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October 1, 2020
The Diocesan Offices of Family Ministry and Catechesis and Youth are joining forces to bring the Thirst Eucharistic Conference (Thirst) and Diocesan Youth Conference (DYC) to you in a slightly different format. Going forward, Thirst and the DYC will be a combined, yearly, one-day event that will travel from deanery to deanery in which activities and breakouts for people of all ages will be offered free of charge.
Thirst will no longer be a large three-day event every three years followed by a one-day Men’s Thirst and Women’s Thirst in the subsequent years. Instead, we plan to have the Thirst conference rotate throughout the diocese from year to year in a single-day format that will include breakouts or “tracks” for people young to seasoned. By this new format, we hope to better partner and collaborate with local parish leaders to best reach out, engage, enrich and evangelize people throughout the whole Bismarck Diocese.
The Thirst conferences began in 2013 with a large three-day event in Bismarck followed by a men’s and women’s conference each of the next two years. The large event returned in 2016 and 2019 with smaller conferences on the years between. The conference will still be called Thirst and feature many of the great speakers and informational sessions as previously offered.
The plan is to start this new format of the conferences in Bismarck/Mandan Oct. 30, 2021. We hope to proceed with Thirst 2022 in Dickinson, Thirst 2023 in Williston, Thirst 2024 in Minot and then restart the rotation back in Bismarck/Mandan with Thirst 2025, all being held around the last weekend of October. If you have any questions, concerns, comments or ideas regarding this change, contact Amanda at 701-204-7205 or Chris at 701-204-7208.
—Staff report