Travel

A faith-filled adventure

A deacon and his family climb to new heights

By Annie Lust

To understand the Sasala family, a good place to begin is a summer evening in 2004. Their dark blue ’97 Suburban cruises down the highway. The record high gas prices — $1.92 per gallon — do not deter these travelers. The vehicle is carefully packed. Camping gear in the back. Hiking boots tucked under seats. A cooler in the middle row. Rick is behind the wheel with Nancy at his side. They are midway through a 20 hour drive to a place they’ve grown to love, the Rocky Mountains. This time, they are not alone. In the middle row, Daniel cracks a joke, and Matt laughs. In the back, Lauren reads a book, and Erin scans the landscape for wildlife. It’s their first family trip to the mountains. The family will make the uphill trek to reach an alpine lake with breathtaking mountain views. They won’t rush, partly because they want to take in the beauty and partly because the younger Sasalas haven’t even reached double digits. On this trip, Matt is eight, while triplets Lauren, Daniel and Erin are only five.

Lauren, Daniel, Erin, Matt, Jessie, Nancy and Deacon Rick in Sedona, Arizona, 2021.

PHOTO COURTESY RICK SASALA

Rick was accustomed to the outdoors early in life. Growing up on 120 acres of primarily wooded land, his family heated their home with wood. That necessitated many hours in the summer cutting firewood. Rather than getting tired of the environment, Rick thrived in it. “I spent more days during the summer in a tent sleeping when I was in high school than I did in the house,” he said. Ultimately, the woods were a place he found solace, a fact that has not changed in the intervening decades. “There were two places that I felt at peace: the woods and the church.” After his tent-sleeping high school days, Rick went to Bowling Green State University, where he met his future wife Nancy. Nancy was an art student, though her family also did their share of fishing and camping. Nancy remembers the first time she met Rick. “He had a green wool shirt on, a bandana, hiking boots and jeans.” It piqued her interest. “It wasn’t love at first sight but curiosity at first sight,” she joked. They became friends with an appreciation for nature as a common interest. Clearly, nature had a hand in their romance, too. A group hike became a pseudofirst date when the poor weather scared off everyone but Nancy and Rick. They spent an entire day walking through the mud, bonding over their love for photography, being raised Catholic and sharing stories of their families. They returned to their dorms, tired and dirty, but with the first inkling that they may have a future together. After getting married a few years later, they lived in Colorado while Rick was in graduate school. They returned to Ohio but maintained an enduring love for Colorado, especially Rocky Mountain National Park.

When their children arrived, Matt in 1996, followed by triplets Lauren, Daniel, and Erin in 1999, there was no question that they would share the love of nature with their children. “We wanted them to experience the beauty of nature and come to appreciate it and the Creator of it all,” Deacon Rick explained. They spent a few years preparing the children with shorter trips in Ohio before returning to a favorite place, Rocky Mountain National Park, in 2004. In the nearly 20 years since, they’ve made almost as many trips, mainly to mountain ranges in the northern United States and Canada.

Mills Lake Trail in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, 2004. “A huge cathedral constructed for the glory and worship of God strikes me in the same way as a mighty mountain which God created for us to admire in awe. Creation itself testifies about its Creator. My belief is that it is impossible to live on this planet without recognizing God because nature is proof of His existence,” Matt Sasala says.

PHOTO COURTESY RICK SASALA

Matt has fond memories of their 2009 trip to the coast of Maine. By this time, the Sasalas had traded their Suburban for a minivan, and they loaded it with bicycles. “Imagine four bikes on the back of a minivan and two bikes on top along with a car top – we looked like a traveling circus,” Matt recalled. They arrived at Acadia National Park, the East Coast treasure with mountains, ocean views, pine forests and island lakes. Instead of their regular hiking routine, the family rode their bicycles on carriage roads, rustic broken stone roads that weave through the mountains and valleys. They left behind their bicycles to make the steep hike to the top of South Bubble, a mountain with a view overlooking the park to the ocean beyond.

Lauren recalls the trip in 2012 as pivotal in her life. The Sasalas were back in Rocky Mountain National Park. The variety of this park is one part of the attraction for the family. Visitors can experience the moose and meadow region, the alpine region, the wilderness region, the waterfalls and backcountry or, as the Sasalas did on that trip, the heart of the park. After reaching the summit of Flattop Mountain, a 4-mile hike up to the tundra and to the Continental Divide, Lauren said, “I became a mountain girl; I fell in love with the mountains.”

Maroon Bells, Colorado, 2017.

PHOTO COURTESY RICK SASALA

There was a turning point around this time. Rick’s father died, and his own Catholic faith took a more prominent place in his life. “I started going to Eucharistic Adoration early in the morning on a weekly basis, reading everything I could [about the Catholic faith] and going to spiritual direction. That was the pathway,” he explained. He discerned and then entered the Diocese of Toledo's deacon formation program in 2017. The shift impacted the entire family. Deacon Rick said, “I remember [Matt’s] senior year, we did nine First Fridays. One of those was in January. A snowstorm hit, so besides the priest, we were the only ones there for Mass.” It’s a mentality that followed them on vacation, as well. Rick and the triplets were in the Boundary Waters in 2016. Tucked in Superior National Forest in northeastern Minnesota, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is a vast area of lakes and woods that stretches for 100 miles. With no permanent residents, no motorized boats, not even planes that fly overhead, once you push off from shore, it’s truly just you and nature. The last several miles of their canoeing trip were on a Sunday. “We got up that morning knowing we were going to Mass that evening. That was our priority for the day,” Deacon Rick said. And they made it to Mass in Minneapolis, as planned, with ten minutes to spare.

Blue Lake Trail in Colorado, 2018.

PHOTO COURTESY RICK SASALA

Erin and Daniel both point to their 2019 Alaska trip as a milestone. The family flew into Anchorage, where they rented an RV and set off. They spent several rainy days in 6 million acres of untamed wilderness with a single road running through it. The relatively low elevation subarctic forest dramatically contrasts with the alpine tundra and snowy mountains, including North America’s tallest peak, Denali. Daniel described it this way: “Alaska is unlike anything else. Mountains that rise straight from the ground as if it were the teeth of a massive shark and wild rolling plains that you could swear never ended.” Most notable, perhaps, is the wildlife. The family spotted grizzly bears, caribou, moose and countless other animals.They continued north to Fairbanks and eventually the Arctic Circle, where the summer sun stays out almost 24 hours, offering weary travelers just a few hours of twilight. Their final Alaskan adventure was a boat tour. The stunning glacier views and wildlife were particularly memorable for Erin. “Alaska gives you an awareness of God’s creation, a sense of how big and grand it is,” she said.

Near Valdez, Alaska, 2019. “I see the beauty of the Catholic faith, and because I believe it is true, I have the responsibility to share its beauty with others,” Daniel Sasala says.

PHOTO COURTESY RICK SASALA

In 2021, the Sasalas were in the southwest, a departure from their northern adventures. This was no regular trip; they were in Arizona for Matt’s wedding. The brilliant orange sandstone hills of Sedona are famous for their beauty. The day before Matt married Jessie, this is where they wanted to be. They joined their families to hike a trail with the largest natural sandstone arch in the Sedona area. On the wedding day, the six original Sasalas set out slowly. “We were able to take our time on the trail, reminiscing about the past and what the future held for me and our family. It was nice to have ‘one last hike’ as just the six Sasalas before adding Jessie to the mix as a permanent addition. We decided to spend that time in nature because it’s what we do as a family. There’s a peace and serenity to being out in nature that is hard to come by in the hustle and bustle of everyday life,” Matt said. That evening, Matt and Jessie wed in The Chapel of the Holy Cross, an iconic Catholic Church built into the Sedona red rock.

Just as the four Sasala children advanced in mountain climbing, their faith lives have also strengthened. All of their trips and the stunning views they have seen are part of the reason. “Beauty is where I first encountered God,” Lauren remarked. Matt added, “All of the beautiful places we’ve been to as a family are a gift from God to experience.” The younger Sasalas were unanimous in saying their parents also played a crucial role in their faith formation. “Having parents who made it a priority to actually live out the Catholic faith, even during vacations … created in our hearts a door for which Christ was able to enter through and dwell in us,” Daniel said. In fact, the triplets all made a radical decision after college. Rather than pursuing traditional careers, Erin, Daniel and Lauren became Catholic missionaries. Lauren is a missionary guide program manager for Creatio, an organization based in Colorado whose mission is to guide all people to encounter the beauty of creation and the Creator through outdoor adventures. Daniel is a missionary with Fellowship of Catholic University Students, a Catholic collegiate outreach whose mission is to share the hope and joy of the gospel with college and university students. Erin is a missionary with Christ in the City, an organization that works with the homeless with the goal of creating a culture of encounter where each person is seen, known, and loved.

The Sasalas are now spread across the country in three different time zones, but their shared experiences have created a strong bond. Each family member noted their journeys, those hours spent in the car with one another, are among their most precious memories. “It wasn’t perfect,” Nancy said of those drives. But the long trip made it more satisfying. “There’s a discipline about [a road trip] that makes you appreciate the destination,” Deacon Rick said. That destination, often the top of a mountain for the Sasalas, is impossible to capture in words. Ultimately, his response harkens back to his years in the parish choir. A mountain is best described by singing, “When through the woods and forest glades I wander and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees; When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur and hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze; Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee; How great thou art, how great though art!”