In 2017, a few young Catholics had just finished university and were working around the city of Buea. What they saw around them would not let them go.
Young people went to Mass and took part with their whole hearts. They sang, they prayed, they received. Then they walked out of church and were pulled straight back into a life with little room for Christ: living together before marriage, and every small vice that draws a person a little further from Him each week.
Not because they had stopped believing, but because nothing carried their faith from Sunday into Monday.
We had seen the Rosary work.
We had seen it in our own lives. A Rosary prayed every day had held us close to Christ when nothing else could. Mary has never kept anyone for herself: everyone who comes close to her is handed on to her Son. So we wondered what would happen if we prayed it for each other.
We sent that message to ten friends. Each would pray the Rosary for an intention that was not their own, and a stranger would pray for theirs. They said yes. They told their friends. Before long, the ten had grown into a network of hundreds.
10
text messages
100s
of strangers praying
The simple tools we used to pass intentions around could not keep up, and they failed. Keeping the network running took more than we had, and we wrestled with the question every builder asks in the dark: who are we to lead this?
The rest of the story is better told in person. Come and hear us tell it at a gathering some day.
The young people we saw in 2017 are still out there, along with millions more, in every city and every language, going to Mass on Sunday and losing the fight by Monday. This time we are building it properly: Youkaris, an app made to carry intentions safely between strangers, and a core team ready to keep the chain moving.
Our mark is the letter M for Mary, drawn as two chevrons moving forward. Between them stands a small "i". That "i" is you: every stranger, held in a personal friendship with the Blessed Virgin Mary, and carried forward by her.
Our slogan is three words. Everything we have, our faith, our graces, our daily bread, came to us as a gift from the goodness of the Father. We do not keep it.
PASS IT ON.
We called you here to show you what we do.
We pray. We give. We gather.
Now pass it on.
