joseph.sanjose@cco.ca
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I am husband to Marion, and we are parents to a beautiful girl named Leah, born April 6, 2016. My mother, father, and brother – Tess, Ed, and Michael – all live in Richmond!
I was born and baptized a Catholic, but in high school I began to question everything. After a while, my faith life devolved to lip service. In my first year of university, I went from being on top of the world with scholarships, popularity, and success into despair, broken relationships, and failure. It was at the 2009 LifeTEEN Retreat at St. Paul Parish in Richmond where I came to know Jesus Christ, present in the Eucharist during Adoration, and my life was changed. He became the most important Person in my life, and my relationship with Him kept growing and growing.
I now have the privilege of inviting young people into encountering Jesus by working for CCO. I began my missionary career at UBC, and continue now at SFU. I am a storyteller — whether by word, speech, or song, I aspire to tell stories of beauty, goodness, and truth, all of which lead us to a fulfilling encounter of the ultimate Creator. But I also love to play! Video games, board games, weightlifting, even the occasional game of team Jenga.
On CCO staff, I am a campus missionary serving at Simon Fraser University. An experience that is a highlight from my time on staff is when I had the enormous privilege of meeting and inviting an exchange student from the University of Edinburgh (originally from Prague) into a Discovery Faith Study. The faith study led to him inviting Jesus to the centre of his life. That invitation led to his entering into the Roman Catholic Church during Easter in 2014. He was baptized, confirmed, and received the Eucharist on April 19th, 2014. Seeing his joy after his baptism was real fruit, and a real testament to the life and love Jesus has to offer.
The CCO movement in Vancouver has had a great impact on my local parish community. Many young parishioners who are students at UBC or SFU have been involved with CCO’s evangelization efforts and leadership development. Many young adults are beginning to employ the skills and attitudes they’ve learned in the parish, at the workplace, and with their families.
So far, I’ve learned that, though my efforts alone can bear some fruit, it is only by co-operating with God that I can reach my fullest potential as a human being. God loves knowing that I want to try so hard to do His will, and He also loves to remind me that I can’t do it all alone.
ONGOING PRAYER REQUESTS
- For my family
- My mother’s recovery from a stroke
- For the SFU campus