austraLasia 1329
Patience in a Muslim country - young missionary reflects
KHARTOUM: 15th November 2005 -- Khartoum is a long way from East Asia or Oceania, yet here on the African Continent, several missionaries from EAO are at work. The following is a missionary reflection, very personal, quite precious. It comes from a young Vietnamese missionary working in the Sudan.
Patience as a Vietnamese living in an Islamic nation he entitles his letter, then attempts to set out what he means by this, beginning with the realisation that people are simple and sincere, but that their uncomplaining acceptance of direction from a respected foreigner masks another reality - they may not actually like doing what they are being asked to do. The letter extends this reality in a reflective way.
"Our orientation is to live and to serve our mission in this country, and our mission in Sudan needs a spirit of self-forgetting, with the spirit of Jesus: come to serve, not to be served. Salesians who have been here long before me tell me - to stay here you need patience to work with these people. Here we have to learn from them how they live instead of coming here just with the idea of educating them. That means we should be like them, and nothing like them! This means dialogue. It means going slow. It means day by day.
"In their families, the boys do not have things like they have in our school. This is why they don't know how to use things. Occasionally things go wrong and they don't tell us or they are unable to take responsibility for it. I say they don't know how to use things but when I tell them how they don't care about it. For example, they don't switch off the lights in the workshop because at home they don't have lights, or if they have lights then they don't need to switch them off because they will be connected to a generator. For them, when the generator is off the lights are off.
" In an Islamic country, our boys are influenced (naturally) by Islamic culture. Our Catholic boys cannot distinguish between the Feast of All Saints and the Feast of Ramadan. Everything too is under Islamic control including religious activities. We have to be very careful.
"Everyone is looking for money. Our school is burdened a lot when we have to do something. When they know they are dealing with a Catholic school, we end up having to pay a lot of money, instead of cooperating with us in the education of the young. Cooperation means cooperating to get money, and to keep things peaceful we have to pay. Even with our workers - there is no problem when they are working alongside us, but when something goes wrong, and we have to stop them for one or another reason, then they immediately file for a court case.
" To see Salesians working with lay people is perhaps, then, still far away in the Sudan. It takes time. 20 years on in Sudan the Salesian mission still struggles."
We can assure this young missionary of our interest and our prayer.
________________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/rssala.xml. If you subscribe, email this information and your name will come off the regular email list. RSS eliminates problems such as multiple mailings, viruses, email bloat. Think about it!
Patience in a Muslim country - young missionary reflects
KHARTOUM: 15th November 2005 -- Khartoum is a long way from East Asia or Oceania, yet here on the African Continent, several missionaries from EAO are at work. The following is a missionary reflection, very personal, quite precious. It comes from a young Vietnamese missionary working in the Sudan.
Patience as a Vietnamese living in an Islamic nation he entitles his letter, then attempts to set out what he means by this, beginning with the realisation that people are simple and sincere, but that their uncomplaining acceptance of direction from a respected foreigner masks another reality - they may not actually like doing what they are being asked to do. The letter extends this reality in a reflective way.
"Our orientation is to live and to serve our mission in this country, and our mission in Sudan needs a spirit of self-forgetting, with the spirit of Jesus: come to serve, not to be served. Salesians who have been here long before me tell me - to stay here you need patience to work with these people. Here we have to learn from them how they live instead of coming here just with the idea of educating them. That means we should be like them, and nothing like them! This means dialogue. It means going slow. It means day by day.
"In their families, the boys do not have things like they have in our school. This is why they don't know how to use things. Occasionally things go wrong and they don't tell us or they are unable to take responsibility for it. I say they don't know how to use things but when I tell them how they don't care about it. For example, they don't switch off the lights in the workshop because at home they don't have lights, or if they have lights then they don't need to switch them off because they will be connected to a generator. For them, when the generator is off the lights are off.
" In an Islamic country, our boys are influenced (naturally) by Islamic culture. Our Catholic boys cannot distinguish between the Feast of All Saints and the Feast of Ramadan. Everything too is under Islamic control including religious activities. We have to be very careful.
"Everyone is looking for money. Our school is burdened a lot when we have to do something. When they know they are dealing with a Catholic school, we end up having to pay a lot of money, instead of cooperating with us in the education of the young. Cooperation means cooperating to get money, and to keep things peaceful we have to pay. Even with our workers - there is no problem when they are working alongside us, but when something goes wrong, and we have to stop them for one or another reason, then they immediately file for a court case.
" To see Salesians working with lay people is perhaps, then, still far away in the Sudan. It takes time. 20 years on in Sudan the Salesian mission still struggles."
We can assure this young missionary of our interest and our prayer.
________________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/rssala.xml. If you subscribe, email this information and your name will come off the regular email list. RSS eliminates problems such as multiple mailings, viruses, email bloat. Think about it!
