By Fr. Mario Gaspar, SDB

       Shuwuu, Mongolia, 19 February 2021 -- The Salesians took over the mission in Shuwuu, after the handover from the Mongolia Apostolic Vicar, late Bishop Wenceslaus Padilla in 2016. The first time we arrived there were four 'gers' (Mongolian traditional round houses). Yes, it was difficult to start the apostolic activities without a solid infrastructure. Two combined gers were used as chapel, one small ger was for the parish office and other ger was for the kitchen.

       Observing that we did not have any proper place to live and proper place for the people to pray (the ger as a chapel was extremely cold during winter) we renovated the two-storey building as a chapel, an indoor games’ room, library, shower for the people and also computer room.

       In Mongolia, the most important for a building is heating and water. Since we have a well, it easy for us to connect to the building. For the running of the building and the parish we need also heating. Thus, we connected the electricity heating. The monthly fee is about 2 thousand dollars for the electricity during winter.

       Seeing the expense, we were able to contact one benefactor from Hong Kong who is willingly to donate for solar panel system. Supposedly, the project should be finished last year, but due to the Covid-19, the project is postponed. The primary purpose of the solar system plantation is to produce heating for the new parish building parish and the two stories building.

       And the Green Alliance activities? Yes, we are planting 50 trees every year. Just for your information, to plant trees in Mongolia is not easy either. We need to have good water system so much so that three years ago we started water system irrigation in order to make the trees survive. The trees were planted by the youth of the Shuwuu parish and tree plantation will be continually promoted every year.

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