MSC Mission Office, Roger Purcell MSC on the move
This year has been a year of travel for the work of the Mission Office to meet with our overseas people, especially the National Directors. To visit projects and the recipients, and to see potential projects. In all places there are needs everywhere for water, assistance of students for school and training and for health. Fuller accounts in our Mission Outreach newsletter online.
Philippines (May 6-20. 2024)
I spent a couple of days in Manila to visit a Centre for the Poor helping school students and met with the Province. Then on to Butuan and El Monte on Mindanao to see, and stay in, more sites of the Centre for the Poor (CEPAGCO). This organization, CEntre for the Poor AGricultural Cooperative, is recognized by the Government and is an umbrella for a number of projects. it is Fr Richie Gomez msc initiative.
We visited St Luis parish with the school for the Indigenous Lumad people with over 100 students. Next was Surigao where the Dutch MSC began in 1908 and out to the Dinagat Islands. Here too we visited two Evacuation Centres housing people victims of a recent mining tailings dam collapse.
Vietnam: June 17th-25th
From Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) we travelled to Hue in Central Vietnam. In the countryside we visited families of disadvantaged children needing assistance for school. A highlight was a visit to the shrine to the 117 Martyrs of the persecutions during the 19th-century. They were 96 Vietnamese, 11 Spaniards, and 10 French of whom half were clergy and half laypeople, including a 9-year-old child: 8 bishops, 50 priests, and 59 lay Catholics.
Indonesia: July 23-28
From Jakarta I went to Manado where our Seminary is with other MSC works, including a project to build a Centre for our Aged MSC. The highlight of the trip was Merauke in the Indonesian Province of Papua, which is now divided into 6 Provinces. Here I met with the Asmat people native to the area where we have funded two Formation Centres to give some education to children. A lot of their area is swampy and subject to flooding. The Dutch MSC worked there since 1905.
The Indonesian MSC Province is our largest working in many dioceses, from different regions and ethnic groups and are working throughout the nation from east to west over 3 times zones.
Democratic Republic of Congo; August 17-September 7.
This was the most difficult trip entering a country that is vast and remote, poor and oppressed by corruption so much so that people say “we have no government”. Kinshasha a city of 17 million people, is frankly, dirty, untidy and messy… a shock to the system.
I visit Bishop Toussaint Iluku MSC in Bokungu-Ikela diocese, going by plane to Boende, then road to Wema and boat to Bokungu. This is a very remote part of our church and the welcome was very warm and genuine from the Bishop, priests, sisters and laity. Here and in Kinshasa the Sunday celebration was the Zairean rite which went for 2½ hours, which was considered short. It was lively, musical and energizing.
