BAN SAENG ARUN: 9th February 2005 --  Ban Saeng Arun might seem like a simple combination of three Thai words which appear in many contexts, but for the Catholic population of Thailand and indeed for the Salesian Province there, it stands out somewhat from the crowd.

    For the moment, at least, the Thai Provincial is also the principal of Ban Saeng Arun!  He was conducting a very successful school with 2654 students, when called upon 'from on high' to take up other and more demanding duties.  It is not so easy to simply pluck another principal from elsewhere, but in due course it will be Fr Theparat who will be finding his replacement.

    Ban Saeng Arun's Catholic and Salesian school is something special for Thailand, beginning with the large number of Catholic students and the fact that 50% of its teaching staff are also Catholic.  The place is actually the first Catholic settlement in the South of Thailand, and owes its origins to Salesian Bishop Caretto who began the small Catholic settlement there in 1950.

    Today Ban Saeng Arun belongs to the Thurat Thani diocese, also a Salesian diocese, and contains the tomb of the late Bishop Michael Praphon, who loved the town and its people very much.

    While the school can be proud of its growth and the extent to which people are prepared to travel to be part of it (buses come to and fro daily from as many as 80 kms away), it is the overall development of the Catholic community in this area that stands out so much, school and parish and different religious congregations working hand in hand to build the Kingdom.  The Salesian community there, for the moment just two, Fr Theparat, principal and Fr Tamayo Parish Priest, has maximised the high concentration of Catholics (20% of the Catholics in Surat Thani diocese) in every way possible.

    Should you be looking for Ban Saeng Arun on the map, it is not so difficult to find, small as it may be.  Go to the most constricted part of Thailand in the province of Prachuab as it runs South, squeezed between the East Coast on one side and the Burmese border pass on the other.  It is about 150 kms South of Hua Hin if you know where that is, or perhaps around 400 kms South of Bangkok.