From: "jbfox" <jbfox@is.com.fj>

To: <jbfox@is.com.fj>

Subject: 'austraLasia' #407

Date: Friday, 18 August 2000 9:45 PM

DON BOSCO MAKES HIS MARK ON EVEREST

Seo Jeongkwan SDB

SEOUL: 18th August -- A member of the Korean team to reach the summit of Mt

Everest, the first such group of the new millennium, has acknowledged his

debt to his Salesian education as one of the factors which gave him the

inspiration and the strength to do it - and gave the Salesian Family a

distinctive achievement in this Jubilee and Millennium Year.

Heon Ju Park, or 'Andrea' by Chrstian name, is an alumnus of the Salesian

High School in Kwangju.  He is now a journalist with the Kwangju Daily News.

He had already made two unsuccessful attempts 1993 and 1996 on the world's

highest mountain at 8,200 metres and was determined to succeed on the third

try.  This time, on 3rd May, just three days before his 33rd birthday he

found himself near to the summit but initially had to turn back.  Almost

ready to give up, he thought of his wife, his earlier failures at some

things, including an important examination, and of the meeting he had had at

the airport by chance with his past Salesian teachers Fr. Klement Vaclav and

Robert Folk. "They promised to pray for my expedition and that word gave me

great strength" Andrea said.  "I had a good feeling about it". So on he went

with a colleague and finally reached the summit.

Andrea's experience at Dominic Savio Salesian High School was one of warm

acceptance: "The principal would welcome us warmly at the school's front

gate; our RE classes had us ernestly and frankly discussing the meaning of

life.  Those unique school programs have coloured many aspects of my life

since".  And yet he struggled as an adolescent and at one stage became

wayward.  Mountain climbing enabled him to focus on the achievement of goals

through difficulty and even fear.  To other youngsters who ask him 'why

mountain climbing?  Why this mountain?' his answer is that the greater the

fear, the greater the vision possible when one sees things differently -

from the sumnmit of the world!