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.
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.
Pope Francis continually reminds us that the Church is missionary and is called to reach out to the poor, to sinners, to unbelievers and to those who live on the margins of modern society.
I met the Columban Fathers for the first time in my hometown, Seoul, during the summer of 1953. Korea was at war then. Amid destruction and the chaos of war, I was trying to leave home for a college in America.
"Abba, call me that," my host father responded when I asked him how I should call him. Abba is the Hindi (Indian) word for father. Sam Daniel would be my third host-father in Fiji. He is Anglican and lives with his wife near their church.
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.
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.