Following St. Francis
By Gee-Gee O. Torres
The village of Nong Din Dam in Thailand may seem very far away from the village of Assisi in Northern Italy but they are connected. A thousand years ago in Northern Italy, St. Francis burst upon the world to remind the Church that we must become a Church of service and a Church of the poor. Since then, thousands of people have followed in the feet of St. Francis and among them are the four Filipino Franciscan sister of the Immaculate Conception who have settled in the village of Nong Din Dam. I went to visit the sisters on my trip to Thailand. I enjoyed seeing the little ways and the projects which they have used as instruments of service for the poor and their way of following the Gospel. Let me introduce you to these four women.
By the time I got to Japan twenty-five years ago, ecumenism was very strong. But it had not always been that way. One Protestant minister told me that when Father Pat Diamond sent an invitation to all the Protestant ministers in the City of Kumamoto to attend the opening of the new hall in Tetori parish, they got together to discuss whether it would be safe to attend or not. They prayed about it, but decided to risk death and attend. The rest is history.
Dear Misyon Friends,
1970, Negros Occidental. Elenita Flores was 19, a senior at the West Negros College in BacolodCity. Nita was not typical teenager who sang about the Age of Aquarius and wore beads and platform shoes. Her concerns were different – teaching catechism, completing her education, living up to the expectations of her big family in the town of Kabankalan.
My Missionary Vocation started in 1967 when I arrived in the former Upper Volta, now called Borkina Fasso, where I stayed, where I stayed for 15 years. Then I went to Niger, near the Sahara desert, and stayed for 2 years. Then I arrived in the Ivory Coast, where I have stayed for 8 years-27 years in all!
