austraLasia #2927
 
Connect the world - Vietnam and Europe

Liège (Belgium): 8 October 2011 -- It seems appropriate to continue the theme from #2927: connect the world! Today, 8 October in southern Belgium, part of the French-speaking sdb province, three young Vietnamese missionaries to FRB make their final profession. The event coincides with the 120th celebrations for SDB and FMA of Salesian presence in Liège, the last foundation approved by Don Bosco before his death. In fact, Don Bosco, for lack of personnel, had resisted the insistent requests of the local bishop for Salesians to come to Liège, but it seems the Blessed Virgin herself intervened on the night of 7 December 1887, making it clear to Don Bosco that he should relent and send his men and women to the 'City of the Blessed Sacrament'.
    Today, then, Peter Hoang Minh Chien, Peter Nguyen Ngoc Luong and Vincent Liem Tran Ngoc Minh Tuan, all of whom have been in the French-speaking province since 2007, offer themselves to God in perpetuity as Salesians of Don Bosco. Given the importance of the overall event for the Salesians and Sisters in Liège and their respective provinces, the Rector Major and Mother Yvonne are both in attendance.
    The final profession of these three men from Vietnam highlights the way in which Vietnam is currently connecting the Salesian world. There are 67 Vietnamese SDB missionaries (of the formally mandated kind) working around the world, and a number of others who are part of the Vietnamese diaspora and have become Salesians there or were forced through war or circumstance to leave their country and are now contributing to the Salesian mission elsewhere.
    Of the 67, 17 are in Europe, ranging from Albania and Hungary in the east, to Ireland in the west. It is worth noting the solid contribution, for example, of four Vietnamese who have been in Hungary since 2005 and have now integrated into Hungarian culture and language and life, giving a much-needed impetus to a very small province which is showing signs of revival.