austraLasia #2889
Salesians mark the memory of Fr John Lee:
lay volunteer missionaries take up where he left off
SEOUL: 16 July 2011 -- "Thank you so much for your
help. You can be sure we are concerned about leaving home,
but we now leave with the courage that comes from depending
on your prayer, and undeserved love and help." So said
Matthias Ryu, one of the Korean lay missionaries who had
just been formally commissioned, on 15 July at the Salesian
Provincial House Seoul, for the new nation of South Sudan.
"This might be a sending out of
volunteers, but it is a missionary task. Often when we speak
of missionaries we think of a priest or a religious, but I
would like to say that sharing with the poor what you have
as a lay person might be considered as the very essence of
the missionary heart. Sharing your time, talents and
material goods as well as the Gospel which we always carry
in our heart is really practising Christ's mission on earth.
So all of you who are now leaving for Wau in South Sudan are
missionaries, and I recommend that you have a missionary
mind and bring them, the youngsters and poor people of Wau,
the love of Jesus", said the Provincial, Fr Stephen Nam, in
his homily.
The two couples commissioned as lay
missionary volunteers will live and work in the Salesian
community at Wau in South Sudan for two years. Mathias Ryu
and Regina Kim, both medical doctors specialised in
dermatology, retired last year and will work in clinics,
especially for people suffering leprosy. The other couple,
Francis Song and Clara Lee, also retirees but skilled in
engineering and architecture, will help with construction
work.
These two couples, after retiring, were
looking for some meaningful activity in their lives, and
were touched by the story of Fr John Lee who died early last
year after 8 years of missionary activity as a doctor and a
Salesian priest. They decided to volunteer for Africa where
the late Fr John had been working. They have spent one year
of preparation with the Korean province which has now set up
an agreement of cooperation with the Delegation of Sudan,
the receiving province.
The couples took the flight to Nairobi
that evening, following the commissioning Mass. The
destination was originally Tonj, but has now become Wau,
after lengthy discussion with the local community which
considered it better to wait Tonj's social situation has
stabilised.
This is the first such formal
commissioning of lay missionary volunteers from Korea to
Sudan. There have been other short-term volunteers
dispatched for particular activities, but all by a
Foundation which is a spontaneous lay organisation that came
into being to support the work of the late John in Tonj.
The Korean Province has given careful
attention to various programs for the preparation of the new
volunteers, especially through a close relationship with the
Sudan Delegation. On 10 July, in the presence of family
members, especially their adult children, they came the
provincial house to sign their volunteer's contract.
The day of the formal commissioning was,
incidentally, the day on which the
President of the Republic of Korea, Mr. Lee Myung-bak, gave
the Mugungwha Order in posthumous memory, to John Lee's
mother, accompanied on a wheelchair by her elder son, a
Capuchin priest. The Salesians were not directly involved in
this event.
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