austraLasia #1892
Salesian
missions in Mongolia after seven years of presence
HO
CHI MINH CITY: 3rd July 2007 -- The following information comes
directly from the provincial of Vietnam, Fr John Baptist Them.
Vietnam
includes Mongolia as part of its mission.
"As provincial, I visited the Salesian Mission in Mongolia
over ten days in June, 2007 (from 10th to 20th June).
I can say that the Salesian Works
there have made
wonderful progress
and expansion, through God’s grace, and why not, given the
good spirit and hard work of nine confreres.
The first Salesian work established
in Ulaanbaatar,
Mongolia, was the Don
Bosco Industrial
Training Skills
Centre. From the very
beginning, our confreres were allowed use of the 'Green
Building' for Oratory
activities and for various classes.
Now, after seven years of
presence, that Centre has won the high esteem of civil and church
authorities alike.
A
second work, begun soon afterwards, was the Boys Home for street
children
at
Amagalan. The education of these typical Mongolian street boys is
really hard work for
our confreres and also for our collaborators. Nevertheless, our
confreres have achieved some consoling successes. During the past few
months, the local authorities had some negative observations to make
about the hygienic
conditions of the Boys Home, but the
dedication of the confreres has made an excellent impression on them.
For the future development of this
work, another piece of land will be sought, because the present land
surface is not solid enough for heavy
construction. Our confreres want to remain
in the Amagalan area with education and evangelization in view.
A third work was soon begun at
Darkhan, the second largest city in Mongolia.
In 2004, through a contract signed on April 24, 2004,
the Local Ordinary, Bishop Wenceslao Padilla, Prefect Apostolic of
Ulaanbaatar, entrusted Darkhan/Selenge to the Salesians. From that
time, we have considered Darkhan/Selenge our 'Land
of Mission' within Mongolia.
Nearly one year later (2005), the first two Salesians arrived in
Darkhan and began their work of Daily Oratory and Evangelization.
After two years of evangelization, there are now 43 newly baptized, and
a
parish has been established with its own parish priest. Up till now one
part of the Salesian buiding has been used as “parish church” for the
liturgical celebrations of the faithful. Our confreres in Darkhan are
looking for some land to expand our work and to build a
parish church.
As
recommendations from my visit, all the confreres in Mongolia have been
invited
to form our co-workers to become co-educators and co-evangelizers, and
to begin a vocation ministry as soon as possible (even in the coming
school year), so that we will soon have local confreres (looking ahead some 10-20 years)".
_________________
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