Subject: 'austraLasia' #339

PAKISTAN MISSION GAINS SECOND SALESIAN

Julian Fox

MELBOURNE: 15th May -- Two weekends ago saw the departure of Fr. Hans Dopheide for the new Salesian Mission presence in Pakistan, where he joins Fr. Peter Zago, former Provincial of the Southern Philippines Province. The two men might be described in some respects as 'two peas in a pod' in that they have an impressive history of construction, technical work and overseeing and are just the right men to get a Salesian technical education presence underway in a country that takes its time to welcome new Christian missionaries!

Fr. Hans, who received the missionary cross at the Australian Provincial House in a ceremony on the weekend of departure, has of late been a member of the St. Joseph's Ferntree Gully Salesian community in Melbourne. Prior to that he was the founding principal of the Don Bosco Technical Centre in Alafua, Samoa. Born in Holland, Hans migrated with the family to New Zealand as a teenager. He then joined the Salesians in Australia when some of the family moved to that country. For many years, he was the director of the Agricultural course at Salesian College Sunbury.