austraLasia #1941

8th September - 1999!

(the following is a version of an account drawn from the Auxiliaries of the Mission, FIN)

DILI: 7th September 2007 -- In 1999 the current provincial of Philippines North, Fr Andrew Wong, was assigned to Don Bosco Church, DIli, East Timor.  They were difficult times.  In fact it was a time when austraLasia was able to report some of those difficulties.  We did not pick up this story however!  And as is the case also recently (early this year) thousands, as many as ten thousand, had sought refuge in the Don Bosco compound.  There was rice aplenty as Don Bosco had stockpiled rice to act as a distribution point.
    On the evening of September 6th, 1999, an East Timorese soldier belonging to the paramilitary branch, and a friend of Fr Wong's, warned him of an impending attack by Indonesian soldiers. The next day the four Salesians in the compound conferred on measures to take. Their decision was to exit the compound early next day and attempt to negotiate with the soldiers, while the people would be kept at least 500 metres back from the entrance.  If things were not to work out a signal would be given for the people, women and children mostly, to exit from the back of the compound quickly via ladders.
    That night the Salesians stood guard. All was quiet.  Around 2.00 am Setpember 8th, Our Lady's Birthday, they heard the sound of approaching trucks.  The soldiers alighted and began firing into the air.  SOme hand grenades were thrown, one of which landed directly in front of Fr Wong, just inside the gates.  It did not explode.
    As the soldiers approached the gates, a female voice cried out 'Enough! Enough!  Go home!'.  The soldiers turned back, climbed into their trucks and left.
    Next morning Fr Wong brought fruit and food to the Ursuline Sisters in the convent just in front of Don Bosco compound.  The thinking was that it was the Mother Superior whose voice they had heard shouting out 'Enough!'.  Great was the surprise when Mother Superior told them 'No, that wasn't I who spoke those words.  I was with the other Sisters hiding inside the convent.  We heard the voice too and wondered who the woman was'.
    This left the Salesians to draw another conclusion - it was the Blessed Mother who had intervened to save her people.
    And the page on Auxiliaries of the Mission concludes with a 'Happy birthday' to Mary!
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