Last spring break, Jonathan Sechuk followed his heart — and his calling. The senior communication studies student traveled on a missionary trip to Peru through Temple University’s chapter of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS). By interacting with the Peruvian town’s residents and helping improve the town’s infrastructure, Sechuk learned that his faith and commitment to bettering the world complements his studies at Klein College of Media and Communication.
In addition to his academic work in communication studies, Sechuk immerses himself in campus-based faith activities. Currently, he is the communications coordinator for Temple’s Newman Center, the Catholic center on campus. His involvement is how he found out about the FOCUS mission trip, and was invited by on-campus FOCUS missionary Meaghan Piedimonte. Piedimonte joined FOCUS as a missionary four years ago while reflecting on her life’s purpose. When she decided to work with FOCUS, she was drawn to the opportunity to oversee missionary opportunities like Peru that would allow her to spread messages of faith and growth.
“For me, it was always something that I wanted to leave open for where there was a need,” she says. “So in wanting to direct the trip, I put in my application and just said ‘Wherever I’m needed, I’ll go.’”
Similarly, Sechuk was spurred into action when Piedimonte informed him of the Peru trip. He fundraised the entire cost of the trip by writing letters to family and friends and developing online campaigns. He even helped some of the other travelers in his group fundraise.
“When you tell people what you’re doing is not for your leisure, that you’re actually helping people, you’d be surprised at how much people give you,” he says.
When Sechuk arrived in Peru with his group, he was amazed by the beauty of the country. But when the group began service in the Pamplona Alta neighborhood about an hour outside of where they were staying in Lima, he realized the difficulties locals have to face. Many of them struggle to get around and transport necessities like groceries because the neighborhood is situated on steep terrain with limited alternatives to trekking on foot. His FOCUS group, other missionaries and some of the residents were all tasked with helping to build steps on the hills for easier mobility.
Although there was a Spanish-English language barrier that hindered the volunteers’ dialogue with the Pamplona Alta residents, Sechuk was happy to discover that many of their shared goals and actions translated regardless of the verbal communication differences. Conversations he had with Piedimonte and the other volunteers suggested that they all admired the locals’ resilience in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges.
“Even though [the residents] didn’t have much they were very happy and they appreciated us coming down there to help them make their lives easier. And I found that very eye-opening because I know here in the States we have a lot of things, but people are still unhappy. So what I took away from that is that there’s more to life than just worrying about our material things,” he says.
Sechuk will continue working as a committed member of the faith community. After graduation, he will serve as a FOCUS missionary and like Piedimonte, plans to make the most out of his experience. In the meantime, he often thinks about the lessons he learned in Peru about communication that transcend cultural differences, and how he can use this newfound knowledge as a student, a missionary and a member of the global community.
To learn more about FOCUS and its missionary trips, visit their website.