Although she grew up Catholic, Toni Papp never was interested in youth ministry as a teenager.

“I’m not the poster child for growing up in youth ministry,” she said.

Papp attended Christ the Redeemer Church in Sterling until her family relocated to Orlando, Fla., when she was 13. Because she attended Catholic school and was shy, she didn’t see the point of spending time with kids from church she didn’t know. If it weren’t for her father, who volunteered with the parish youth group in Orlando, she never would have participated in youth ministry activities.

So how did Papp go from being a reluctant youth-grouper to a full-time coordinator of youth ministry at Holy Family Parish in Dale City?

“Because God said so,” she said in her biography on the Diocesan Office of Youth Ministry Web site. “Really. He called, I ignored. He called, I ignored. He called, I said ‘ok’, He said, ‘I told you so.’”

And that’s exactly what happened. First, Papp planned on doing scientific research, but she soon realized she works better with people than chemicals. Then, after a series of odd jobs and relocation back to Virginia with her husband and son, Papp took a position as a bus driver for Aquinas School in Woodbridge.

Bus-driving soon lead to an involvement with Holy Family Parish in Dale City, where Papp was offered a position as a religious education teacher. This led to friends asking her to take charge of youth ministry. It took some convincing, because Papp was still unsure of herself, but eventually, the timing worked out and she was offered the coordinator position.

Today, Papp has been a youth minister for 10 years and she absolutely loves it.

“This job is a perfect fit for me,” she said.

Her duties vary from day to day, but she stays busy, since almost everything involving middle or high school students is in her job description. Among other things, Papp prepares students for confirmation, helps high-schoolers make friends and grow in the Faith, plans retreats and activities, and hires college students to help minister during the parish summer youth program.

Because of the job, Papp has traveled to every World Youth Day since 2002 and was honored as one of the first recipients of the Diocesan Excellence in Youth Ministry award in 2004.

Her favorite things to do on the job are the social activities, like the hayride she plans yearly to Great Country Farms in Bluemont and the annual spring camping trip to Virginia Beach with the high school students on.

“It’s just fantastic relational ministry,” she said.

Youth ministry is not all fun and games, though, something Papp knows from experience.

“It’s challenging recognizing that teens are not happy, shiny people,” she said. “It’s hard recognizing that sometimes the only thing I can do is give them a hug and that sometimes they’re not in a place in their lives where they can accept what God has to say.

“There’s a challenge of seeing them hurt, a feeling of hopelessness, sometimes a sense of, ‘What are we doing? Are we just spinning our wheels here?’”

For every heartbreaking story, though, there are stories of hope. That’s what keeps Papp coming back.

“It’s been very rewarding to hear of a kid who has made the right decisions because of something we’ve passed on to them,” she said.

She’s also enjoyed being able to encounter firsthand the effects of her ministry, like watching kids transform after attending retreats.

Early in her career, she remembers one student who, after coming back from a retreat, told her he hadn’t been sure if he had believed in God before going, but on the retreat, he had seen Him.

“It was a real eye-opening experience for me, as in ‘Wow, this is what I get to participate in,’” she said.

And even though she’s working to help young people grow in their faith, Papp recognizes that her own spiritual life has grown by leaps and bounds as well.

Because of her very faithful family, Papp says she was always a proud Catholic, but she still remembers times when she was not very serious about her faith.

“After I started this job, I realized that if I were going to tell people to grow and pray in Mass, I had to model this behavior,” she said. “I’ve learned that if I teach something, I have to learn it first.”

Now, Papp’s favorite things to teach are the sacraments and the teaching of Pope John Paul II, especially Theology of the Body.

“It’s all about them recognizing their worth and the beauty of God putting them here,” Papp said. “These kids are all struggling so much with forming an identity and these teachings are all about how, beauty and boils, God put you here exactly how He wanted you, and there’s no one else like you.

“I try to teach them that they are so much more than someone else’s toy,” she said. “You have to respect yourself as a gift from God, and that’s a hard message to get across because they’re not hearing it from enough places.”

Papp says she’s passionate about getting her teenagers into heaven, which is why she makes a conscious decision to love the kids she works with, as difficult as it can be.

“You have to decide to love every kid before they walk through the door,” she said. “After you meet them, it’s so much harder because you know how difficult they can be. If you decide to love them beforehand, you can do it.”

Although it sounds difficult to cope with a heavy schedule and demanding teenagers, Papp manages by keeping her priorities straight — God first, family second and career third.

“While youth ministry is a calling, it is still a career,” she said. “It is not your faith and it is not your family.”

Outside of work, she stays busy with her husband and her son, now 21. She’s a “fanatical” scuba diver and an avid reader, she loves to travel and has recently discovered a brand new skill — shooting, which she does with her husband.

Another way Papp keeps things in perspective is with her sense of humor. She loves to laugh, shown by her office where she keeps, among other things, a “Toilets of the World” calendar.

“The best thing in the world is to make people laugh. It’s the great equalizer,” she said. “I like to laugh, and I think you can laugh about anything.”

The other thing that helps her is to remember all the support she has on her side. She relies heavily on friends and family, the resources and activities provided by the diocesan Office of Youth Ministry and, of course, God.

“I must recognize it’s God doing His work through me,” she said. “With how hard this job can be, I’ve come to learn it’s only possible through God the Father and Jesus and the Holy Spirit.”