
Among the graduates of the University of Louisville this year are four students preparing to become Catholic missionaries.
They were mentored at UofL by Catholic missionaries from FOCUS Catholic. Now the four students intend to do the same for others — to form relationships with students on college campuses and lead them into an encounter with Jesus in the Catholic Church.
Sarah Cullop, Luke Verst, Luke Yunker and Randy Royer were trained by FOCUS this summer and are now fundraising their salaries before heading to colleges around the country this fall to begin their service. Each took a unique path to become a missionary.
Cullop, an engineering major with a giggly, lighthearted air, grew up in Louisville and attended church and Catholic school. Although she believed in God growing up, she “didn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus,” she said during a recent interview.
Although raised in a Catholic family, she recounts that she refused to receive the sacrament of confirmation with her classmates, even after attending all of the preparatory classes.
“My mind was very confused,” she said.
Cullop admits that when she received an invitation to an event at the University of Louisville’s Interfaith Center her freshman year, she would not have attended if she had known it was hosted by the Catholic Campus Ministry. But, she stayed in contact with the community because “they were just good people.”
“I think I was really hard to win over,” she said, noting that FOCUS missionaries began to accompany her, inviting her to Mass and adoration. “I had been running away from the Eucharist for so long.”
A pivotal moment came when the FOCUS missionaries, unable to gather for their annual national conference due to the pandemic, hosted a retreat on campus. On retreat, Cullop found herself face-to-face with the Blessed Sacrament in adoration.
In that moment, she said, she found clarity and began to understand that Jesus was truly present in the Eucharist.

“It was hard to run away at that point,” she said.
Through her involvement with the Catholic community on campus, Cullop received the sacrament of confirmation her sophomore year at St. Louis Bertrand Church. After refusing the sacrament, despite her family’s protests, she said, “It was very humbling.”
Luke Yunker, a psychology major from northern Kentucky, recounted a very different experience with the ministry in a recent interview. Rather than running away from the Catholic community, Yunker said he was “very excited to get involved” and even sought out information about the community before moving to Louisville.
Yunker, who grew up in a Catholic household, explained that he had a private, intellectual conversion late in high school, when he began to read more about the Catholic faith during his time in quarantine.
He had never heard of FOCUS before college, but quickly became friends with a FOCUS missionary on campus.
“The witness of him (the missionary) and his wife and the way they welcomed people into their home, into their lives, was incredibly inspiring,” Yunker said.
Coming into college, Yunker said he “didn’t know any devout young people” and was shocked to find a young Catholic community thriving.
“It seemed like people actually cared about each other and had each other’s best interests at heart,” he said. This encounter with “the goodness and virtue of the people” involved in the ministry led him further in his journey of faith.
Yunker quickly wanted to be involved in everything the ministry had to offer. He immediately joined a Bible study, and although he did not feel that he knew much about the faith, he remembers wanting to lead.
After some preparation with his FOCUS missionary, he began leading a Bible study the spring semester of his freshman year. In his four years as a student, he went on several mission trips with FOCUS and even traveled on pilgrimage to Rome.
Verst, a meteorology major from northern Kentucky, shared a similar experience in a recent interview. Raised in a Catholic family, he said, “My dad did such a great job emphasizing Mass on Sunday and having a relationship with God.”
He became more involved with his faith at his Catholic high school and began to read more about the Catholic faith. “I knew something this big had to have some merit,” he said.
Coming onto campus, Verst said he found the Catholic community “strong and knowledgeable and loving.” Verst said he “really looked up to the upperclassmen” and was excited to join a Bible study with them his freshman year.
In Bible study, Verst’s faith intensified as he began to ponder more deeply what the crucifixion actually meant. “God spoke to me, ‘I am loved,’ ” he said.
Verst went on a mission trip with FOCUS to Mexico his freshman year, where he says he gained a deep desire for friendship as he witnessed the simple life and friendships of the people they served. He knew he wanted to be part of building that kind of community in Louisville.
Back on campus his sophomore year, he began to lead a Bible study for his fraternity brothers.
Verst and seven other Catholic undergraduate men moved in together, intending to build each other up in virtue by living daily life together. They named their house the “Manastery,” playing with the word “monastery.” Living with each other served its purpose, he said, as it allowed the men to raise each other up and create joyous moments together.
He then took the opportunity to go on another FOCUS mission trip, this time serving the homeless population of Denver with the organization Christ in the City. There, he developed a love for those experiencing homelessness and spent a summer in Philadelphia to serve with the organization again.
Verst said that his pursuit of mission work came almost directly through FOCUS’ model of missionary discipleship — “Win-Build-Send.”
During his four years of college, Verst was accompanied by three different FOCUS missionaries. He explained that the first missionary to accompany him continued to win him over to the faith. His second missionary, who accompanied him for two years, gave him the tools to be built up in the faith. The third missionary to walk with him sent him forward to do outreach on his college campus.
Verst said he knew he was called to love others the best he could, and he began to feel “God was calling me to do that on college campuses.” He most wants to reach out to those who are blind to the goodness of Catholicism, he said. “There are so many students who need to hear the Gospel.”
Cullop said that her desire to go on mission came very naturally.
“How could I not want to share the Gospel?” she said. Cullop noted a shift that began to occur her senior year as her internal questioning changed from “Should I go on mission?” to “How am I going to live out mission?”
She initially felt that she “would not make a good missionary,” but, prompted by the encouragement of her friends and Gabrielle Krumpelman, a FOCUS missionary at the time, she submitted an application to FOCUS.
“I want something that will demand all of my person,” she said.
Because of the demands of the role — which include accepting a job out-of-state and fundraising her own salary — she said she’ll have to give her “entire self to mission.”
She intends to form relationships with students who find themselves in the same situation she was in. “My heart wants to win over the young women who are fallen away,” she said.
Yunker explained that he was immediately attracted to the idea of becoming a missionary when he met the missionaries his freshman year, but fear about not knowing enough theology and having an introverted personality led him to believe that he couldn’t pursue that path. He pushed it to the back of his mind and forgot about the idea for the next few years as he focused on a career in psychology, his field of study.
But his senior year, a FOCUS missionary invited him to carpool to a FOCUS recruiting party. Sometime in the five-hour drive to the event, his missionary asked him, “Have you ever thought about being a missionary?”
Yunker said it was not the recruiting event, but the conversation in the car that pushed him to apply. Once he submitted his application, he said, it was an easy decision. Yunker hopes he can serve those who “have encounters with Christ but have no one to walk with them.”
The new graduates spent the first half of their summer at FOCUS’ on-site, month-long training. During their month of formation, missionaries attend classes, participate in daily Mass, pray daily in adoration, learn the basics of fundraising and participate in fellowship events and small groups with other missionaries.
“It was a very concentrated period of formation,” Yunker said. He explained that he was surprised to discover that the training was less about learning deep theology, and “far more about forming the human person, making us more like Christ so we can be Christ to others.”
Since returning home from the training, the graduates are working full-time to fundraise their salary, meeting with multiple possible donors daily to share their mission and ask for financial support.
The new graduates are looking forward to heading back to the college campus this fall, this time as missionaries.
Sarah Cullop will serve Middle Tennessee State University, Luke Verst will serve the University of Washington, Luke Yunker will serve Murray State University, and Randy Royer will serve the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.