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Roseann Sworts

sworts_roseann.jpg“The CCO is about Christ and Christ is about relationships,” says Roseann Sworts. “Because the Sheelers showed how much they cared for me, I want to show that kind of care for others.”

Today, Roseann shows that care to the young people she serves as the Youth Ministry Director at Puckety Presbyterian Church in Lower Burrell, Pennsylvania. She credits her friendship with CCO staff members Brian and Heather Sheeler as a key to her finding her calling to youth ministry.

“If I hadn’t met the Sheelers and become involved in the Bible study at Pitt Bradford, I very well could have flunked out of school,” she says. “Then I would not have worked at Pine Springs Camp, or gone to Jubilee or the Ocean City Beach Project. I wouldn’t have helped with the youth group while I was in college—and now I’m in youth ministry. My life would have been so different.”

Roseann met the Sheelers during her freshman year, when she attended a Bible study at the invitation of another student. From that point on, even though she hadn’t really been seeking any Christian fellowship, Roseann attended almost every Thursday Bible study, and even became a student leader of the Christ in Action group during her junior and senior years. She started going to church on Sundays, and by the middle of her college career, she had made a commitment to Jesus Christ. “Heather says she remembers seeing the light turn on for me,” says Roseann. “I felt free to ask questions at the Bible study and that light bulb just went on. I was like a sponge—everything was so exciting.”

But Roseann’s behavior didn’t immediately match her new-found belief system. “Even when I was going to the Bible study, toward the end of my sophomore year, I started doing the drinking and partying thing, but trying to hide that from the Sheelers,” she remembers. “As long as I showed up on Thursdays, I figured no one would figure out that I was sneaking into bars and drinking three or four nights a week. But I was living a double life, and they picked up on it eventually.”

Brian and Heather invited Roseann to go out to dinner with them, and they called her on what she was doing. They said, “We know you love the song ‘Seek Ye First,’ but you’re putting all of this other stuff ahead of God.”

“I was so embarrassed, and I couldn’t hide anymore,” Roseann remembers. “I confessed a lot of stuff to them. It was such an embarrassing conversation, and I never want to have that kind of interaction again. But it proved to me how much they cared. They stuck me in the middle of them, and their love and friendship surrounded me. They kept me on a straight path.”

A year after her 2001 graduation, Roseann took the youth ministry position at Puckety Presbyterian Church, and she and her husband, Lance, a ceramic engineer working for Alcoa, just welcomed their first child, daughter Bella, in March of 2008.

“I remember [CCO staff member] Keith Martel saying to us at the Beach Project, ‘think about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.’ That’s become a theme for my life. I say it all the time to the kids I work with.

“Now that I’m in ministry, I see how much of an impact I can have. Everything I learned about doing ministry, I learned from volunteering with Brian. And I’m always trying to keep my life in check, because I know kids are watching me. I feel like I can never thank Heather and Brian enough for what they have done for me.”