration, Oscar turned against God and turned to sin. Eventually, at his mom’s prompting, he went to Confession, shared everything with the priest, and felt a huge weight lifted off of him. Oscar’s advice to all of us is simple:
I challenge you to go to Confession, so that God can open up your heart the way He has opened up mine.
As she began her talk tonight, Sarah put a picture-perfect image of her family on the big screen for all the teens to see. Her hair was perfect and full, the kids were all dressed adorably and looking at the camera, beaming like perfect angels. She then told us that for this one picture that turned out great, there are about 30 that didn’t. And then she said, “I want to be real with you guys”, and proceeded to show her kids with messy faces, battling in plastic sword fights. She also showed images of her own selfies with double chins and without make-up on.
She then cautioned all of us, “Don’t compare another person’s highlight reel with your behind-the-scenes reel.” Sarah said she went through a difficult time in middle school when she questioned her self-worth, wondering if she was pretty enough, good enough and if she would ever be truly loved. She said she became a chameleon, changing her personality to suit whomever she was with at the moment. She needed the approval of others to feel loved.
Please pray for this weekend’s ministry team: Fr. Chris Martin, Sarah Kroger, Josh Blakesly, Oscar Rivera Jr., Cooper Ray, Sarah Swafford, and Chris Mueller.
