austraLasia #3290
TURIN: 29 September 2013 -- If we take 1999 as our starting point, the year Vietnam Province sent out its first missionary, 29 September 2013 sees the 100th Vietnamese missionary. That is no mean achievement!
Of the 36 SDB missionaries that will be sent out from Valdocco today, 29 September 2013 as part of the 144th Missionary Expedition, 13 are from Vietnam - 11 of them directly, having completed their postnovitiate, two others from elsewhere - one who grew up in the US and has already gone to Jerusalem for his theological studies, since the academic year there began on 11 September, and another from Japan, already working there as a young priest.
Of the 11 who have come directly from Vietnam, 9 are candidates for the priesthood, two are brothers.
Vietnamese missionaries can now be found on every continent. In general the staying power of these young missionaries has been excellent, as they adapt to language and culture far removed from their own. and with such a large number of missionaries now out there 'in the field', Vietnam is already thinking of how it might set up a Mission Office which can offer support.
A sense of what this missionary diaspora is like, and how it sets people thinking, comes from a letter written by a young Salesian in Southern Africa, when one of the Vietnamese missionaries there was ordained this year:
Today I attended the ordination of Fr Vincent (from Viet Nam). It was a beautiful celebration and offered me a missionary reflection:
In his words of thanks he had this to say to all who were present:
"My parents are not here, but I have you....".
It struck me: here is this
'foreign man' ordained in
a 'foreign language'
to 'foreign people' and
for 'foreign people',
and yet nothing is 'foreign.
TURIN: 29 September 2013 -- If we take 1999 as our starting point, the year Vietnam Province sent out its first missionary, 29 September 2013 sees the 100th Vietnamese missionary. That is no mean achievement!
Of the 36 SDB missionaries that will be sent out from Valdocco today, 29 September 2013 as part of the 144th Missionary Expedition, 13 are from Vietnam - 11 of them directly, having completed their postnovitiate, two others from elsewhere - one who grew up in the US and has already gone to Jerusalem for his theological studies, since the academic year there began on 11 September, and another from Japan, already working there as a young priest.
Of the 11 who have come directly from Vietnam, 9 are candidates for the priesthood, two are brothers.
Vietnamese missionaries can now be found on every continent. In general the staying power of these young missionaries has been excellent, as they adapt to language and culture far removed from their own. and with such a large number of missionaries now out there 'in the field', Vietnam is already thinking of how it might set up a Mission Office which can offer support.
A sense of what this missionary diaspora is like, and how it sets people thinking, comes from a letter written by a young Salesian in Southern Africa, when one of the Vietnamese missionaries there was ordained this year:
Today I attended the ordination of Fr Vincent (from Viet Nam). It was a beautiful celebration and offered me a missionary reflection:
In his words of thanks he had this to say to all who were present:
"My parents are not here, but I have you....".
It struck me: here is this
'foreign man' ordained in
a 'foreign language'
to 'foreign people' and
for 'foreign people',
and yet nothing is 'foreign.
