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The Invitation That Changed Everything
New FOCUS missionary Thomas Donovan once stood at the edge of the room himself.
Now he's coming to Florida State to make sure no student has to.
For nearly a year, Thomas Donovan went to a FOCUS Bible study at Clemson University and skipped the dinner afterward.
It wasn't a lack of interest. Part of him badly wanted to go. He was just afraid of walking in and sitting alone.
“I didn't think I would find my people,” he said. “I figured everyone else had their cliques and I wouldn't fit in.”
When he finally went, a student named Seth sat down beside him, and a FOCUS missionary named Jack Obeck pulled up a chair too. Seth became one of his closest friends. Jack extended another invitation, this one to SEEK, FOCUS's national conference. Those small welcomes changed the direction of Thomas's life, and this fall, as he begins his first year as a missionary at Florida State, they are the whole of his ministry philosophy: sometimes a student's journey toward faith begins the moment someone notices him and makes it unmistakable that he's wanted.
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Thomas grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, in a family that took the faith seriously. He served at the altar whenever he could. His father helped build up their parish, among other leadership roles, he started a soccer program and a Rosary club. For Thomas, faith and family were the same thing. “My community was my family,” he said.
Then difficult experiences in local churches led much of his family to step back from parish life, and as that community fell away, so did Thomas. He stopped going to Mass and arrived at Clemson disconnected from the Church. But something stayed unsettled in him.
“I always felt like there was something missing,” he said. “Growing up with such a strong faith, and all of a sudden it being gone, you're going to have some sense of longing for something.”
That longing surfaced during a Thanksgiving debate about whether God exists. His father told the family to read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Thomas went home, asked if they had a copy, and read it. Soon he was back at Mass occasionally and plugged into a FOCUS Bible study, calling his dad on the drive home to talk through what the group had discussed.
It was a start. But he still couldn't make himself walk into that Tuesday dinner.
Even heading into SEEK, Thomas kept his guard up. He told his parents that if he didn't connect with anyone, that was fine; he'd come home and carry on as he had been.
Instead, the conference completely opened his heart. Before SEEK, his Mass attendance was inconsistent. After it, he started going daily. Jack, who had invited him in the first place, still calls it one of the most sudden reconversions he's ever seen. What struck Thomas most was simply not being alone in it.
“You go and see that there are a lot of people around our age that actually are taking faith seriously,” he said. “You have a community there.”
He entered discipleship, meaning he became more intentional about prayer, participating in the sacraments and virtuous Christian living. He immersed himself in campus ministry. By senior year the student who had been afraid to walk into dinner was leading two Bible studies, running his own discipleship group, coordinating the Catholic center's intramural sports, and serving in men's and youth ministry. He credits two missionaries, Jack and Jackson Coulter, with showing him the kind of presence he now hopes to offer the students at FSU, not recruiting him into programs but staying available, having the hard conversations, and building friendships that outlasted their formal roles. He still calls them when he needs advice.
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“They actually care for you,” he said. “They made it a point to create these authentic friendships, and know that it goes beyond their time at FOCUS.”
Jack and Jackson’s witness is a large part of why he said yes. Thomas graduated with a degree in mathematical sciences and a promising path toward a career as an actuary. He had interned at Blue Cross Blue Shield and expected to return after graduation.
But in accompanying other young men in their faith, Thomas had discovered work that seemed to fit his soul, the place where his gifts, his joy and his sense of vocation came together. It was the kind of work that rarely felt like work at all. Mission.
While he was at FOCUS New Staff Training, his former supervisor emailed about an entry-level opening that would have paid two or three times a missionary’s fundraised salary. Thomas declined the position and instead invited him to hear about the mission he had chosen. By the end of the conversation, his former supervisor had become one of his mission partners.
Thomas thinks most students are looking for what he once was. “A sense of longing,” he said. “A sense of love.” He sees a lot of the strain of college life as a misplacement of that love, young people reaching for belonging without knowing where to find it.
Which is why invitation is everything to him, and why one story has stuck with him: a student who came to a Catholic dinner once, had no one sit with him, and never came back. It was exactly what Thomas had feared for himself.
“We just want to be invited to things,” he said. “Sometimes it takes a lot of invitations to finally say yes.” To the student who suspects nobody really wants him there, his answer is plain: “I'd tell them that I want them to come.”
He knows an invitation can't just be a way to fill a room; it has to be backed by real presence. He points to a young man he met at a men's ministry basketball night. They never spoke that evening, but after Mass that Sunday the student tapped his shoulder. It had been his first Catholic Mass, and he wanted to know how to get more involved. Thomas took him to lunch. They sat in the dining hall for two hours. He connected the student to a Bible study, then to his own discipleship group. The young man went through OCIA and is a confirmed Catholic now.
Florida State offers Thomas a fresh start in a new state and a new community. A lifelong sports enthusiast, he hopes athletics will provide a natural way to meet people and build friendships. Growing up, he played everything from soccer and swimming to Irish hurling and disc golf, and at Clemson he coordinated intramural sports. On a field or court, he has found, guys often get to know one another with less pressure.
However those first connections happen, Thomas hopes they grow into genuine friendships—relationships marked by honesty, trust and a shared desire to grow closer to God.
“I want to get to know a lot of the new students,” he said. “I want to be willing to sit down with them, have a conversation, maybe even a tough conversation and be very open.”
His goal is to walk with the students he encounters, help them deepen their faith and connect them to a broader Catholic community that can continue supporting them for years to come.
More than anything, Thomas hopes to give the year his full attention and his whole heart.
“I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to pour myself out for the guys,” he said. “To really get to know them, to start walking with them, let them know that I’m there for them.”
He comes to Florida State knowing firsthand that a student can stand at the edge of a room for a long time before he finds the nerve to step in.
Sometimes he needs an invitation. Sometimes he needs six. And sometimes he just needs someone to sit down beside him and say, “I want you here.”
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July 2026