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CHARLOTTE — Seth DeMoor has an incredible goal: to reach out to the more than one billion Catholics in the world to capture and share as many personal faith stories as he can to uplift and inspire us in our daily lives.

Just last month, he traveled 5,000 miles from his home in Denver, Colo., to Madrid, Spain for World Youth Day, interviewing some of the 1.5 million pilgrims to find out why they journeyed to see Pope Benedict XVI and gather with their Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ.

DeMoor is a 26-year-old cradle Catholic who was married in June. He felt a strong desire to better understand his faith during his college years at Colorado State University, and thanks to the efforts of two great priests serving in campus ministry, he came to realize what a treasure it is.

That's when his faith and his ministry really took off.

"On Jan. 3, 2010, I 'cast into the deep' on a 2,400-mile bicycle ride across the U.S. from Florida to Colorado," said DeMoor. He did so "because at the University of Colorado, I encountered stories from people of authenticity; who were young and all about sacrificing their lives for the Catholic faith. It was a beautiful encounter, so much so that I knew the world needed to hear their stories. And so was born One Billion Stories."

His mission is to "inspire devotion to Jesus Christ, by sharing Catholics' personal stories on the 'digital continent' that are rooted in fidelity to the Magisterium of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, through contemporary communication mediums."

At www.OneBillionStories.com, he gathers millions (and someday billions) of those stories. He is armed only with a video camera and laptop. Every night, he edits the next day's story to share on the web site.

— SueAnn Howell, staff writer