austraLasia

Election of new leadership

Dagmar K. and her Central Council

Frascati, Italy, 28 July 2019 -- After 10 days of intense sharing, discernment, prayers and communion among the 100 Volunteers of Don Bosco (VDB) secular institute, their 8th General Assembly concluded on Sunday, July 28th. They harvest many fruits:

The AG8 has explored the main theme more deeply: 'The Mission of the VDB Today' along the reflection path pursued over the last two years:

To deepen the importance of the VDB specific mission has in our life.
To evaluate our responsibility to the mission, as a response to the Spirit who sends us.
To identify the most urgent needs of people today, especially of our recipients and to reflect on the profound causes of these needs, to be able to intervene.
To identify our most effective responses in order to make fruitful our being light and leaven in the world.

The AG8 also elected the President General and the Vice President General, there were other seven (7) Councillors elected. The Secretary and the Administrator are not elected but appointed by the President General and her Council. They are currently the largest secular institute in the Catholic Church. After two terms (12 years) of very charismatic leadership of Olga K, her successor, Dagmar, another fellow Slovakian VDB was elected as the new President General. We are grateful for her immediate sharing with the 120 VDBa and the whole Salesian Family in our Region:

"Cordially and with great love I greet you after many beautiful meetings choosing the complete Central Council.
I'm not quite aware of my ministry yet, but I know you are praying for me! Thank you very much!
I want to keep emptying my hands of my own plans and I want to put those of God in them!
I have the heart of a mother who is ready to constantly receive every child entrusted to her!
I want us to develop the family dimension amongst us to share all personal worries and share the joys that enrich us and also be outwardly firmly rooted in the Salesian Family, being faithful in the Church to Peter's successor.
So far I have no other program, but I do not want to have anything other than feeling that it is from God, it leads to Him and to people.
I would like to add our old Slovak way of saying things: 'So, Lord God, help me!
I wish a blessed, joyfully experienced mission and greet our sisters on the other side of the world [=in the EAO region]
In Christ's love, Dagmar"