Greetings  from Mambucal, the poorest parish of the Philippine South Province: 90% of our parishioners are very poor farmers, plantation workers etc;.many of them,  especially those in the furthest villages up in the mountains have not gone and will never  go  to school...There are no schools up there and the government seems to have no intention of providing schools and not even roads for those people. We salesians are here since 1991, we started with a Retreat House and now we have also the parish, the poorest parish of the diocese, 57 square km up and down the mountains and valley on the slope of Kanlaon volcano, a monster to be watched, because it can spit fire and ashes any time.. I am here as Rector and parish priest of 15,000 faithful, many of whom know very little or nothing at all about our Christian faith, even if they are baptized... This is a real mission land, similar to Papua New Guinea. The first priest many of our people have met was Fr. Franco Uras, the founder of our presence here. It is a real salesian parish with plenty of young people who are running most of the parish activities. We are developping basic Christian Communities with their own chapel as the very center of the community. The people are responding very well, although in many areas or outstations we have to start from the first evangelization.  Please say a little prayer for us here ( we are only two salesians) for life in this part of the world is not easy... especially when at end of the month you don't know where to get the money to pay the parish personnel and workers. So far the Good Lord has blessed us. We pray and hope He will continue help us; we depend  almost exclusevely on donations and on the generosity of our benefactors..