By Lindsay Steele
The Catholic Messenger
Three years ago, Anna Grace Marino was ready to leave the Catholic faith of her childhood and join a nondenominational church. With encouragement from her pastor at the time, Father Marty Goetz, she decided to attend the 2022 Christ Our Life Conference in Des Moines.
“At the conference, I encountered Jesus in the Eucharist and saw that everything I loved about the nondenominational church was actually present in the Catholic Church, and more,” said Anna Grace, a member of Divine Mercy Parish in Burlington-West Burlington.
Invigorated, Anna Grace decided she needed to change her life, not her religious affiliation. “I knew I needed to do something,” she recalled thinking. She left her job as a dental hygienist and applied to become a Damascus summer camp counselor alongside her twin sisters, Kayla and Taylor. God, she believes, had more in store for her.
“When I received my acceptance email, I received one for the summer as well as one for (two years) full time. … I actually never applied for the full-time program.” She let Damascus staff know that they had given full-time acceptance to the wrong person. “They responded to me saying no, they did not, and I had five days to get back to them. After prayer with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, it was extremely clear what I was to do.”
Anna Grace spent her first summer as a counselor at the Ohio campus and the second summer as a counseling lead in Michigan. She loved seeing campers come to know their identities as beloved sons and daughters of God. “I saw them encounter him week after week, absolutely filled and overwhelmed by a love they had never met or known before.”
During fall, winter and spring, Anna Grace joined about 60 full-time missionaries in hosting overnight retreats for middle schoolers, high schoolers and confirmation students in Ohio. The missionaries also helped with adult retreats, conferences and off-site service and ministry. Missionaries raise money to pay for living expenses and live communally in one of several single-sex households to help reduce costs. “I had the honor and privilege of being a household leader for the house of ‘Eden’ this past year,” she said.
Anna Grace recently concluded her missionary commitment and is transitioning to a new role as full-time missionary recruiter. Through her experience with Damascus, Anna Grace has learned that following God is not easy but his presence is always with her. “I have had challenges in my faith but he reminds me that it is not the falling but the getting up, persevering and choosing him over and over and over again that truly matters.”
