... of a Latino Leader

When I look at my life and what I’m proud of, I think of many things. I think about myschool, my hometown, my accomplishments … and the list continues. One thing that I am especially proud of is my Hispanic heritage.The Latino Leadership program at St. Thomas has given me a lot. Being a minority here, it is great to be in a program with people I can relate to on a cultural level. We have become like afamily away from home.This year, the Latino Leaders have worked as catechists for confirmation at St. Stephen’s Catholic Church in Minneapolis. The parish has a predominately Latino community, which always reminds me of home.Every other Sunday, I wake up at about 9 a.m. and start getting ready for the morning.At 10 a.m., a car with fellow Latino Leaders comes to pick me up from my dorm, and we go to St. Stephen’s. It takes us about 10 minutes to get to the church. The gymnasium is full of children getting dropped off by their parents. This part is always a bit chaotic, but eventually the older children follow us upstairs to the classroom where we teach them for the next hour and a half. While in the classroom, we try to show these teenagers that Catholicism can be fun and that we, the young-adult youth, are the current Church, not just the future of it. Finally, the time comes when the class ends. The students go back to their homes and hopefully apply their faith to their everyday lives.While the children may learn a lot about their faith, I truly feel that we learn much more by teaching them. It is difficult to teach, but the fact that we go back every other weekend to continue doing so builds our strength. Every day, I look back and think of how fortunate I am to have the opportunity to be a Latino Leader here at St. Thomas.