Search turns 50

A peer-based youth program aimed at growing Catholic faith in teens and young adults, surpassed its 50th-anniversary mark amid the Covid pandemic. Organizers say the Search for Christian Maturity also known as Search has re-emerged strong and participants are eager to meet after a year-long pause.
 
Search is a weekend retreat sponsored by the Diocese of Bismarck for students between the ages of 15 through college age (24). It is now held at Badlands Ministries in a remote area south of Medora. Search is for young people of any denomination or creed to share, evangelize and strengthen Catholic beliefs and grow in their faith.

Its goal is to place youth in an environment that they can encounter Jesus, be more in a relationship with Him and His church and be more active in a faith community.
 
“All of the retreats are pure ministry-led. So almost all of the talks are given by teens. It’s teens ministering to teens,” said Dean Johs, director of the Bismarck Diocese Search for the past seven years.

Six retreats are offered in the Bismarck Diocese per year. Its first involves leadership training for previous Search participants who will head faith discussions and smaller table talks in ministry skills and personal devotional skills. The other five are regular retreats that occur during the year—held Friday night through Sunday afternoon with the trained youth leading the newcomers.

“It’s highly encouraged they be honest, real – ‘I don’t have it together’ or ‘this is going pretty good,’” Johs said.

He describes Search as a very accepting, supportive environment which encourages young people to grow from where they are in their faith. In recent years, an average of 70 to 100 young people attend the Search weekends at Badlands Ministries.
 
Retreat talks focus on different roles the young people will assume in their lives and making the best choices. “We have a priest and a sister that come for the weekend, and they talk about their vocation story. We have a married couple we call ‘ma and pa’ who talk about their marriage story. The rest are kids that have been through Search before,” Johs said. “After the talks, they go into small groups to discuss the talks. In between, we’ll have lots of music and singing. We’ll do some games. We’ll do some prayer activities.” Mass is held daily during the retreat along with Eucharistic adoration on Saturday, and the sacrament of reconciliation is also available.
 
Johs said Badlands Ministries operators have proven stellar in meeting the needs of Search. The camp features age- and gender-appropriate dorms, a dining hall and church. “They are phenomenal,” he said. “We have full run of the camp.”
 
Search provides a volunteer office staff, kitchen staff, a medic and the adults mentoring the team leaders. He notes they are now in need of a cook and more mentors.
 
Youth at the Search retreat must unplug for the weekend. “We take their cell phones away, their watches away, no electronics whatsoever. It’s really a time to focus on what’s important in life. You don’t get that opportunity in many places nowadays,” said Johs.
 
Johs said Search can fill a gap for young Catholics after confirmation. For some, regular faith formation classes may end as young as eighth grade, or some get none. Johs said some youth just aren’t getting that at home and parish-led youth ministry is less available in rural areas.

History of the program
 
Golva, North Dakota resident, Joe Kreitinger was among the first student leaders of the Search program for the Bismarck Diocese back in the early 1970s. He credits Fr. Eugene Frank for seeding it and growing it in its infancy.

“Fr. Frank talked the bishop into the Search Program. He put his heart into it,” he recalled.
 
The pastor persuaded a group of North Dakota teens to attend a Search at a neighboring retreat.

“Seven of us went in 1969—four seniors and three juniors to Lead, S.D. We had a lot of fun there. There was a team from Rapid City,” explained Kreitinger.
 
The North Dakota youth then enlisted the South Dakota group to lead their first retreats before they took over.

“It was a high-energy deal. I liked the music and visiting with people. The kids in the backup group were so much fun. We were all accepted. You didn’t feel people were talking about you,” he recalled.

Kreitinger said he had a solid Catholic background and education, and, at first, didn’t see how big the need was for Search until he heard others’ stories about broken homes. Kreitinger rarely left Golva and found some teens didn’t have it so easy. 

Search allows the youth to share about religion, he said. “What impressed me was how strong they were despite what they went through. People there have their backs.”
 
Kreitinger said Search fills a critical niche for teens where more self-confidence is needed. “I wasn’t that outgoing, but by the time a Search is over, you’ve got friends.”
 
According to Johs, Search retreats were held in several locations over the years. As it grew, the abbey in Richardton became its first home in the mid-1970s and remained a longtime retreat site through the early 1990s.
 
Kreitinger said Fr. Frank was tenacious and dedicated continuing the Search retreats in the early years.

“After one was done, he’d get another one going,” he said. “He was a kids’ person. He really cared about kids and got to know you. He knew how much it would help. He’d find a way to get kids to go.”
 
Dickinson resident, Ken Roshau, served as director of the Search program from the mid-1990s to the mid 2010s after Bishop John Kinney appointed him director of the diocesan youth ministry program.
 
The Knights of Columbus insurance worker hadn’t been a youth minister before but he and his wife, Cherie, were among the “ma and pa” speakers for Search as his own family joined retreats. “We were so moved,” he said.

A church bulletin posted the youth ministry job opening and Roshau found his calling. Roshau commuted daily between Dickinson and Bismarck and found himself a natural in holding faith-based events for the youth at the Youth Correctional Center in Mandan, retreats for pastors, rallies around the diocese, events at the Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch, at tribal locations and directing Search. During his tenure, Roshau earned a master’s in theology at St. John’s University at Collegeville, Minn. “I really liked working with the youth.”
 
Roshau said that in the mid-1990s they lost the abbey facility in Richardton because some buildings there had to be torn down and there wasn’t room for the backup prayer team who prayed for other Search participants. “That’s when we went to St. Mary’s boarding school in New England.”

But, sometime after that, the school there was converted into a women’s prison. A parish-owned building in Minot was used for a time before they found there were openings in the schedule at Badlands Ministries, the current site. Before the dormitories were built, Badlands Ministry found other housing in Medora for adult leaders. 

He describes the Medora site as the perfect location with suitable housing, a gathering area, church and a place for the backup team to pray for other retreat members. He liked how it affected kids and changed their lives.

“Listening to stories about their experiences makes the difference—just for kids to know they aren’t alone. They’d talk about what they needed to do to change their lives.” 
 
He added, “I still run into kids that were in the program and they tell me what it did for their lives,” Roshau said. One former Search participant approached Roshau with her two children, telling them “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him,” he recalled. “She had been troubled, and we really worked with her.”

Roshau is quick to give credit to Dean Johs as the current director, praising his work. “They are blessed that he is there keeping it going.”
 
Personal impact

The program changed Johs’ life after his first retreat in 1988. He characterizes himself at the time as a “kid on a downward spiral.”

“On my first weekend there, I got sick and I lost my voice. For the entire weekend, God shut me up,” he quipped. “I went there, and I enjoyed it because of the relationships I built there. I couldn’t speak the whole weekend, but one of the youth leaders sat next to me and we wrote notes back and forth so, I could ask the questions I had and communicate. I felt welcome because of what she did.”
 
His voice returned when he returned home that Sunday.

“I was able to see how I was being very hurtful to myself, to others. And I didn’t get judged for being in that position. They still welcomed me and loved me,” he said.
 
Things didn’t change overnight for him, but he found that Search gave him an environment where he could grow and work out new behaviors and choices. “I found a God that loved me, regardless of where I was at.”
 
He then got more involved in Search, earned a ministry degree from the University of Mary, was trained at a national ministry program called NET and returned to do leader training for Search.

Johs served on the Search Adult Advisory Board for 15 years before becoming its director. Today, he teaches math at the Mandan Public School District. “It’s such a big program, big involvement. I can’t imagine my life without it. I’ve been involved for 30 years.”

Future of Search

Johs lauds Search as a great success that it quietly continues to have a huge impact on the lives of current and past attendees. There’s no need for special celebrations for the golden anniversary. The youth ministry began its 51st year this past spring.
 
The program paused after March 2020 and returned in limited capacity in March 2021, said Johs. 

Any concerns about the future of Search in 2020 during the pandemic dissolved, he said. During the height of the virus concerns, the program was on hold. After the situation improved, the diocese offered abbreviated, one-day Search retreats in Bismarck and Dickinson. Those one-day events were nearly filled to capacity, which spoke to the popularity of Search among the diocesan youth.

“Right now, we are on an upswing. We couldn’t meet for almost a year. It wasn’t an issue. The kids came back to show us how hungry they were to have something like that,” Johs added.
 
Johs estimates he sees hundreds of former Search participants practicing their faith within the local parishes, volunteering and working at the diocese and across the country.

“They’ve continued to give back wherever God has placed them in life. One was just ordained in our diocese to be a priest,” Johs noted.

Family vocations also have evolved because Search participants’ parents and grandparents met at retreats, married and then passed the Search tradition on to the next generation, Johs said. “Vocation is not just priests and sisters. It’s faithful married couples. It’s single people.”
 
Johs knows that God has a hand in it all. “God’s been faithful to it. The program has been faithful back to God.”

He does not know how many Search programs exist across the U.S. but is encouraged when some reach out asking what works for the program here.
 
Search remains relative to youth, he said. “I encourage more and more parishes to send their kids, get them to come and join. Our goals are to keep going in a positive line. We want to continue doing what we’re doing,” Johs said. “If we have any needs, we have our adult ministry team to run things and does a lot of the mentoring of the kids. There’s always a need for those people to refresh and renew as we get older.”
 
The cost of the weekend retreat is $75 per youth which covers food and housing. Johs has raised scholarship funds to cover part or all a participant’s fee if needed.

“A vast majority (of the time), we get all positive feedback. They absolutely love the weekends, and they experience something they never experienced before, and they want to come back.”

For more information about the program, visit the Search page on the diocesan website at  bismarckdiocese.com/search1 or call 701-204-7185. Search brochures are available at local parishes.