My Story (The Longer Version)

Hello, my name is Susan Windley-Daoust, and I am the person behind The Mark 5:19 Project. Thanks for being here!

A little bit about me: I am a cradle Catholic, and I was raised in the American South, surrounded by Southern Baptists. This means I was explaining why I was Catholic since I was knee high to the proverbial porch swing. I went to Mary Washington College, where I accidentally (yes) signed up for a religious studies course titled Introduction to Christian Theology. I fell head over heels in love with the subject almost immediately, and within six weeks, had decided I needed to get a doctorate in Theology. And so I did, at Vanderbilt University. I wanted to teach Catholic theology, and was blessed to do so, first at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. I met my future husband, Jerry, and fell head over heels in love again. We married, and soon moved our growing family to small town Winona, Minnesota. I was hired as a theology professor at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota.

It was then I made a decision that unknowingly set the dominoes falling toward my future.

When I started at Saint Mary’s, I crafted a general education course called “Christian View of the Human Person.” Almost on a whim, I assigned students a closing “spiritual autobiography,” about 6-8 pages where they would show me they understand the terms by applying them to their life story. I didn’t know their life stories were about to change mine.

Students poured their hearts out to me for 17 years. Some, faithful. Some, seekers. Some, from other religions. A few, atheist. But a real change happened over those 17 years (2001-2018). As a group, they went from being largely Christian, perhaps confused but ultimately hopeful that God was a reality in their lives—to a group that was largely hopeless, didn’t see God as a powerful reality in their lives, and moving away from belonging to any Church. At the same time, I saw a dramatic rise in reported mental illness—especially anxiety and depression. The sadness was palpable and accepted as normal. I saw this happen before I read the statistics bearing this out—and I was increasingly sad and horrified.

In 2017, I was reading these listless autobiographies and finally pushed my chair away from the table and started to pray. “What is going on, Lord?” Suddenly, I received this image of the beaten-up man from the Good Samaritan story, lying half-dead. Then I heard: “You’re just passing him by, bleeding on the side of the road.” Somewhat shocked, I said “But…no I’m not. I’m teaching them the way, right? They know the path. I keep saying I am open to talking with them about this…. I don’t get why they can’t move themselves 100 yards into the Chapel on campus.” And after half a beat, received: They’re far too wounded to get there on their own. I remember staring at nothing in shock. I had nothing to say to that, since I had read the evidence for 17 years.

Those dominoes began to fall very fast, and I decided to leave my tenured department chair position to do evangelization, to do a ministry that “carries the wounded to their Healer, Jesus Christ.” After making the decision to leave teaching (but not entirely sure what would come next), I was offered the position to be the Director of Missionary Discipleship for my home diocese, Winona-Rochester. I worked pastors, staffs, and councils to help them discern how to become evangelizing parishes; as well as bring in multiple “healing ministries as evangelic outreach” initiatives, such as Unbound Prayer Ministry, Catholic in Recovery, The Light is On, and Trauma Reboot.

What I’m doing here

In 2023, I began to feel called to leave the diocese to start a new ministry; eventually, after many months of discernment, The Mark 5:19 Project emerged. You can read more about it at the main About page.

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Some smart missionary disciples and mission-forward organizations/communities from whom I have learned—not at all exhaustive, and in no particular order:

Alpha in a Catholic Context, ChristLife, Acts XXIX, Sherry Weddell and the Catherine of Siena Institute, FOCUS, Dcn. Keith Strohm’s M3 Ministries, Msgr. James Shea, Franciscan Outreach (especially their Discipleship Quads), Saint Paul’s Outreach, Saint Paul Evangelization Institute, Julianne Stanz, Burning Hearts Disciples, Marcel LeJeune’s Catholic Missionary Disciples, Revive Parishes, Tim Glemkowski, Renewal Ministries, Encounter Ministries, Wild Goose Ministries, Word on Fire, Fr. James Mallon’s Divine Renovation Ministries, Fr. Michael White and Tom Corcoran’s Rebuilt, The Amazing Parish, Jennifer Fitz, everything from Card. Raniero Cantalamessa, John Boucher, and the good people of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester.