College campus ministries have a unique ability to change lives in very profound ways through experiences that seem very normal.
 

A few years ago, a student at the University of South Carolina’s Catholic Student Center had experiences that, unbeknownst to him at the time, would leave a large impact on so many lives at Catholic Noles. That student was PJ Marchal, one of the original FOCUS team members at Florida State. This month marks the conclusion of PJ’s time in Tallahassee, as he will move on to be the FOCUS team director at Mississippi State University.
 

PJ’s desire to serve as a FOCUS missionary was greatly influenced by his own college experience. PJ especially describes meeting great men who showed him how to live as not only faithful men to Christ, but also as real, meaningful friends.
 

“I was able to get involved with a Bible study there, and met a guy who, at the time, was named Sean. He's now Brother Philip Mary OP; he's now a Dominican. He was the Bible study leader and he started discipling me, and just walked with me for the next three years. The guys I met through Bible study and events were dudes who were absolutely on fire for the faith. Daily prayer, daily mass, frequent confession. They very much like lived it out virtuously, but also were a ton of fun,” PJ said.
 

PJ credits these men and their impact on his life to much of his story in choosing to serve as a FOCUS missionary.

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As a member of FOCUS’s first team of missionaries at Florida State, there were undoubtedly some growing pains.

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“The way that like we treat students and the way that we walk with students and the culture that we build around like FOCUS related things is going to be like what sticks with the students. So, yeah, this is it's a lot of pressure, because obviously we're not perfect, and we're going to make mistakes, but our mistakes are going to be amplified.”
 

In spite of that, however PJ was able to look back and note one specific area of growth in the Campus Ministry that he is proud of his team for: Daily Mass attendance.
 

“When we first got here, nobody went to daily mass. nobody there? Maybe around 10-15, and it wasn't like super frequent either. Maybe they go once a week. That's great, because they're doing more than what the church asks, but now daily mass attendance is crazy. You have 50 to 75 students are going to multiple daily masses a week which is crazy. Just that many people receiving Jesus and going about their day, the impact that has is something we can't imagine.”
 

It’s safe to say PJ has impacted many students’ lives during his time here. One student who was particularly close to PJ is Olman Hernandez. Olman met PJ during the fall of his Freshman year while PJ was looking to invite students to the Seek Conference in Salt Lake City. After the conference, PJ invited Olman to join his Bible study
 

Olman then went on to lead his own Bible study under the direction of PJ.
 

As a discipler, Olman says PJ excels in always pushing them to be better.
 

“He knew each one of us was destined for greatness, that we could all do great things, and he wasn't going to take anything less than that from us. He had such high expectations, because he knew we could deliver them, so he pushed us to be excellent in every aspect of our lives”
 

As PJ transition to being a team director next year, we thought it wise to ask FOCUS veteran and current FSU team director Stephanie Shipley about the ways in which PJ will excel as a team director. 
 

“Being able to invest in people well, in like a structural sense, and he sees things and provides like ideas for different things on an organizational level. But then also his love of Jesus, and care and passion for the mission will make his like leadership come from the right place. He will like lead another group of missionaries and students from a heart that is in love with Jesus, which is the most important thing.”
 

PJ’s presence at Catholic Noles will certainly be missed. He was integral in growing FOCUS at Florida State from the ground up, and made many great relationships with students along the way. We all wish him the best as he continues his FOCUS journey in Starkville next year.