HAMPDEN – Molly Ryan intends to spend the week digging.

The 17-year-old Hampden resident won’t be shoveling coal, even though she’ll spend Saturday night on the site of a former strip coal mine.

The teenager will be delving into her faith at World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany.

Along with hundreds of thousands of Catholic youth from around the world, she will see firsthand how Pope Benedict XVI interacts with the young people who adored his predecessor Pope John Paul II.

“Through this trip, like everyone else going, I am hoping to draw closer to God,” she said. “I want to learn about and accept other people’s way of celebrating Catholicism. Secretly, by the end of the trip I am hoping that I will be in prayer more often than I am now.”

Molly Ryan and her mother Lynn Ryan, 49, along with more than a dozen others, waved goodbye Monday morning as they boarded a bus at St. Matthews Catholic Church. The group was scheduled to arrive in Germany today.

The Ryans are two of the 75 pilgrims – 50 teenagers and 25 adults – from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland who are attending the event.

The Rev. Robert Vaillancourt, pastor of St. Matthews in Hampden and St. Gabriel Catholic Church in Winterport, is the group’s spiritual leader. Bishop Richard J. Malone also is traveling with the group.

Although they live in Hampden, the Ryans attend St. Mary Catholic Church in Bangor, where Lynn Ryan works as the youth ministry coordinator.

She is also the diocesan resource coordinator for youth ministry for region 2, which includes Washington, Hancock, Penobscot, Piscataquis counties and a portion of Waldo County.

The trek to Cologne will be the first trip to World Youth Day for both mother and daughter.

“Once we get there, it’s going to be great,” Lynn Ryan predicted last week, “but the journey is probably going to be a little bit nerve wracking.”

She expressed concern Monday over the British Airways strike that last week stranded passengers in London’s Heathrow Airport, where the group was scheduled to change planes.

Ben Zmistowsi, 19, of Old Town knows better than his fellow pilgrims the physical challenges and spiritual rewards of World Youth Day. He journeyed to Toronto for the 2002 celebration.