austraLasia #1892

Salesian missions in Mongolia after seven years of presence

 

HO CHI MINH CITY: 3rd July 2007 -- The following information comes directly from the provincial of Vietnam, Fr  John Baptist Them. Vietnam includes Mongolia as part of its mission.
    "As provincial, I visited the Salesian Mission in Mongolia over ten days in  June, 2007 (from 10th to 20th June). 

    I can say that the Salesian Works there have made wonderful progress and expansion, through God’s grace, and why not, given the good spirit and hard work of nine confreres. 

    The first Salesian work established in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, was the Don Bosco Industrial Training Skills Centre. From the very beginning, our confreres were allowed use of the 'Green Building' for Oratory activities and for various classes. Now, after seven years of presence, that Centre has won the high esteem of civil and church authorities alike. 

    A second work, begun soon afterwards, was the Boys Home for street children at Amagalan. The education of these typical Mongolian street boys is really hard work for our confreres and also for our collaborators. Nevertheless, our confreres have achieved some consoling successes. During the past few months, the local authorities had some negative observations to make about the hygienic conditions of the Boys Home, but the dedication of the confreres has made an excellent impression on them. 

    For the future development of this work, another piece of land will be sought, because the present land surface is not solid enough for heavy construction.  Our confreres want to remain in the Amagalan area with education and evangelization in view. 

    A third work was soon begun at Darkhan, the second largest city in Mongolia. In 2004, through a contract signed on April 24, 2004, the Local Ordinary, Bishop Wenceslao Padilla, Prefect Apostolic of Ulaanbaatar, entrusted Darkhan/Selenge to the Salesians. From that time, we have considered Darkhan/Selenge our 'Land of Mission' within Mongolia. Nearly one year later (2005), the first two Salesians arrived in Darkhan and began their work of Daily Oratory and Evangelization. After two years of evangelization, there are now 43 newly baptized, and a parish has been established with its own parish priest. Up till now one part of the Salesian buiding has been used as “parish church” for the liturgical celebrations of the faithful. Our confreres in Darkhan are looking for some land to expand our work and to build a parish church. 

    As recommendations from my visit, all the confreres in Mongolia have been invited to form our co-workers to become co-educators and co-evangelizers, and to begin a vocation ministry as soon as possible (even in the coming school year), so that we will soon have local confreres (looking ahead some 10-20 years)".
     _________________ 
 AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific.  It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome.  For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com . Use BoscoWiki to be interactive. RSS feeds - subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xm   Avail yourself of the Salesian Digital Library at at http://sdl.sdb.org.