By Amy White
The Texas Catholic
Diocese of Dallas high schoolers shared a teary goodbye with members of the local community in Pejibaye as they parted ways at the end of the 2025 Diocesan Youth Mission Trip to the Diocese of San Isidro de El General in Costa Rica, June 4-11. Though their time together was brief, the two communities formed a heart-deep bond, forged through hard work and shared faith, missionaries said.
“Everyone was crying when we had to say goodbye, because people really did grow connected,” Matthew Brown, a student missionary from Cistercian Preparatory School, recalled. “After the first few days, it honestly just felt like home.”
The Diocesan Youth Mission Trip, organized annually by the Diocese of Dallas office of Catholic Social Ministries, was an opportunity for students from Catholic schools in the Dallas diocese to serve communities in Costa Rica through hands-on projects, moments of fellowship, and prayer. This year’s group of Dallas missionaries included 49 high school students from Bishop Dunne Catholic School, Bishop Lynch High School, Cistercian Preparatory School, John Paul II High School, and Ursuline Academy of Dallas, accompanied by 16 chaperones and two members of the Diocese of Dallas Pastoral Center staff.
“Our missionaries brought so much joy and life to the people in Pejibaye, Costa Rica,” Juan Rendon, the Diocese of Dallas Catholic Social Ministries director, said. “They were deeply touched by our witness of the Gospel.”
Labor of love
Over the course of their stay in Central America, the Dallas missionaries worked shoulder to shoulder with local Costa Ricans to complete infrastructure projects at three worksites in the Pejibaye District, located within the Diocese of San Isidro de El General: Parroquia Nuestra Señora de Lourdes, the community of El Águila, and the community of San Vicente.
At Parroquia Nuestra Señora de Lourdes, where the missionaries lodged for the duration of their stay, students mended fences and paved walkways on the campus. Those serving at El Águila painted classrooms, restored concrete on the premises, and taught some basic English conversation classes to local schoolchildren. In San Vincente — a community nestled about an hour up a mountain — student missionaries assisted the community in building a chapel from the ground up: leveling the earth, laying the foundation, and constructing walls. The project was completed by the local community following the students’ return home.
“It was tough work,” Brown, a rising senior, said, recalling the difficulty of lifting the heavy concrete walls, “but at the end of the project, we had gotten all the walls up… and they actually finished up the church and had their first Mass in it.”
“The community was just so grateful,” Rendon said, “that our Diocese of Dallas and the Catholic school students provided some funds and the cheerful joy of the Gospel to help them build a new chapel.”
Moments of connection
Though often grueling and sweaty, all the shoveling, lifting, and moving was more than just busywork. Instead, the labor was an opportunity for students to collaborate with members of local communities to create “a visible, lasting impression of the surge of joy and hope and faith that we shared,” chaperone Father Augustine Hoelke, O.Cist., said, and grow “in their awareness of what it means to be a Church.”
In recognition of this universality of the Church, students were encouraged to connect with the families they encountered in the community, Josh Salinas, Diocese of Dallas director of Youth, Young Adult, and Campus Ministries, said, and “to have more of a missionary mindset and evangelization mindset: How do we go out and proclaim and bring Jesus and talk and walk with people, even if there’s a language barrier?” As a result, the students left the mission trip with new friendships and a greater understanding of the love that crosses cultures.
Aislin Cullen, a student missionary who served at El Águila, said she kept a small, but meaningful, trinket from her time with the community she encountered: a colorful friendship bracelet with a small pendant of the Blessed Mother on the end. More than a token of her travel, the simple piece of jewelry, which was gifted to her by a child she served at her worksite, became a symbol of the connection she shared with the people of Costa Rica during her time there, she shared.
“When the little girl gave her bracelet, that was really special to me,” the Ursuline rising senior said, “to know that she made an impact on me, but I also made an impact on her.”
Like Cullen, many student missionary shared memories of these small moments of connection: times when locals offered to carry their backpacks to lighten the load, showed patience as the students attempted broken Spanish, or overwhelmed them with hugs during the sign of peace at Mass.
“Even though we had no AC, we had no cell phones,” Jacob Liu, a Cistercian student who served at the Parroquia Nuestra Señora de Lourdes site, said, “God was still very much present in… all the hospitality” of the people there.
Cullen concurred.
“We all got to share one thing in common: Even though we didn’t speak each other’s languages or we don’t do a lot of things similar… We shared in common with the community our love for God,” she said. “You can find God and love everywhere.”
Cutline for featured image: Nearly 50 student missionaries from Bishop Dunne Catholic School, Bishop Lynch High School, Cistercian Preparatory School, John Paul II High School, and Ursuline Academy of Dallas, who were accompanied by 16 chaperones and two Diocese of Dallas Pastoral Center staff members, served in the 2025 Diocesan Youth Mission Trip to the Diocese of San Isidro de El General in Costa Rica, June 4-11. The mission trip, hosted annually by the Dallas diocese’s office of Catholic Social Ministries, offered students the opportunity to engage with local communities through service projects, prayer, and moments of fellowship. (Diocese of Dallas photo)
