UPDATE ON SOLOMON ISLANDS MISSION - June 2009
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Some Red Beach Vocations House Students (L-R): Simon, Paul, Rudolph, James, Andrew, Nathan and .......
Fr Greg Walsh CM
(pictured at left) has kindly sent an update from the Vincentian
International Mission in Solomon Islands. In the
Vincentian Personnel Catalogue, the Mission is listed under the
Holy Name of Mary Seminary, Honiara. But, as can be seen
from the letter from Greg Walsh, the confreres are involved in more than
the Seminary. (Note that there is also a previous page on
this Website with information concerning the mission in Solomon Islands which can be accessed through the link
CM International
Missions. Some maps have been provided by Greg Walsh to
indicate the geographical layout of the Solomon Island MIssion.)
Greg writes below:
Brotherly greetings from us at Tenaru, Guadalcanal, to
all confreres in Australia-Fiji, and other readers.
.
At the moment we are six here: Victor and Emanuel from Indonesia, Bing from Philippines, Ivica from Croatia, Joeli from Fiji and myself from Australia. We are expecting Drago from Slovenia and a Filipino confrere to be here for Seminary lecturing in Second Semester, as well as Marsup from Indonesia who is returning from studies to re-join us permanently. We are hoping a member of the General Curia will be able to visit us this year, and for that reason we had a special Community meeting to discuss what the future of the CM in Solomon Islands might look like.
One important element is the advent of young men from
Solomon Islands who are applying to join us in good numbers. We have
been very blessed in that Ivica was willing to be our Vocations
Coordinator and he has put a great deal of time and energy into this. He
is also the Parish Priest, and the parish has consequently been deprived
of some of his attention lately, but we are working to secure another
confrere for the role of Parish Priest. Ivica organised the dismantling
and moving to Red Beach of a three-bedroom wooden house belonging to the
parish, over the Christmas holidays. It now doubles as the Presbytery
and Vocations House. (The Red Beach Parish Station also has a temporary
church that would seat about 200, and the home of the Catechist and his
family. The Catechist is Sabino, a very fine and humble man with plenty
of kids.)
We have also been much blessed by the generosity of the Australia-Fiji
Province in supporting CM Vocations here, most especially through the
kind work of Greg Cooney. First of all, it is the Australian Province
which accepts any man from Solomon Islands as a CM Seminarian. We have
the idea here that it would be great for the Solomon Islands CM students
to do as much as possible of their seminary training at Holy Name of
Mary Seminary, in their own country and culture. However, we need for
that both a Formation House and a dedicated Formator. The house at Red
Beach could meet one criterion, and if Ivica can be freed he could meet
the second. That, though, is all in the future pipeline for now. We were
lucky that the Province has been kind enough to send those accepted for
their seminary formation to Fiji. Two groups have now been sent: -
one in 2008, and one this year, and they seem to be doing well. This
includes Mr Otmar Naki who is from PNG and who was in SoIomon Islands as
a pre-seminarian in 2008. The usual system for CM Vocations is that the young man
applies and if he has enough formal schooling and other qualities, he
stays in the Vocations House with Ivica for one year of Pre-Seminary.
This year we have Paul and Rudolph in this category. We also had another
young man from Solomon Islands in First Semester, but he was
unable to contine. Some candidates can also be in the house doing a
Pastoral Year, as is the case this year for Andrew and James.
Rudolph is from PNG, and was in contact with the
confreres in the International Mission in Port Moresby (Bomana), as was
Otmar. You may not know it, but the Indonesian Province also has a
presence in PNG, in Kiunga in the north-west, not far from the border.
Fr Jacques Gros CM has been working to send a young man from there to SI
to also be a pre-seminarian; his name is Richard. He has been delayed
due to immigration problems, and is currently with the confreres in
Bomana awaiting travel documents. Fr Ivica is now in contact with more
than 20 young men who are considering joining us as candidates; we
expect that at least some of them will come to stay at Red Beach next
year.
At our meeting (referred to above) we envisaged that CM Solomon Islands will one day be part of a new province !
Greg Walsh CM