Pilgrims of Hope, Episode 5: Walking with Young People

Conversations about Finding and Sharing Hope: A video series for the Jubilee Year 2025

Hosted by Fr. Ron Will

Welcome to the fifth episode in this Jubilee Year video series, “Traveling with Pilgrims of Hope.” We will post a new video in this series throughout the jubilee year on the last Tuesday of the month.

When we celebrated Mass here at Precious Blood Center this morning, we sang a song that many of you probably know, “We Are Many Parts.”  The refrain for that song, repeated after each verse says:

We are many parts. We are all one body.
And the gifts we have, we are given to share.
May the spirit of love make us one indeed,
one the love that we share,
one our hope and despair,
one the cross that we bear.

As followers of Jesus, we have a responsibility for one another. We are one. And this series, Traveling with Pilgrims of Hope, introduces us to individuals who are striving to bring hope to others. One of the groups of people who are struggling with hope are our youth.

Recently I’ve learned about Brad Grabs, who is working with a group called Friends in Faith KC, a group that works with high school youth in the urban core of Kansas City, Kansas. I’ve invited Brad to share with us today about his work and to give us insights into how we can become Pilgrims of Hope. Following are excerpts, edited for lengthen and clarity, of Fr. Ron’s conversation with Brad Grabs. Watch the video for the full conversation.

Fr. Ron: Welcome Brad and thank you for coming today to talk to us about your work with young people.

Brad Grabs: Thank you. It’s great to be here with you and especially great to be talking about the theme of hope. It’s so important in our world today. I appreciate the opportunity to be with you today. Friends and Faith KC is a not-for-profit organization that I founded a year ago. I’ve been working with kids in the urban core of Kansas City, Kansas for almost 24 years. Most of that time was with an organization called The Learning Club, which I also I founded. I founded Friends and Faith KC, because I saw a lack of spiritual support for young people. The Learning Club was more about academic support and formation to make kids successful in the world.

What I saw over my time of working with youth is that even when we prepared them academically and gave them skills, a lot of students were not really meeting their potential. They weren’t thriving. I concluded through lots of examples that that was because they didn’t have strong spiritual formation and good personal and social support and encouragement. Friends and Faith KC is an organization that matches teenagers in the urban core with trained adult volunteers who have lunch with them twice a month. We have a set curriculum for them to follow. Mostly we give the young people encouragement and support and some practical help as well.

Fr. Ron: How do you find these high school kids?

Brad Grabs: During our first year, we just worked with kids at Bishop Ward High School, near downtown Kansas City, Kansas. In the second year of operation, we are going to expand and offer it in the evenings to more students in Kansas City, Kansas, who can come from any high school.

At Bishop Ward, I did a presentation to the students and told them that we were going to offer this opportunity for them to meet twice a month with an adult volunteer to just give them encouragement and support. I really wasn’t sure how many students would be interested, because I wanted it to be kind of their initiative. I told them, this is somebody who’s going to just give you encouragement. They’re going to listen to you in a nonjudgmental way. They’re not here to give you advice necessarily, but they’re just here to accompany you and to be an adult friend.

There was a lot of interests across all grade levels, freshmen through senior, I was really surprised. At Bishop Ward, all the kids who have come to us, or almost all, came because they initiated their involvement. A few were referred by teachers who thought [the student] could especially use this type of guidance but still it was up to the student whether they participate or not. This new group of students that we’re going to recruit is going to be mostly from kids that I know from around the urban core from my work of The Learning Club. They are kids that I think can use extra support because of broken families or other hardships in their lives. They need some extra help and support.

Fr. Ron: When you say that the majority came to you on their own initiative, that it says something to me about they having a real hunger or longing, right? They weren’t sent to you or sent to this program by the courts or something like that.

Brad Grabs: Right. They had this inner desire for looking for something. And yes, you named it. There’s some kind of a spiritual foundation that they’re aware of that they must be hungering for. I really believe that, and I see that in young people. It’s not that they want necessarily religion as such — organized religion. I mean, some students are into that and that’s great. Some participate in organized religion, but a lot of them do recognize in themselves that there’s something bigger. They have bigger questions about bigger aspects of life, and a lot of times, they don’t have anybody that they really know and trust to share those questions, those concerns, those desires.

We encourage our adults and students to first of all ask, “What can I be praying for you for?” That’s a much different question than say, you know, “How are you doing? How’s school going?” If you say to somebody, a young person, anybody, is there something that I can be praying for you about, you know, that opens the door to the heart and people are a little more willing to share something that’s really deeply important to them, which they might not share if you just ask, “How’s it going?” I’ve found that a lot of young people, they do pray and the adults share their intentions with the student as well. So, it’s a mutual relationship. We’ve seen that the students and the adults take that seriously and pray for one another.

The vast majority of our students really enjoy Friends and Faith KC. There were two students this past year who stopped. They said they didn’t want participate any longer. I’m not sure exactly why, but that’s their choice. Some kids aren’t really ready to be accompanied in this way. For some kids, it’s a little bit intimidating for someone to really listen to them, because maybe they’ve never really been listened to. They haven’t had that type of attention before. But I think that even the kids who dropped out, we’ve planted a seed there that they know that there’s somebody there to listen to them and to be present to them if they need that or if they want that in the future.

Fr. Ron: Do you have any advice for listeners who might be interested in your work, especially those not in the KC Metro area.

Brad Grabs: Well, first of all reach out to me through our website

Fr. Ron: Thank you, Brad, so much for being an instrument of hope in all these teenagers life. I pray that your program, your ministry, will increase and grow. Thanks for taking time today to share with us what you’re doing. I invite our listeners to join me again next month when I visit with another Pilgrim of Hope. In the meantime, my God bless you.

Here are the two books that Brad Grabs recommends for adults wanting to accompany young people on their journeys”

• The Gift of Empathy: Helping Others Feel Valued, Cared for, and Understood by Joel P. Bretscher and Kenneth C. Haugk. https://www.stephenministries.org/giftofempathy/default.cfm/1802?mnb=1
• How to Listen So Your Kids Will Talk: Deepen Your Connection and Strengthen Their Confidence by Becky Harling https://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/how-to-listen-so-your-kids-will-talk/404180

You can contact Bard at: Friends in Faith KC, Brad Grabs, Director, https://www.friendsinfaithkc.org/

All of the videos in this series can be found here: Traveling with Pilgrims of Hope

Never miss an article published on the Renewal Center website: Sign up to receive our newsletters.

[Fr. Ron Will, a Precious Blood priest and spiritual director, is a graduate of Catholic Theological Union and Creighton University’s School of Christian Spirituality. He has a special interest in helping form intentional disciples of Jesus, encouraging others to go spiritually deep-sea diving to explore a deeper relationship with God, and walking with people as they dive into the ocean of God’s mystery actually experiencing God rather than simply dipping one’s toe into the water.]

Photo Credit: ID 225447647 © Aliaksandr Mazurkevich | Dreamstime.com

Music Credit: “We Are Marching” (Siyahamba). Performed by First Christian Church of Tacoma. Text: South African. Tune: South African. © 1984, Utryck, Walton Music Corporation, agent. Used with permission under onelicense.net, #A-725830

We’d Like to Hear from You!

We’d like to know what you think about this article. Send us a comment using the form below. Do you have a suggestion? Is there something you want to learn more about? Send us a note.