BY ELIZABETH WONG BARNSTEAD, THE WESTERN KENTUCKY CATHOLIC Faith formation is just as much “Christian living as Christian believing” for Jeff Andrini, the Diocese of Owensboro’s new director of the Office of Faith Formation.

Two women with a passion for catechesis find a way to immerse Catholic kids in the Bible BY ELIZABETH WONG BARNSTEAD, THE WESTERN KENTUCKY CATHOLIC Debi Hopkins knew something was seriously wrong the year that a little boy at Vacation Bible School said, “You mean these are true stories? These actually happened?”

In 1775 the first band of Catholic families uprooted their lives in southern Maryland to travel to the Kentucky frontier to establish new homes in the area of Pottinger’s Creek in what is today Nelson County. Within 10 years they had organized the first Catholic parish in the state at Holy Cross in 1785.