Episode Transcript
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Welcome to Unwritten, a podcast dedicated to sharing stories,
the movement of the Holy Spirit of the world.
Today, I'm your host, Trevor Brekka, and on today's episode,
we are getting to hear from Austin Satrio.
As you're listening today and we're getting the show started,
I want to invite you to subscribe to the show.
We're sharing new stories of Godat work in the world every
single week, and I want you to be the first to know about it
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when we do so you can be inspired to see God working in
your life too. I'm a huge fan of these airplane
stories. And no, I'm not talking about
engineers or pilots as importantas they are.
I'm talking about the stories when you sit next to a random
person and you have a powerful encounter or conversation and
you make a friend that sticks with you.
What people love about these stories is it kind of has this
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side quest nature to it. You know, you went on a plane
with one goal, which was to get to your destination, and that's
kind of what you were focused on.
But you're surprised with the person you met along the way.
When Austin went to Seek this past year, he expected to invite
and recruit people to consider St.
Thomas More Teaching Fellows. But what he didn't expect was
meeting a complete stranger and helping him have a profound
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encounter with God. Welcome to the show and listen
in. So this past January at SEEK 25,
I was blessed to go with some teammates of mine to Salt Lake
City and on behalf of the Saint Thomas More Teaching Fellowship,
was blessed to attend SEEK as a sponsor and obviously have a
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table and mission way. And I was excited.
I've been to Sikh many times andSikh was a huge part of my
transformation in college. So it's always great to go back
and we're excited to have a table.
But the fruit of, of this Sikh, you know, you meet a ton of
great people. It it's great for recruitment
for any apostolate, any organization.
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I'm just getting to share your mission.
But the fruit from this year wasundoubtedly an encounter that I
had that I, I certainly wasn't expecting.
And you know, you're, you're at your table, you're trying to
talk to people. This year we got a great table
in a super busy part of mission way.
So a lot of traffic and you're constantly talking to people.
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And I think it was the first full day of Seek.
You know, there's this guy who'skind of lingering near our
table. Doesn't look like he's really
with anybody. He's got his lunch in his hand.
And, you know, as someone who's tabling at Seek, that's kind of
a prime opportunity, like, and let me go talk to this guy, you
know, let me introduce myself and, and hopefully, God willing,
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you know, you get to share the mission of whatever organization
you're representing. But I'm just to be able to
connect. And so my teammate and I saw
this guy and he's alone with hislunch.
We go up, we chat with him. And for the purposes of this
story, I'm going to call him Michael.
That was the first time we met Michael at Seek.
We find out he's a student, he'sfrom California, traveled to
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Salt Lake City for Seek. We chat a little bit with him
and, you know, I think he had a cool shirt on or whatever.
So Seek is a beautiful event because you have such a wide
variety of age ranges all at theconference.
And not only that, but you get such a wide spectrum.
I think of people who are going,who this is their 10th time,
they know exactly what to expect.
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They could probably tell you theschedule hour by hour, but then
you also have people who are going for the first time.
And even within that, some of those people are super, super
excited and, and some people come and they're kind of not
sure of what to expect. And, and maybe they were there
just on a whim or by the invitation of a missionary or a
friend, but they're actually notreally sure what they're doing
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there. So you get this wide variety.
And I think in that first conversation with Michael, it
occurred to me like I couldn't really tell if he had been to
seek before or what his vibe was, what his outlook was on it,
but I got the sense that he he'skind of taking it all in for the
first time, which is beautiful. So we had that first
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conversation with Michael, nothing crazy.
We we figure out the basics of who he is and where he came
from. And with that, you know, we kind
of small talk, we share a littlebit about our teaching
fellowship and ultimately kind of part ways after that short
conversation. But then Fast forward to the
next day, same time, I think it was lunchtime and we're once
again we're at the table and Michael passes by again, right?
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And at this point, even though we've only met once, there's
sort of a pre-existing relationship there.
So we we say hi to Michael, he stops by the booth again and
we're able to kind of chat more.And this time a little bit more
detail comes out. So, so Michael reveals that he's
essentially alone at sea. He didn't come with his school.
He didn't come with any parish. What really happened in essence,
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is that his parents who were pretty practicing, had heard
about SEEK and being in Salt Lake City, which was in decently
close proximity to where he was in California.
His parents kind of encouraged him, hey, you should go to this
thing. We've heard great things about
it. And so Michael, credit to him,
really took that invitation, went, but again, went by
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himself, didn't know anybody, not with any campus ministry,
not from a focus campus. So he's really here, he's taking
it all in, but he didn't know what to expect.
And I think there's a vulnerability to that comes with
going alone that I admired a lot, the fact that he was
willing to to take that leap. But within that too, he kind of
reveals essentially that he's not really sure what he's doing
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there. He grew up Catholic, but he's
not really practicing much of anything right now.
And anyone who I think has been in the the mission space, you
kind of can get a sense when someone is like, even if they
don't say it, you can sense whensomeone has some deeper
questions that they're wrestlingwith or that there's kind of an
inherent searching to the way that they're even communicating
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with you. And that's the sense I, I got
from Michael. He tells me he's here alone just
because his parents invited him.But I get the sense that he's
really kind of searching, maybe wrestling.
And he even admits himself, right?
Like I'm not really practicing anything right now.
I don't, I don't know what I think essentially.
And in this conversation, at some point, you know, again,
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even this is only our second conversation ever, I feel kind
of a, a safe space and a abilityto be vulnerable or ask
vulnerable questions with Michael.
So my colleague and I essentially ask him if he's been
to the Adoration Chapel yet. And that's one of the beautiful
parts of seek. You just have great access to
the sacraments, great access to prayer.
So we asked Michael if he's beento the Adoration Chapel yet and
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he says no, that he hasn't. And really in that moment just
felt this pull to man, let me just invite Michael to something
really basic, really easy and just see, you know, see what
happens. Maybe the Lord will prompt him
to that. And so in that moment, my
colleague and I really just invited Michael, Hey, we would
encourage you like just go stop by and, and really just honed in
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on this idea of like when you goto the Adoration Chapel, you
don't have to do anything. Like you don't have to say the
right things. You don't have to ask the
perfect questions. You don't have to come a certain
way. Adoration is the perfect place
to just sit in silence and just be with the Lord and see what
happens, See what happens. But just give him the space,
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give him the space. Just draw near Tim.
So essentially we, we invite Michael, Hey, like we encourage
you just go sit in the Chapel like 10-15 minutes and you don't
have to say anything. Actually, I encouraged him like
don't say anything, just just bepresent.
So we send that invitation once again, Michael parts ways with
us and to be honest, had no expectation of any sort of
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follow up. But the next day again, this
time Michael comes to us and I see him from a distance.
He comes up. I can tell that he's he's coming
to talk to us again. And you know, in a way it was
truly from the way he walked up,I could tell like something has
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happened. And the way he walked up was
like he was a different man thanwho I had talked to the day
before. He just really vulnerably and
beautifully shares with me his experience in the Adoration
Chapel. And he walks me through and he
says, first of all, he, he just says, you know, hey, thank you.
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I wanted to come by and say thank you for inviting me to, to
go spend time in adoration. And he says, here, here's what
happened. And, and while he's telling me
all of this, he's, he's speakingfast, he's sweating a little
bit. He is just kind of bursting at
the seams, something straight out of scripture almost where
like there's a real physical transformation and, and energy
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that he has after his encounter.So he tells me that he went to
the Adoration Chapel and he begins to sit and he's sitting
in silence and kind of gets frustrated because he's not
really hearing anything. And you know, I think again,
he's carrying a lot of these questions that he felt have gone
unanswered. So he's sitting there and, and
finally he kind of just asked the Lord interiorly, like, Lord,
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do you love me? And still no response, which is
even more frustrating. And, but again, clearly the Holy
Spirit was prompting him to ask this question and, and be
persistent. So we kind of asked it a few
times in his heart, like, Lord, like, do you love me?
And, and finally has this momentwhere the Lord like very, very
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clearly speaks into his heart and says, yes, yes, I, I love
you. And with this, I love this.
The fact that Michael immediately he told me that he
received that and immediately followed up with another
question and he says what do youthink of me?
I mean that is so beautiful for someone who is wrestling.
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Clearly he didn't have a fully developed prayer life.
You know, doesn't know any of the deep theology, but is able
to ask this like very raw question that me in that moment.
I was like, I need to ask that more often in prayer, but so he
asked the Lord, he says, what doyou think of me?
And the Lord speaks to him immediately back and tells him,
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I think you're perfect. I think you're perfect.
And Michael tells me that he wastaken aback when this was the
response he got. And and he basically starts to
argue with the Lord, like what perfect?
I'm so far from perfect. And almost the way he's
describing is, is very reminiscent of I think Peter in
the Gospels, depart from me, Lord, from a sinful man.
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But Michael's kind of wrestling with this is perfect.
Like, I'm not perfect. How could you see me as perfect?
And the Lord just affirms again,like, I think you're perfect.
And Michael follows up with another question like
immediately. And he says, well, what do you
want me to do? What do you want me to do?
What do you want from me? And the Lord speaks and not in
like a commanding way, but in the gentle, inviting way he
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speaks to Michael and says, I want you to serve.
I want you to serve. And as you can imagine, when
Michael's telling me this, I, I'm just so moved by the way
that Michael's speaking about this, by the clear fact that he
has encountered Jesus in a profound way in adoration and
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feeling very, very humbled that the Lord allowed me to extend
that invitation to Michael. And not only that, but allowed
me to see the fruit of that and just a beautiful, beautiful
moment. And he has other dialogue with
the Lord, but he ends up going to confession for the first
time, he says probably in at least 10 years.
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And literally tells me that whenhe was praying after confession,
he felt very, very strongly thatthe Lord was inviting him to
consider the priesthood in his invitation to serve.
Like when the Lord spoke to him,I want you to serve that.
As he sat with that, almost likeimmediately, he felt like that
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was the Lord inviting him to consider the priesthood.
To rewind 24 hours, Michael's, this is the same guy that's
telling me he doesn't really know why he's there.
He's a lot of questions that areunanswered.
He's alone. And he's telling me he doesn't
really know how to pray, how to approach that.
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And here we are 24 hours later, and he gave the Lord the
opportunity to speak into his life literally just by being in
his presence. And he has this incredible
dialogue with the Lord. The Lord blesses him, affirms
him in some very, very profound ways.
And even beyond that, feels this.
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Maybe I should be a priest. I mean, just talk about the
Lord's transforming power in in a moment of adoration.
And it's funny because again, leaving Seek and being a
sponsor, you, you can measure your trip in any number of ways
to determine whether it was fruitful or not.
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But there was no doubt in my mind meeting Michael, that
encounter with him and really his graciousness in returning
back and sharing the fruit of his prayer with me was was the
highlight of of my entire time at Sikh.
And just a reminder for me that the Lord just continues to work
in incredible ways. And that even when I feel like
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it's been a while since my initial conversion, even in dry
periods when I feel like, does the Lord speak to me profoundly
anymore? Just to hear the way Lord spoke
to Michael was a good reminder for me and was just a great gift
to me. Thank you, Austin, for sharing
your story on this week's episode of Unwritten.
(14:12):
OK, so one day to recap, Michael's not even sure how to
pray, and the next day he's thinking about being a priest.
That is so crazy. Austin's approach was simple and
gentle. He just made that next
invitation when he saw an opening.
And then the Holy Spirit moved Michael.
It was that simple. What Austin had was that simple
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openness to the moment and a courage to make a simple
suggestion. And God did the rest.
And I want to encourage you to do the same.
Just to open your eyes, to ask the Lord to open your eyes and
your awareness to the small questions and the small
opportunities with the people around you.
And when you see it, to just make a simple invitation of
faith in Christ Jesus to them. Thanks so much for listening to
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the show and we hope to see you again next week.