Annie Hofstetter, a member of the St. Louis Challenge Club shares her experience of their visit with their Archbishop.
My name is Annie Hofstetter, I am twelve years old and I have been in Challenge for two years. Along with nine other girls, I was invited to be apart of the first Challenge Presentation Team in St. Louis. We give presentations to people to help them understand the mission of our club and how they can be a part of it. Our team has already given presentations in Florida and Chicago, and most recently to Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis.On March 26, 2007, the team went to give Archbishop Burke a presentation about Challenge. We told him about the hopes and dreams of Challenge, its mission, the St. Louis Challenge Club, how we raise money, and most important, that we are always there for him and that we want to help carry his cross. When I was giving my part of the presentation, I started to realize that even a holy person like Archbishop Burke sometimes may feel alone and have no one to lean on. I can’t even begin to imagine the task of making sure every soul in St. Louis goes to heaven. So when we told him that we would be bringing more than a hundred girls to the Corpus Christi procession, I noticed that he became very animated and smiled the rest of the time. I learned that Archbishop Burke has such a great love for our lady of Guadalupe. One of the consecrated women at our presentation asked him: “Why do you have such a great love for Our Lady?” He replied saying simply: “Because she is my mother.” This really impressed me because it was such a personal relationship. Archbishop Burke has shown me how one person can make a huge difference in the world today. I believe this visit helped all of the presentation team to see how big our mission, in Challenge, really is. Everyday I thank God for Challenge because it has totally changed my life. I never thought I would be as close to God as I am now and it is such a gift. Challenge is just truly meant to be shared, and because of it, I “Challenge Myself, Others, and the World.”