I am John Toppa, and I did not expect to be asked.
I was introduced to TECUM in June of 2023 through one of its co-founders, Michael Gramke. He invited me to a young adult men's group that met on Monday evenings at his house. I learned that he and his wife, Katie, had started the ministry almost a decade earlier to bridge a gap they had watched swallow people whole, the years after college up to about age 40, when so many drift away from the church. The idea was to minister directly to young adults in the middle of it, first jobs, first marriages, first children.
They host a retreat every September and I went. It was a powerful few days. While we were there they announced they were forming a leadership board to manage an organization that had grown well past what two people could carry, and they asked me to help lead the outreach ministry.
I was shocked. Michael and Katie were asking to attach my name, publicly, to something they had built from a handful of people into more than 300 young adult members. They knew my story. All of it. And it did not seem to give them pause. If anything my past seemed to motivate the invitation rather than complicate it. I was honored then and I am honored now. That invitation stands as a milestone of my new life, proof that I get to be a participating member of my community and not just a man with a record.
Alongside the general board work, coordinating and setting up events, my specific job is to find service opportunities in the parish and the wider community. We have done Backpacks for the Homeless at Christmas, street ministry, a Lenten coffee drive for the church food pantry, boxed lunches for The Children's Hunger Project, and meals served at parish events for other ministries. I have also led a small group at each of the last two retreats, which has been some of the most rewarding work I have done.
Most recently I told my whole story, the fall and everything after it, at the TECUM summer series on the Works of Mercy. Standing up and saying it out loud, to the people I now serve beside, was as cathartic an hour as I have spent. It is one thing to rebuild a life. It is another to be handed a room and asked to tell the truth about how you got there.
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