Below are stories from past issues of Columban Mission magazine. The Columban Fathers publish Columban Mission magazine eight times a year. Subscriptions are available for just $15 per year. Sign up to receive our next issue. Read more about Columban Mission magazine.
One of my many blessings and opportunities as a missionary is to share the Joy of the Gospel. As a missionary Sister in Chile and Pakistan, I found the countries to be quite different in terms of culture, religious beliefs, language, weather and even food.
Since first coming to Japan as a missionary 60 years ago I have had a cultural curiosity! It is still with me. It makes missionary life interesting. Such events as festivals, customs, ways of thinking and acting fascinate me.
"Houses of Horror" is how one visitor described the centers where children are held illegally behind bars or in cages.
Veidrala is located on the Northeast of Vitilevu under the province of Nakorotubu in Ra. It is a 2 ½ hours bus ride from Suva, the capital of Fiji, followed by another 45-minute boat ride to reach Veidrala.
The Village
I first encountered Tien in Tokyo. He had traveled there from Australia, while I had come from Ireland. Both of us were Columban seminarians who had come to Japan in order to study the language and learn about missionary life. Both of us were twenty-seven years old.
Sociologists claim that one of the major problems in much of the world is that nowadays people only listen to, read of and converse with people who think the same as them.
My name is Evangelyn Gawason. My friends call me Vangie. I'm a Subanen. The Subanens are an indigenous people whose ancestral homeland covers most of the mountainous Zamboanga Peninsula in the Philippines.
Audy was a bright-eyed, smiling three-month-old baby who arrived at church for her baptism in the arms of her proud father, Jason. I chatted with him for some moments at the entrance to the church while a large number of relatives and friends of the family arrived.
The Ai Jia Development Center was founded by the Hsinchu Catholic diocese in Taiwan to help and support mentally challenged adult students. Like in many other countries, mentally challenged people in Taiwan are not considered as important.
My only contact with the Columbans before going to the seminary in Suva, Fiji, was when Columban Fr. Frank Hoare visited my home in Tonga to interview me about becoming a Columban missionary priest.
The Columbans are a society of missionaries, including priests and lay people, who minister to people of various cultures as a way of witnessing to the universal love of God.