3563_The “Marathon Man” continues to run for the light

By Hilario Seo

The city of Seoul, being in the northern hemisphere, is very grateful for the warm sunshine which kicks away the winter season, from November to March. The sun warms our planet every day more and more, and provides the light necessary to sustain life on Earth. One best thing is to set aside the time to meet the Lord in front of the tabernacle even before accomplishing all the daily duty in the sun.

This year, Fr. Michael Chang, SDB, also known as the marathon man, continues to run for the solar cell to give ‘light” to the youngsters of the boarding house in Araimiri, Papua New Guniea (PNG). 

Fr. Michael, Principal of the Salesian High School (SHS) in Kwangju, who ran last year for a fundraising campaign for the Cambodia missions. This year, he wanted to have a follow-up fundraising event. He joined the Seoul International Marathon run by Dong-A Ilbo, a major newspaper in Korea. He called it “1 Won for 1M,” an appeal to the people to participate in the personal fundraising activities to support the missions by depositing 42,195 Won (about 40 USD) for each person with specific destination for the Araimiri missions.

He served as the head of the Missions Office as well as the Provincial Economer until last February.

As a principal of a big school, he intended to run with his students to help them overcome the difficulties they meet in the “marathon of life” and help them feel that they are being accompanied by the Salesians, but the scholastic reality doesn’t allow him to do that. The students in general have been too much preoccupied by their studies, and are tied to their desks in the class room from early morning up until deep night with the intention of winning for the university entrance exam. No fiscal activities in the school but just study, study, study with the books! So you can say that there is very little sunshine, too much light electronics in the class room in Korea!

The fundraising campaign event ended 25th March, the Solemnity of the Annunciation, with a good success thanks for the mass participation from the SHS’s students. It raised 26,682,000Won (about 25,000USD), exactly the amount which was needed to give light to Araimiri friends.