Author: Chris Lee

	Love Begins Here missionaries help to sort items at the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store in Monroe during a week spent in the area in a previous year (Catholic Herald photo/Kevin Wondrash)

MADISON — It’s almost time for another summer of hundreds of teens doing small things with great love.

This summer marks the eighth of its kind for Love Begins Here (LBH) — an apostolate of the Diocese of Madison Office of Evangelization and Catechesis.

It provides youth with an opportunity to encounter Jesus Christ in a life-changing way through weeklong, local mission trips where they live in community and continue God’s work on earth.

This year at LBH

On June 12, the first group of a total of 600 LBH teens over the course of the summer will make their way to parish number one – Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in Beloit.

It could be a milestone week for LBH, as the program is nearing its 50,000 hours of service to the communities in the diocese.

Leading the teens will be a Core Team of 12, the largest ever for the program — some of whom were LBH teen missionaries themselves in years past.

LBH Mission Director Lindsay Becher calls it “a delight to see that number grow and to watch what they can give back to the missionaries.”

Becher added there is “something nostalgic about having them with us . . . It’s fun to hear the stories that they remember from the earlier days” when the program was smaller and just beginning.