How One Mission Trip Inspired a Lifelong Dedication to Serving Youth and Healing Hearts

[0:16]  We are back here on the Heart Hustle Podcast. Obviously not in the studio. We are in Phoenix, Arizona today, Dan. So went from Orlando being hot and humid to coming to Arizona where it's just hot and dry. know what mean? Have you been to either of them?

[0:30]  No, well, not not recently. I was in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, yet last week, though, and it was hot and dry.

[0:38]  Listen, it is some brutal stuff, man. But Dan, let us know where you're chiming in from, what's the organization, what's the title that you have.

[0:45]  Yeah, I am in Columbus, Ohio, and I'm here to talk about the mission I have with Damascus.

[0:52]  Love it, man, I appreciate it. How did you get started? How did this all come about?

[2:20]  Yeah, mean, you know, Damascus is a Catholic missionary movement. We run retreats, camps, conferences for middle schoolers and high schoolers. And really kind of my call to ministry in the early years started when I was in middle school. I went on a mission trip in seventh grade to the Appalachia Mountains and really encountered for the first time ever in my life, the poorest of the poor. They were living here in America, but they were in trailers with holes in the roofs. Some of these trailers had no floors. And as a 13 year old, was just like blown away by the poverty I had seen. And then after that trip, I get back to my Catholic middle school in a suburban neighborhood. And I realized, wow, there may not be physical poverty here, but there's a lot of emotional, spiritual poverty in my own school. I don't know if it was because my eyes had been awakened to be more apparent, like to see the suffering of others more. But I all of sudden started to realize my classmates were all cutting their wrists or ODing on pills and having their stomach pumped. And it was just a brutal discovering that there was so much pain and hurt and suffering in this world. And it wasn't just in some far off Appalachia region in a mountain somewhere. It was in my own middle school. And I remember going home to my mom one day and just feeling kind of overwhelmed and asking her like, mom, I see all this physical poverty. I see all this emotional poverty. People are hurting and I don't know what to do for the people that are suffering in this world. And she said that, Daniel, the answer to all of the world's brokenness and pain and suffering is Jesus. And really that kind of spoke to my heart. was like in a moment of feeling powerless, all of a sudden I felt like there was a supernatural power that I could help others with. So going into my eighth grade year, knocked on the door at our parish and we didn't have really a youth ministry program. So I was like, hey, could you unlock the school gym? And me and my friend ran our first retreat for our eighth grade class to kind of introduce them to who Jesus is and how Jesus can give you a full and abundant life. And really from that point on, it was a kind of a deep seated call in my heart to lead others to Jesus and to lift people out of suffering through the hope of the gospel.

[3:48]  I love it, man. I love where you went there. One thing I've always said is that I think as Americans, we need to travel outside of our country to really see what exactly you were able to see. And I don't know that I've seen that until I went to South Africa and seeing that there, right? And seeing how these individuals, we were in class teaching and for four hours a day, there's no electricity, know, two times a day. So sometimes if they got home too late or mom got home, they're not cooking dinner, right? Like, What did that look like for them? But they'll still show up so, so happy and willing to learn and like the water, something as simple as water work to us, it's just we drink water, right? But over there, I'm drinking bottled water. They looking at me like, Ephraim, why do you always buy a bottle of water every single day? And I'm like, isn't this normal? I see you guys with a bottle of water and they say, no, we actually fill it up from the top and put it into the fridge. So feels like we're drinking cold water. And it's just those little things, man, that you really don't think about. another thing that you thought of, you just mentioned, Dan, it was about the The answer is Jesus, right? I literally just had this conversation with my wife because no matter how old we are, man, we still deal with the trauma. We still deal with our past. And I was kind of expressing that, like as I continue to just kind of scale in this leadership role and entrepreneurship is the noise gets loud sometimes, right? And the stress level and feeling like you just. need to be perfect in a sense. don't know. maybe it is my upbringing. My wife said exactly that, Dan. So it's almost kind of you really almost echoing what my wife said to me, you but a lot of times we do not realize that. I do appreciate you mentioning that because it was like a nugget for me. It's like, OK, I heard it twice. Right. Like you at some point you have to realize that, you know. But I ask you, Dan, like in this journey of yours. Was it hard? Did you find those challenges? Was the enemy against you at times? What did that look like?

[5:44]  Yeah, I mean, in this journey of what, my relationship with Jesus or, yeah.

[5:49]  Yeah, and doing the work that you're doing in relation with Jesus and the work that you're doing.

[6:37]  Yeah, you know, think there's always hardships. I think the challenging thing about life, especially when your goal is to serve others and you become more sensitive to the suffering of others, one of the challenges is just to not allow yourself to become overwhelmed by the suffering of others. The world has a lot of brokenness and I think that you find, one of the most beautiful things about the gospel is it's in the lowest places that you can find God the most. And so I think at first it was, yeah, I'm putting all of this suffering of the world on my shoulders and it feels unbearable. Like, how am I going to solve this problem and this problem and this problem? And you just want to be a problem solver. But over time you realize it's not about solving all the problems. Sometimes it's just about being next to the person. listening to their story and having compassion with them. I think the thing that motivates me the most about the good news of the gospel of Jesus is that you never suffer alone, that God came into this world and he entered into the brokenness of our humanity and he suffered through emotional suffering, physical suffering, betrayal, spiritual desolation, and whatever we go through, he's experienced that as well. And so there's almost like a We have a guide, a compassionate guide, a compassionate friend who understands us at all times. And so it's hard to ever feel alone when you know that you're never alone.

[7:26]  I love it man. You sang some good stuff here early this morning. Or at least where I'm at early this morning. But how many kids are you guys serving on a yearly basis?

[7:37]  Yes, our ministry serves, it's had a really beautiful rapid growth the last few years. And so right now we're serving about 25,000 kids a year in different camps, summer camps, retreat ministry throughout the year and conferences.

[7:53]  Wow, man, and how long ago now has you started this journey?

[7:58]  Yeah, so what I did was right after high school, I became a missionary and I started to serve in Catholic youth ministry. So I go around the country. We were running retreats. We were living out of a minivan. We had a suitcase and we were doing retreats in different middle schools and high schools every day of the year. I came home from that mission year and I was like, OK, I really want to serve the young church. I feel like a lot of times young people get overlooked in our world. Everyone sees young people as a liability, not as an asset, you know? And like, for me, my experience in the church was that a lot of people were, it just was boring. Like I felt like it was irrelevant. People didn't connect with me. And so I wanted to provide a church that I felt like young people deserved. And so I started doing youth ministry literally out of my mom's living room as an 18 year old. And we started inviting people over to my mom's house once a week and we'd

[7:59]  Hey.

[8:54]  you know, pray and preach the gospel. Within like eight weeks, we had over 70 people in my mom's living room. And the neighbors called the cops. was all these like paddy wagons that came. They were ready to arrest a bunch of crazy high schoolers that they thought were like at a party. And the cops came to the house. My mom's like, oh, officers, we're not, this isn't a drunken party. We're just praying. And so,

[14:56]  Well done.

[15:09]  It was kind of that time, I started to realize, wow, there's a lot of hunger here. People really want, they really want to hear the gospel. And so we started doing more youth ministry programs at different churches. And within a couple of months, really, we had over 500 young people coming to these different events. And so this was way back in 2004, 2005, and there was just a real big growth explosion. And one of the big initiatives we started was like for these young people, we wanted to offer them a summer camp experience. And so we just started running one week of summer camp that was a lot of fun, but also rooted in the good news of the gospel where people were receiving belonging and love and acceptance and hearing about the life giving work of Jesus Christ.

[15:22]  Wow, man. So I'm guessing who poured into you was your mom?

[15:35]  it's a question. mean, I think most, most of all, was, just a relationship with God was probably the greatest source of outpouring. had a lot of people pouring to me. Like, there was, you know, like having a nonprofit organization, starting a nonprofit, there was a lot of, board members who we were able to bring around our table that really taught me things I had never learned before. we're really able to accelerate my leadership. I think both my parents really modeled a way of life that was dedicated for other people. And I think that modeling of a way of life, of living for something bigger than yourself and living for something that is for the sake of the other was something that was really impactful for me in my young years.

[15:48]  And were they also like into the church? Are they the ones talking about God at home or is that you just life happening to you, that mission trip you talked about?

[16:01]  Yeah, my mom was really into the faith, which, you know, a lot of people's moms are into the faith, right? I think my dad was engaged, but also kind of not as emotive about it as others. And I think that is an interesting thing that you're always kind of like, okay, how do I take this faith of my parents and make it my own? And I think that's one of the cool things about what we do with young people. We work with middle schoolers and high schoolers and being able to help them make this thing that they're growing up in, this tradition that their parents have passed on to them, make it their own and help them decide, God real? And is he worth following? And have I encountered him? Do I actually hear his voice and feel his presence? And there's nothing cooler than being able to work with hundreds and thousands of middle schoolers and high schoolers and for them to say, you know, like this was the first time I've ever heard the voice of God speak to me or I've been filled with loneliness and depression and anxiety and I didn't think anyone cared about me but for the first time ever I'm experiencing what it feels like to be loved by God and to like really help plant within a person that you're not alone in this life. There's a a God who loves you, who's with you and who is your strength through everything. It's one of those foundational experiences that when it happens, it literally changes the direction of a person's life, going from where am I and what am I doing and what's all this about and I feel so alone to being able to say in those times of trouble, like, oh wait. I've got a God who lives in me and a God who loves me, and I'm never alone.

[16:14]  I love it, man. It is, you are kind of correct. I've kind of grew up understanding religion at almost at this point of, I guess, where your dad was at, right? Like how your dad was giving it. Because I think my mom believed in God, but we weren't really talking about it. And we were the type of family that showed up on Easter and Christmas, right? Like kind of your typical individuals that visit church. And now I have a wife that is like, open up, you know, the Bible, like she's really shown me. what it looks like to pray. But I've also heard some stories, Dan, even recently, and I want you to share some of yours is I heard a friend and she was just telling me how sometimes she didn't realize if she didn't know God was real, right? But she heard a story from a woman and I love these stories, but she heard a woman that was a drug addict and she was for years and she had her own kids. And while she was actually walking to go get that next dose or whatever that was. that she heard the drum, she heard this music just loud and she followed it and she followed it right into the church and that was her last time ever on those drugs. And she shares a story how she was able, how God changed her life, right? And how she could be present for her son. I have a mom, man, that is still on drugs, that is still homeless. And those stories, man, give me the hope, right? That she too can be saved. And sometimes even feel like I have to be the child to, you she has 10 kids, man. I have to be the child to go have that conversation, allow her to know what God did in my life and how she still has purpose. But I can imagine, Dan, you've talked about all these kids and for years you've been doing this. What are some of the stories that just kind of make you feel good, that fill your cup when you just think about the work that you do?

[16:27]  Yeah, well, I mean, some of the things that you're talking about right now, it was drawn, it was bringing to mind like the different miracles we've seen in young people's lives. One of the miracles we've seen quite a few times actually is that, you know, a child with self harm scars, they may have like scars on their wrist or their legs from cutting themselves and There's been multiple times in our ministry where we're praying with someone to receive the love of God the Father in their life and the self-harm scars on their wrists will completely disappear that God actually takes away in the physical or he heals the physical along with the emotional that their heart is being healed but their body is manifested that healing at the same time. I think the coolest thing though is just being able to be a place where people feel safe enough to be loved and healed. like creating, so our main apostle is like running these, our main ministry is running these summer camps and then school and parish retreats throughout the year. And we just welcome people onto our campus and they're just welcomed with so much love and so much belonging that all the heartness of heart kind of goes away and slowly over time, they're able to kind of calm the fight or flight mechanisms down and allow their heart to be healed, allow their heart to be seen and their lives to be transformed. I think it's really about, for me, it's really about introducing young people to this ever present guide throughout life that you're not alone. No matter what you're going through, you have a God who loves you.

[16:40]  So you've been chasing passion and purpose really your whole life, huh? It was never about a paycheck for you. It was truly about spreading the word. Is that correct?

[17:34]  man, in the early years it wasn't just not about a paycheck, it was about a lot of sacrifice. So my wife and I really wanted to build the summer camp. But what we were doing was we were parish youth ministers and in the summertime we would run camp for middle schoolers and high schoolers from different parishes. And you know one week became three weeks, which became eight weeks. And so we had eight weeks at four different campsites in the summer. So we'd go from like two weeks at this site, two weeks here, two weeks there, two weeks here, and we were traveling and we wanted as many kids to come to campus possible and they were always selling out. like, well, I remember one of the sites, like my wife and I, had three little kids at the time and we were, our housing was in like a bike shed because we wanted all the cabin space to be for the campers and stuff like that. And so, so yeah, I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't about a paycheck and it was, it wasn't about, worldly comfort either. And I think that's one of the cool things, you you don't always say this in ministry, but even ministers go through like the entrepreneur's journey, right? You hear about entrepreneurs who they start off working in their garage as their office and doing shipping and deliveries from their garage. And I mean, that was really, our whole camp ministry ran out of a small storage unit in some real ghetto neighborhood for the first, 10, 15 years and it wasn't until 15 years of hard work and sacrifice and dedication that really got blessed us with an opportunity that just allowed things to explode.

[18:29]  So your wife was side by side through this whole journey going with you or did like, how did that come about? Like you meet her and say, this is what I'm doing. And she's like, I'm all in or what outcome, how'd that come about?

[18:41]  Yeah, we actually, we fell in love with each other while we were missionaries right after high school. So pretty quickly we were, we were already kind of in the mission mindset of like, okay, this is, we want to live our lives for other people. I think the hardships came, you know, it's easy to do that when you're single or newly married, the hardships come when you also have kids. And so trying to,

[18:43]  Wow.

[19:07]  learn how to do mission work as a family. It has its complications. were both preachers as well. So we would travel the country and preach at conferences, preach on missions, and we would try to bring our kids with us. And it was always interesting challenges. Now we have four kids. They're in middle school and high school. So it's a lot different at this point as they're older. They're involved in the ministry and they always have been involved in the ministry, but it's a that they're more independent. So it's not as challenging as having a bunch of little ones.

[19:45]  I mean, kind of when you talk about the entrepreneurship, but just building something in general alongside someone, but with kids becomes just that much more challenging, right? Because I don't mind not eating today. I don't mind not doing this today, but when it comes to the kids, it's like, I gotta think about these kids. It's not even about me. So what were you telling your kids? Like when you were in this work and you were kind of bringing them on, what were you telling the kids? Like, what was daddy doing? What is daddy's job? How did that come out?

[20:14]  Yeah, you know, it's kind of cool. Camp ministry is great because the family was there at camp. So it wasn't I remember my son was probably a seventh grader one time when he said to me, he's like, Dad, you know, I just realized that other dads work in the summer to like his mindset was because we would, you know, he would the school year would end, we'd go off to camp and, know, we were working the summer camp the whole summer. And then he'd go get back after the summer was over. his mindset was that all parents had a summer vacation, like kids had a summer vacation, but that his dad was working. so like, we were just a camp family and they grew up on the campgrounds, they grew up with the ministry and it was great. They loved it. Some of the best memories ever in our family are just those summers when they were little and lost in the woods, lost in the creeks, lost in like, you playing and just free.

[21:16]  Love it, man. And when we talk about just leadership, like, you talk about early, we talk about pouring into you. What are those things that you remember that someone poured into you that allowed you to keep moving in a time of difficulty? A lot of the times there's those words that resonate. Mine says know your worth. Mine says, you know, you're a rock star, because these people told me that. Or, you know, there's so many of them. What was yours?

[22:45]  Yeah, it's a question. know, think one of my kind of the inspiring leaders for me was Pope John Paul II and he the kind of the motto of his pontificate was to live a life for others. He said the man only discovers himself through a sincere gift of self and that when we give ourselves away, that's when we discover who we are and that really resonated with me because it was in my own experience to be true. you know, the times where I was serving others or on mission or pouring myself out, those were the times where I felt most alive and most fully myself. And so I think that became something that was really an anthem for my life that, you I can sacrifice and self gift is what I desire. It's not. something I have to do to get where I want to be. It's actually, this is the kind of life I want to live, a life poured out for others. I mean, that is the life of Jesus, a life that on the cross was modeled to us that his gift of self actually bore life for other people. And so really that was the pattern of life I wanted to exhibit. And it is amazing because you know, sometimes you're doing a lot of outpouring love and pouring yourself out and you don't see instant gratification from it. You know, like I've been in this work of ministry for 25 years since I graduated high school and our Damascus has been this work of outpouring love. But for the first 15 years, it was growing and there was there was some steadiness to it. But for the first 15 years, we were really up in year 2015. So we were only serving a thousand kids. And then in 2016, we bought 500 acres of land through the generosity of donors were able to build this beautiful $25 million mission campus for youth. And that's when everything started to explode. So was like the 15 years of sacrifice allowed for the credibility to be there for someone to invest in us or someone's to invest in us to allow the ministry to really grow. And after that, It's been kind of nonstop growth since, know, like a thousand kids in 2015, then 2,500, then 5,000, then 10,000 up to 25,000. And every single year we have constant wait lists. So our summer camp, it's like, we can't grow quick enough. have a thousand kids on our wait lists in Ohio right now. We had so many kids in our wait list in Ohio a few years back. We opened a camp in Michigan in the hopes that the kids from Northern Ohio and Michigan would go to that camp. that That camp's now sold out and it's got a wait list. And this summer we opened a camp in Maryland because we had a lot of kids coming from the East Coast to Ohio to our camp. So we opened the camp out there and in year one, we're already serving 1,500 kids out there. And so it's pretty exciting to see that like, I call it excellence in the ordinary or faithfulness to the small things as the gospel says that if we're faithful to the small things and we focus on excellence in the ordinary tasks that God gives us, There's a compound effect that happens. so often we chase a dream, but we don't want to work for that dream. We want to give it two years and we expect everything to take place. But I can look back and yeah, after 25 years, it's like we've accomplished so much. But I think we've only accomplished so much because there is dedication for 25 years. Sometimes in order to do something huge with your life, you have to dedicate decades of your life to it.

[24:14]  than you. I always say persistence, patience, dedication. What else word am I missing there, Dan, that you've got to have?

[25:43]  persistence, dedication. I mean, I think you have to have a little grit, right? Yeah. And I think you have to have optimism and hope, you know? Like I think a lot of times that's the, I have a partner in faith. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But.

[26:03]  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it. Man. and faith. I love it. Daniel, how do you stay engaged with these people? You talked about these summer camps by the 1500s, by the thousands, Summer camp goes away. What does that look like after? you still communicating with them? You know, they're still going through these milestones in their own lives and we don't want to continue to lose them through the cracks. How do you stay engaged with those youth?

[26:24]  Yeah, that is always the question at hand. think it's really our goal is to accompany them through accompanying the family. And so the family is engaged in a parish and a school. so a young person will come to summer camp. And then we also have like men's retreats and women's retreats throughout the year. So a lot of their parents will come into our retreat ministry. So the kind of experience the kid has had now a parent can have. And then there's parishes and schools that the kids are coming from. We run retreats year round for parishes and schools. so hopefully it's an accompaniment summer after summer. And then throughout the year in whatever way the family, the parish or the school wants to engage. But our goal really isn't to be like the end all be all for a young person. Our goal is to introduce them to the person who is the end all be all. And so every day at camp we teach, we have what we call prayer lab where we teach young people how to pray. and using their scriptures and we really teach them how to hear the voice of God. What's the difference between the voice in my mind and the voice of God? How do I know if God's speaking to me or not? Really helping them understand how do you grow in this relationship and then how do you build a lifestyle of prayer that enables that. And so it's pretty cool to see the amount of like middle schoolers and high schoolers dedicating 15 to 30 minutes every day in silent meditation to be in relationship with God. As we get better and better at teaching kids how to pray and encouraging them to grow in that prayer life, really the accompaniment is about being introduced to a God who loves you and a God who has supernatural strength for your everyday life and knowing how to access that God through prayer.

[28:07]  You talked about these young men, young boys, young girls, young men, young woman that just may kind of be in the unknown right now, may have not found their way. What is that message you share to them? If they're kind of, how do I get there?

[28:16]  Yeah, like young leaders. Is that what you're talking about, Efrem?

[28:26]  I would say, let's say I'm someone in high school or middle school and I don't know God, but I know of Him. I just don't know Him. What do you tell me? know, because I want to get closer, because I am dealing with things in my life. And I think there's going to be some youth that listen to this and think like, man, I want that. I want those feelings. What do you tell them?

[28:44]  yeah. Yeah, you know, I think if you want to catch something, go around those, go around people who have it. Right. So if you want to be a great football player, hang out with great football players. If you want to be a great musician, go hang out with great musicians. And so if you want to catch the spirit of God, go be in the presence of people who know the spirit of God. And I think that's a really important thing. Most of the time it's about going somewhere, doing something, engaging in some way. I also think that God is found in the lowest places. And so whether that's going to a retreat where others are in union with God so that you can find him or going to the low places where God always is. And so you will almost never be, you'll almost never work with the poor and the suffering and the broken and not find God there. And so, getting involved in the brokenness of people's lives, just as a window to find the presence of God. You see his beauty. I think for me, the Spirit of God exists everywhere. He's in all people, he's in all communities. And so when we come to know who he is, then we can start seeing him everywhere. But yeah, think it is a matter of What I have found is there is a component of spirituality that it doesn't just happen. I think you have to study spirituality a bit or put yourself around people who have spiritual lives. That way that the spiritual part of us that is a real part of the human person, it gets activated. And once that spiritual part of us gets activated, amazing things can happen.

[30:34]  Where can people find more about you, more about the mission, more about the organization, what's the website, socials?

[30:41]  Yeah, our organization is damascus.net. You can check us out there. I'm on Facebook, Dan Demete. You can feel free to reach out to me there. I have a book called Dream Bigger, A 21 Day Journey to Discover God's Dream for Your Life. That's found on Amazon or wherever books are found.

[30:41]  I love it. I love it. Well, Dan, thank you so much for your leadership. Thank you so much for your commitment. We said 25 plus years on really being selfless, not selfish. And we just thank you so much for continuing to pour and just make a difference in this world. I'm Efrain. This is Dan. Make sure you guys go ahead and get that book as well. He said it's on Amazon, so it's not too far. Let's catch you guys next one. Laters.