They call it “bare-handing” and it’s the technique that David Hickson
and other Fellowship of Catholic University Students volunteers, or FOCUS
“missionaries,” as they call themselves, employ when they approach
prospects on campus.
The missionaries, often college- or graduate school-age
themselves, carry nothing in their hands. There are no brochures, flyers,
religious pamphlets or Bibles, which might scare students off or at the least
distract from the direct and heartfelt contact the missionaries wish to make.

David Hickson and his wife, Linda, pose for a photo with their children Therese and John Paul. COURTESY
“We’ll ask them things like ‘Is there such a thing as objective
truth?’ or ‘Where do you think we go when we die?’, some questions people don’t
usually ask,” said David, a Diocese of Arlington native who is now FOCUS’
Mission Trip Expansion Specialist, based in Lakewood, Colo. “Sometimes it
piques their interest, sometimes they say, ‘No, I’m not ready for that.’ ”
For the curious, David said there may be an invitation to dinner,
or Bible study, or just to talk. If the student is Catholic but isn’t strong in
the practice of the faith, FOCUS missionaries will nudge him or her back to the
sacraments. Then there are others who, like a recent student approached at
Baylor University in Waco, Texas, realized that although they were raised in
the faith they “never had a relationship with Christ."
In that case, David said the job is to help them become
Christ-dependent in a world that can seem deaf to his message.
The 33-year-old father of two realizes that he has much in common
with students whose faith was once taken for granted. David was never
“bare-handed,” but his personal journey of faith has included stops and starts.
He was raised the third of eight children on a farm near
Marshall, about 12 miles north of Warrenton. His mother, Sharon, a “beautiful
woman," essentially raised the family herself. She
stressed the importance of praying the rosary, attending Mass without fail on
Sundays and on weekdays when possible, David said. At St. John the Evangelist Church
in Warrenton, the family’s parish, the anxious-to-please David went to
confession often, focusing on a basket of minor sins so that the priest would
be impressed by his contrition but not scandalized.
He thought himself a good Catholic, but knows now that “there was
no heart in it.”
“We had the faith, but we really didn’t do anything with it,” David
said. “We did what was expected of us."
A parish trip to World Youth Day in Toronto in July 2002 caused
the then 18-year-old to realize just what he had been missing.
A huge crowd of 800,000 or so young Catholics of every language
and color and from every corner of the globe, gathered for an outdoor Mass
celebrated by Pope John Paul II. The 82-year-old pontiff, wracked by
Parkinson’s disease and bearing bullet scars from a 1981 attack, hobbled
forward on the arm of an aide, his head bent awkwardly to one side. The
assembled youths sent up a mighty roar.
Something the pope said during the festival seemed aimed directly
at David:
"The question
will not go away. On what foundations, on what certainties should we build our
lives and the life of the community to which we belong? Dear friends,
spontaneously in your hearts, in the enthusiasm of your young years, you know
the answer… It is Christ."
“It clicked that … this is the church from Peter,” David recalled.
“All these colors of people who live the faith, all speaking different
languages, and the pope, he's the father who speaks the language of all people ...
. It was life-changing.”
The image of John Paul II stayed with him. “He was probably a
father figure for me, but there was more,” said David. “There he was, all bent
over, never crying, (instead) saying ‘John Paul II, he loves you, too.’ ” I
thought, of course he’s here with us. Did Christ ever leave His cross?”
Fired up, David set out on a four-month mission trip to
Monterrey, Mexico, and promptly hit a wall. His job was to teach English to
underprivileged children. But he spoke no Spanish, and spent the first month
oppressed by loneliness and miserable in very humble living conditions. David
thought of giving up, prayed for a conversion of heart, then noted with satisfaction
how things improved — gradually. He finished the mission with a sense of
fulfillment but also a persistent, gnawing thought that he was being called to
do more. It was a faint call, David said, and a feeling that remained just
out of sight, in the background of his life.
Then came four years at Franciscan University of Steubenville,
Ohio, where David switched majors from computer science to Spanish and French
after deciding that he wanted to work with people. Just what form that work
would take hadn’t become clear. At Franciscan, David made the acquaintance of
Gabe Hahn, a FOCUS volunteer who introduced him to the program and took him to
Bible study. David began to make financial contributions to support individual
FOCUS missionaries, and traveled on their short-term summer mission trips. He
was struck by the ability of Hahn — a “married older guy with three kids” — to
preach by action.
Then came a couple of stutter-steps, including considering
joining the Marine Corps and, briefly, the priesthood. David said he knew he
wanted to work with people, but wasn’t sure how.
After graduation, he taught Spanish at St. Louis Catholic School
in Alexandria for four years, then moved to The Heights, a private, Opus Dei boys
school in Potomac. David loved it there, and was considering a graduate degree
and pursuing a teaching career but was uncertain if that would answer his
lingering sense of being called. David would meditate on a Latin inscription
that the school had posted — “Ego vocavi te,” or
“I have called you” — and asked himself what it meant in his life.
“I knew He was calling me, but what was He calling me to?” David said.
“I prayed.”
The answer came gradually after two years at The Heights — become
a FOCUS campus missionary. In 2012, David shared his faith decision somewhat
reluctantly with school leaders, knowing that they had hoped he would pursue
graduate work and return to teaching. He credits school Headmaster Alvaro de
Vicente with giving him the final nudge.
“He said, ‘This is not what I want, but if it is what God
desires, get the hell out of here,’ ” David recalled.
Things happened fast. On a mission trip to the Our Lady of Guadalupe
Shrine in Mexico City, he met his future wife and fellow FOCUS missionary,
Linda Moorhead, who also had just left a teaching job to join FOCUS. They dated
during their third year as FOCUS missionaries and married in their fourth year,
on the Feast of the Assumption, Aug. 15, 2015.
Daughter Therese, as in Lisieux, was born in May 2016, followed
by brother, John Paul this past August. After serving in campus missions at
Auburn University, the U.S. Naval Academy, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and the
University of Virginia, the family relocated to the Denver area as David begins
his second year as FOCUS’ Mission Trip Expansion Specialist. The job involves
developing and maintaining relationships with faith groups in the U.S. and 42
other countries where FOCUS sponsors weeklong “mission trips,” usually
scheduled around college vacations. On these trips, FOCUS missionaries undertake
work projects, such as painting a local school, and lead lowkey, FOCUS style
faith discussions with local teens and adults. Daily Mass and holy hours are
part of the regime, as is what David calls a “social media and dating
fast,” the better to focus on FOCUS.
But David’s heart is never far from campus ministry. The college
scene is “probably the biggest battlefield anyone can be on these days, what
with peer pressure and such,” not to mention a lack of spiritual support.
“Students often come to us because we are a safe, quiet place,” he said.
David and his fellow FOCUS missionaries often hear from parents,
exasperated and frightened that their college students have discarded their
faith. What, they ask, can David do?
“’You can’t get them to do anything, and neither can I,’” he
answers. “But Christ can.
“It’s not easy, but pray for them. There are (FOCUS) people out
on campus who are challenging students. There’s hope.”
Willing is a freelance writer from McLean.