“Faith is believing and not really seeing, and religion is following a bunch of rules. A lot of people have a religion, but they don’t have the faith to believe,” Hannah Paulus, senior, said.

Paulus has been successful in spreading her faith, but it did not start easily, according to Paulus. She believes she started off with just a religion, but the experiences she has been through has changed her religion into her faith.

“When I was little, my parents introduced me to the religion and faith, but I never really understood it because I was young,” Paulus said. “When I started going to church, I started understanding even though I can’t see God or He’s not next to me visually, I know He’s always there. I can have faith in Him, believe in Him, and trust Him for my life. Just going to church helped me realize that. On Sunday mornings, my pastor always talks about having a faith.”

Paulus practices the Evangelical religion and attends Northwest Family Church, a nondenominational parish inviting people to learn about God and His works in a safe environment and community, according to their website. In order to evangelize and spread God’s word, Paulus ties her faith into her daily life.

“Social media is a big thing for me because my pastors or youth pastors will have me post something or I’ll just post something. I just really want to share it with people, and I know a lot of people are on Instagram, so they see it,” Paulus said. “I also try to incorporate it, like if I’m writing a paper, I’ll tie it in somehow. And I just like to share it with people. Like when people are having problems, I’ll help them out by saying things like, ‘Hey, you can pray about this,’ or I’ll pray with them.”

Spreading her faith to her peers is a goal for Paulus. The drive behind that is embedded within the religion itself.

“I believe God has done so much for [me in] my life, and I feel like in return, I want to be a disciple for Him and spread His word and make His name known,” Paulus said. “It’s the least I could do for Him dying on the cross for us. It drives me.”

Although that motivation pushes her to keep evangelizing, Paulus encounters challenges to keeping her faith going, especially in high school.

“Staying true to it [is the hardest] because sometimes it’s hard to trust God and know He’ll take care of whatever you’re going through because you can’t see Him,” Paulus said. “Also, in high school, there’s a lot of drugs and drinking. For me, I’ve never fallen to that, but it’s hard to see people from my church who I know believe the same thing as me fall into bad stuff. It’s just been hard to get over that.”

Paulus has overcome those challenges by keeping her eye on the idea of salvation at the end of the tunnel. She hopes to use her future to continue to fulfill her goal.

“I really like helping out at my church, but I want to be a teacher when I get older. So maybe I’ll teach youth classes, but I want to continue to spread as much [faith] as I can,” Paulus said. “I just want to see people in Heaven. That’s what motivates me. Heaven is going to be so cool if there are all these people there.”