Chinese Missionaries: With feet on the ground

Fr. Huang is a great friend of Claretians. He is one of our associates in China for over seven years, ever since he was a newly ordained priest and doing an English course in Beijing. He has been an exceptional bridge for our work in China. He has been in charge of the project "Parish Libraries - Sister-Parish". We helped him to travel to our institute in Manila and obtain his Masters' in missiology. Returning to China, he is now in charge of the formation of seminarians. Today he shares with us his missionary experience. Here it is:

 Our 'family': the seminarians and their formators

"On August 20 we begin our new school year. This year, three priests, one religious sister and three seminarians are responsible for our seminarians, and six teachers give high school courses. We have 42 seminarians this semester. Please pray for us and especially for our job training. We know this is not our job, rather it is God who forms them as followers of Jesus.

 The Province of Guizhou,  2000 miles away from our Centre

"In the summer, I went to a poor village in the Province of Guizhou,  2000 miles away from our Centre and we were in a small neighborhood for a week, along with three seminarians. All the people of this village are Catholics. Due to the remoteness of the village, a priest visits them only once a year. 

 This is the village church. It looks isolated, but is in the center of village

 The people live a simple and primitive life. No doctor, no medicine. There is a school, with one teacher for the first levels. 

 The people are very devout

A pleasant surprise! In the shelves you can see the Bible in Chinese, 

published by the Claretians!

For higher levels, the children have to go to another village and live there all week, because they have to walk for four hours from their village to the nearest school. 

 And these are my new friends

Their simple life, with a very sincere faith in God and warm hospitality, the lives of these people impressed me very deeply.

 "We had to make our food."

 Fr. Huang preparing his meal with the seminarians

People gave us plenty of vegetables: beans, peanuts, cucumber, bamboo shoots, potatoes, tomatoes, green corn and all the best from their farm-land. Almost every day, they offered us chicken. These are the best foods for the most honored guest.

Our bedroom: two beds and two on the ground ...
We were the 'richest' people of the village.

This is the best house in village: an unused clinic...
because there is no one to attend to.

 Help! ... we do dishes!!
Now two of them want to be priests

 We looking for possibilities to collect some second-hand clothes and are seeking ways to help. Another need is to find scholarships for some of these young people to be better educated. For higher education, they should move to a city.  Now, there are two guys who want to go to seminary once they finish their secondary education.

 

This picture is of the day we left the village. An old woman said tearfully: "Thank you Father for coming. We will missed you. We could not eat for 15 days. Will you come again? "

                     I had to answer: "Yes, we'll see next year." 

Project aid:
If any of the readers of this blog
would like to help with small contributions 
for the educations of these children, you may write to:
rossa6@gmail.com