September - St. Augustine Catholic

ministries
youth ministries profile
Two Parishes With One Common Goal –
Empowering Youth
by Shannon Scruby Henderson
St. Luke Youth Group on a Mission
What can a teenager do to change the world?
Sixteen-year-old Rachel Quiñones had a
chance to find out. In early June, she joined 16
members of her youth group at St. Luke Parish
in Middleburg on a weeklong work mission
in Bayou la Batre, Ala. With its infrastructure
and shrimp industry in tatters, the Gulf-Coast
village made famous by the movie Forrest Gump
remains a casualty of hurricane Katrina. Enter
Youth Works and Mission Build, two groups
that help mobilize teen workers here and at
other sites around the country.
“We spent half our week working on damaged
homes and half helping with kids and seniors,”
Rachel reports. Her friend April Galvez says the
trip was a learning experience. “Witnessing the
devastation and helping the people affected me
deeply,” she says. “I also had the chance to bond
with others in my youth group. We talked about
what was going on that day and about our lives
back home. It was great.”
Special
The youth of St. Luke Parish, Middleburg,
learned about the Catholic history of “La Florida”
while visiting the Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche
and Mission Nombre de Dios in St. Augustine.
Special
About 15 youth from St. Luke Parish in
Middleburg traveled to Bayou La Batre, Ala.,
as part of a mission trip to provide relief for
residents of the area after Hurricane Katrina.
For Rachel, the trip was empowering. “I felt like we were
really doing something important,” she says. “I learned a lot
about poverty, especially the desperation people can feel when
they don’t see a way out – and how education and a hand up
can help.”
She also met “amazing” people: “We worked at the house of
an older lady named Mrs. Marshall. I was feeling bad that we
were making so much noise repairing her roof. Just then, she came
out and told us that we were the biggest blessing of her life. Mrs.
Marshall worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She was a Freedom
Rider. I felt like I had helped somebody really special.”
Year-round chances to participate
To meet the needs of 65 teens in separate junior and senior high
school groups, St. Luke offers a full calendar of events that range
from just-for-fun to serious. This fall, they will send a group to the
National Catholic Youth Conference in Columbus, Ohio. “It’s about
creating opportunities,” says Regina Quiñones, who has served as the
22 St. Augustine Catholic September 2007