Lay Missionary Profile: Joseph Kauflin

Joe with young men outside Mercy House.

Joseph Kauflin is 21 years old and a native of Virgina Beach, VA. He is currently studying human services/counseling and psychology at Old Dominion University in Norfolk. He is the fourth of five children.

Joe always wanted to be a “moral” person, someone with good character. But it was the Catholic faith he received from his parents that awakened in him the desire to be a really “good” person, and his older brother’s active pursuit of his faith and participation in a youth group that influenced Joe to follow his example. Through involvement in the group and other faith related activities Joe discovered and grew into his own identity in Christ. The youth group made annual summer mission trips to Central Virginia and Honduras; after four summers of short-term missions, Joe felt the call to spend two and a half months of his school break in Honduras. It was during that time that his faith really began to become alive. The daily schedule of the Missioners community and which includes personal prayer, morning Mass, the Rosary and Eucharistic Adoration – and close contact with the lives of the poor revealed to Joe how present God was and how much more He wanted from him.

Joe in the bush, bringing up the rear.

During Joe’s last stay in Honduras, Carol Restaine (Missioners’ community leader in Honduras) asked him to consider the possibility of going to South Sudan to serve with Fr. Herald for a few months. After the initial excitement and some slight hesitation at the idea of taking a semester off of studies (and having to explain that to his mother), it was just a matter of saying YES! It was that YES, and outpouring of grace from God, and the prayer and financial support of his parish, friends and family that he is now in Torit serving as a missionary. It is Joe’s sincere hope that God continues to show him how to love more genuinely and how to receive that love more humbly from the people of Sudan. This is certainly a critical moment in the history of Sudan, and Joe says: “I am blessed to be able to share in this pursuit of peace.”

May God be praised now and forever!





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