BY ERIKA ANDERSON

Staff Writer

ATLANTA--Over 1,000 teens from around the country are expected to attend this year’s Steubenville Atlanta conference, entitled “Goin’ Home to My Father’s House,” which will be held at the FFA-FHA Camp in Covington July 9-11.

The conference, the second to be put on in Atlanta by the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, and the Faith Enrichment Institute, combines music, national speakers, witness talks and time for Mass, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and the sacrament of reconciliation, giving many teens the setting to make a personal commitment to Christ.

This year the speakers include host Paul George, the youth minister of St. Timothy’s Church in Mesa, Ariz., the parish where Life Teen originated. George has spoken in many conferences around the country, including Steubenville and the Charismatic Gathering of Youth in Denver.

Randy Raus, director of youth ministry at the Church of St. Ann in Marietta and the national director for the Life Teen program, will also speak at the Steubenville conference. Raus travels around the country, speaking at national youth ministry conferences, hosting youth ministry training days and putting on youth programs. As the director of the Life Teen program, Raus also provides resources and guidance to parishes wanting to implement the program.

Another featured speaker will be Mary Beth Bonacci, who has been giving talks on love, relationships and chastity to national and international audiences since 1986. She is the founder of Original Innocence, Inc., an organization dedicated to promoting understanding of and respect for God’s gift of sexuality. In 1993 she spoke to 75,000 youth at World Youth Day in Denver. She has been featured in four videos and is the author of two books for teens. She also writes a syndicated column for teens, as well as numerous freelance articles and brochures. A native of Denver, Bonacci currently resides in Phoenix, where she serves as a consultant to the national Life Teen program.

Father Tim Hepburn, pastor of the Church of St. Gabriel in Fayetteville, will also speak and the music will be provided by Ed Bolduc and the St. Ann’s Life Teen Band. Archbishop John F. Donoghue will celebrate Mass for the conference on Saturday morning.

The conference will begin on Friday night and conclude Sunday at noon. A place for adoration of the Eucharist will be open throughout the weekend and a eucharistic healing service will be held on Saturday night.

Last year teens from as far away as Michigan, Nebraska and Wisconsin joined their peers from Georgia, Florida and Alabama for the Steubenville Atlanta conference, a weekend that Kathy Wolf, director of religious education and faith formation for the archdiocese, felt was highly beneficial for the teens.

“It was a really great experience,” she said. “It was really good for the kids. A lot of fruit came from that weekend.”

Raus also believes that the conference has the potential to bring teens closer to Christ.

“What a great thing to do during the summer when maybe you’re taking time off from school, but you can take an entire weekend of your summer to work on your relationship with God,” he said. “Steubenville is a great environment for that because it helps you to focus on your own relationship with God and everyone else around you is doing the same thing. That helps you to focus and it gives you something to draw from so that when you get back to the real world and all its distractions, you can recognize God in all those other places.”

Many archdiocesan youth ministers agree that their teens returned home better able to live as Christians and to serve their parish and community.

A few weeks after the 1998 Steubenville Atlanta conference, Lisa Fiamingo, youth minister at St. Catherine of Siena Church in Kennesaw, said that she was amazed by the conversion of her teens.

“They were totally free. They just found a freedom to praise God that I didn’t know they could have,” she said.

The high school youth conference has been held annually on the campus of Franciscan University since 1976. In 1996 the university began to add regional conferences to serve the growing number of teens who wanted to attend, last year a total of 18,000 youth.

The cost of the Steubenville Atlanta conference is $120, which includes lodging in cabins, most of which are air-conditioned, and all meals, which will be provided by the camp cafeteria dining hall. Registration and a $50 deposit per person are due by June 1. For complete information, call (770) 388-7180. Volunteers to help at the conference, financial sponsorships for youth and donations are also welcome.