PEOPLE

BAPCHULE — Growing up on the sprawling Gila River Indian Reservation south of Phoenix, Bryson Hall remembers the day tragedy shattered his world: Oct. 12, 1996. He was just 12 years old.

“I’ve met so many kids who have no idea what a true family or a true parent is. It’s so sad they don’t understand that,” Mark said.

“At first I didn’t know why God was calling me to quit soccer,” Morano said.

Barely into her second semester of college, one ASU freshman took a bit of a leap of faith. It was one that transplanted the Valley native to East Africa.

When you turn onto their quiet street in East Mesa, you can spot the Briseño family’s house right away: it’s the one with the 15-passenger van parked in the driveway.

Claretian Father Darrin Merlino was baptized a Catholic but not raised as one. It wasn't until young adulthood that that he nonchalantly prayed, "Whatever Your will is for me, God."

Sammy Bryant has always felt a call to evangelize and has allowed his faith to guide his work. Having grown up without a father, he’s been motivated even more so to live out his vocation as a husband and father and share that with others.

Alan Gaxiola works in an aluminum recycling plant in Goodyear to support his wife and three children. He also puts in plenty of hours working for the Church, leading others to faith in Christ. But it wasn’t always that way.

“Who died beside Jesus, one to the left and one to the right? Prisoners." "“The difference between you and me is that you got caught," a prison volunteer tells inmates.

Just three weeks shy of leaving the country and taking on a new mission in Belize, Kay Allen, director of 1st Way Pregnancy Center, was all fired-up about the clinic’s focus on reaching out to pregnant women. A client she’d hoped would choose life ended her pregnancy instead, giving into fears that she would lose her athletic scholarship.