September 15, 2010

Website shares stories of faith

By Julie Filby

For someone who doesn’t really like to bike, Seth DeMoor spent a lot of time in the saddle last winter: covering about 2,400 miles in 90 days. But his trip wasn’t about logging miles, it was about logging stories.

“For me the goal wasn’t the bike trip, it was the interviews and the stories,” DeMoor explained.

After hearing powerful accounts of faith, conversion, vocation, and near-falls off the deep while attending the University of Colorado at Boulder, the 25-year-old felt called to start a website to chronicle the stories.

“The idea came to me through a lot of discernment and prayer,” he said. “We all have a story whether we know it or not. And with a little reflection, we can dig that story up.”

To jumpstart the project, OneBillionStories.com, he decided to travel cross-country on bicycle interviewing people along the way. On Jan. 3 he attached a trailer, containing an HD-video camera and laptop, to a road bike he purchased on Craig’s List, and took off from Orlando, Fla.

Traveling without a map, GPS or predetermined route, he relied on God and the kindness of others to show him the way to Boulder.

“That’s the beauty of pilgrimage and pedaling by faith,” he said. “You simply have to trust that ‘The Big Man’ will see you through to the end.”

The “nice Southern people” he met at gas stations and daily Mass determined his course.

“I’d stop and ask ‘What’s the best route to the next city?’” he said. “Of course I stuck out like a sore thumb—it was the middle of winter and I had biking clothes on.

“People don’t bike in the South, in the middle of winter,” said DeMoor, who was snowed on in both Mississippi and Texas during a colder- and snowier-than-usual winter.

Overwhelmed with generosity and hospitality, he spent only $100 on the trip.

“People just kept feeding me,” he said. “And after Mass, some would hand me $20s and $50s to help me get home.”

They also provided lodging, limiting the number of nights he camped out to seven.

After weaving through seven states and 10 major cities, he arrived in Boulder on April 6. He had posted one video to the website each day, and recorded more than 200 overall.

“The opportunities are endless,” he said. “I tried to really get out there and find stories that are interesting and motivating, and sometimes even sad.”

DeMoor credits the enthusiasm of the campus ministry at CU for renewing his faith, which had been lukewarm.

“They are doing amazing work up there!” he said of the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Center in Boulder led by pastor Father Kevin Augustyn.

DeMoor was also encouraged by then parochial vicar Father Peter Musset, who now serves at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Northglenn.

“Father Peter’s story (from not living out the faith at all, to the priesthood) influenced my life,” he said. “I told myself, ‘This story is too good for just me to hear. Somehow it must be captured, and placed where other people can listen to it. What’s the best way to spread anything these days? The Internet.”

Pope Benedict XVI described the Internet as a tool for evangelization on World Communications Day 2009, saying: “It falls, in particular, to young people…to take on the responsibility for the evangelization of this ‘digital continent.’ Be sure to announce the Gospel to your contemporaries with enthusiasm.”

OneBillionStories.com is a direct response to the pontiff’s call to take faith to the Internet.

“The goal is to wake the sleeping giant, the Catholic Church, through people’s stories within the faith,” DeMoor said. “The long-term goal is to become the online hub for Catholics to bear witness to the hope that rests within their stories.”

Since returning DeMoor has continued to post a new story each day, bringing the total to 250. The videos are usually about 5 minutes long. While the majority of individuals interviewed are young adults, he has shared testimony from individuals as old as 90 and as young as 15, and from several men and women in religious orders.

He aims to have the site formally branded by next January when he drives (not bikes) cross-country gathering more stories at Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) conferences.
When asked if he hopes to literally collect 1 billion stories, the figure corresponding to the estimated number of Catholics on the planet, he replied: “Someone did the math: I’d have to upload a new video every second for the next 700 years to get to a billion.

“The idea behind the name is that all Catholics have a story…and now is the time to begin sharing those stories with the world’s digital continent.”

OneBillionStories.com
A new story of faith every day
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• DeMoor is available to present at parish events and retreats
• Visit online or e-mail sjdemoor85@gmail.com